In 1834 her family moved to Greensboro, Alabama, where her father engaged in cotton planting.
In 1855, she married George Smith Patton (1833–1864), who became a colonel in the 22nd Virginia Infantry of the Confederate Army in Richmond, Va.
George S. Patton died at the 3rd Battle of Winchester in the Civil War.
Her daughter Eleanor Thornton Patton (1857–1937) married Los Angeles lawyer Thomas Bruen Brown in 1879.
Susan Glassell Smith is interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.