William "Extra Billy" Smith (September 6, 1797 – May 18, 1887) was a lawyer, congressman, the 30th and 35th Governor of Virginia, and a major general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

His maternal grandfather (also William Smith) served in the local militia and was wounded in Lord Dunmore's War.

His paternal grandfather Thomas Smith fought in the American Revolutionary War (and overwintered at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania).

His uncle Col. Austin Smith served in the War of 1812 and then represented King George County in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1814, 1821, and 1822.

Their son William Henry (1824-1850) was lost at sea, and James Caleb Smith (1822-1856) was admitted to the bar in California but died in Nicaragua.

Thomas Smith's son) would resign his U.S. Army commission to fight for the Confederacy and be wounded at Bull Run.

About a decade later, in 1827, Smith established a line of United States mail and passenger post coaches through Virginia, then expanded the business into the Carolinas and Georgia in 1831.

Given a contract by the administration of President Andrew Jackson to deliver mail between Washington, D.C., and Milledgeville, Georgia (then the state capital),[6] Smith extended it with numerous spur routes, generating extra fees.

[7] Interested in politics and a Democrat, Smith won election to the Senate of Virginia from the Piedmont district consisting of Culpeper, Madison, Orange, Rappahannock and Greene counties, and served from 1836 to 1841.

[9] When Virginia seceded from the United States, Smith declined to accept a commission as a brigadier general because he rightly admitted he was "wholly ignorant of drill and tactics".

A few weeks after the war started, he was present during a U.S. Army cavalry charge at the Battle of Fairfax Court House (June 1861).

He distinguished himself with his unorthodox field uniform, including a tall beaver hat and a blue cotton umbrella.

During the Battle of Gettysburg, Smith refused to pursue retreating U.S. XI Corps troops, concerned that a U.S. Army force was approaching from his left, which was a significant reason that the Confederates failed to attack and take Cemetery Hill on July 1, 1863.

He returned to his estate, "Monte Rosa" (later renamed "Neptune Lodge") near Warrenton, Virginia, where he engaged in agricultural pursuits.