Los Angeles Herald, May 19, 1875:
Ida Greeley's Husband.
So much has been said about Col. Nicholas Smith, who married Miss Ida Greeley, that we feel impelled to venture our opinion on this society episode. Col. Smith claims to be from Kentucky, but the following from a Chicago Tribune correspondent shows just where he belongs:
Leavenworth, May 5th.—So many newspaper correspondents are penning sketches ol Col. Nicholas Smith, and so many of them are writing from hearsay, that I am tempted for the sake of truth itself, to tell you something about our Kansas bridegroom. As Col. Smith's neighbor and friendly acquaintance of five or six years' standing, I can speak of him with some knowledge of his merits as a man und his worth as a writer. Like all men, he has his faults; and his conspicuous, overshadowing weakness is vanity of his personal beauty. In form and beauty. In form and feature he is the handsomest man I ever saw. He neglected nothing calculated to enhance the effect of his handsome figure. His teeth are two rows of superb pearls, without blemish. In riding, walking or standing, he studies the grace of attitude — always displaying his elegantly moulded form to the best advantage. His beauty is of the Edwin Booth type, if that may be called a type of its own. He is of medium stature, perhaps slightly above, and I judge about forty years of age. I ought not to neglect to say that be adopts the Brooklyn style of long hair. When I add that his eyes are large, dark and expressive, your readers may be able to form a correct picture of Miss Greeley's husband, from Kansas."
It would seem from this that Leavenworth, Kansas, has furnished another newspaper item. Leavenworth is, perhaps, the most beautiful city in the West, but has had its prosperity ruined by local feuds, desperate politicians and railroad thieves. Lately she has furnished more scandals, shooting scrapes and frauds than any city on the Missouri river. She has had thieves, assassins, dead-beats and grasshoppers, but the biggest toad in the puddle is this veritable Col.(?) Nicholas Smith, of Kentucky (?), the widower who married Ida Greeley. He came to Leavenworth from Kentucky in the early history of the town and his name is Nicholas Verres Smith, but the practical Kansans call him "Very Ridiculous SMITH." Having a little education, he was selected by Jim Lane as his private secretary, and when Jim was giving his characteristic "Great God" speeches, Nicholas would be posing in classic attitude against one of the Cottonwood posts of the platform; or when Jim wanted an illustration from ancient mythology, his good-looking secretary furnished it. Nicholas is about six feet high, well built, with flowing locks and a face a cross between Tilton's and Joaquin Miller's, disdains to work and covers his face and hands with corn meal at night to keep them well bleached. He is a lawyer without practice, and boasts that he has never labored for a living. He is poor in everything but looks, and for years has been a pensioner on his sister, Mrs. Johnson, the widow of Col. H. P. Johson, of Kansas, who was killed early in the war. Early in the late war he received a commission in the regular army, and was sent to Louisville, Ky., on recruiting service, where in two years he recruited two men at an expense of $6,000 to the Government. Here he became acquainted with his first wife, a beautiful and accomplished lady, daughter of a wealthy Kentuckian, who refused to marry him unless he resigned his commission. The gallant Captain finally wasted several pages of official note telling President Lincoln that he had had a severe struggle between his patriotism and bis love, but at last his love had triumphed, and soon received a brief reply on bis own communication, "Accepted. A. Lincoln." It was only a short time afterwards that his impecuniosity drove him back to Lane's bounty, and the latter obtained for him the appointment of Minister to Greece, but before his nominationn he gave Senator SUMNER a piece of his mind and the latter, who was Chairman of Foreign affairs, had the position stricken from the diplomatic list. After this little rebuff Captain Smith appeared very seldom in public, though he used to call on President Lincoln, and the interviews were always an intense amusement to the old rail-splitter. Smith imagined that Lincoln greatly admired him, and relates that on one occasion Lincoln placed his paternal hands on his cheeks and said: "Capt. Smith, you are a pretty man; you ought to have been a woman." Several years ago Smith's wife and child died and he was inconsolable, taking every occasion to tear his poetic locks, disarrange his flowing cravat, and wring dramatic tears from his eyes, when he had an admiring audience; but it is said of him that he never took this dangerous exercise until he had looked in a mirror and seen that his back hair was just right and his moustache nicely waxed. He cursed the Almighty for his cruelty, aud then ordered a portrait of his deceased wife, before which, while the artist was painting it, he used to pose and stroke his moustache, giving vent to his heart-breaking grief in such remarks as: "My wife was a pretty woman, but not so handsome as I am." In New York he may be Col. Nicholas Verres Smith, but in Kansas he is and always will be Very Ridiculous Smith. Ida Greeley, the daughter of the self-made statesman, has married a self-made egotist aud a nature-made idiot.
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