Henry Lewis Benning (April 2, 1814 – July 10, 1875) was a Confederate general who commanded infantry in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. He was also a lawyer, legislator, and associate judge in the Georgia Supreme Court. Following the Confederacy's defeat, he returned to his native Georgia, where he resumed his legal practice.

At the request of the Columbus Rotary Club in 1918, Fort Benning was named in his honor, and remained such until 2023, when it was renamed to Fort Moore in honor of Hal Moore and his wife, Julia. In March 2025, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered that the military base's name be reverted back to "Fort Benning". However, the name is instead in tribute to Fred G. Benning from Neligh, Nebraska, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his extraordinary heroism in combat during World War I while serving in France. Fred Benning is not related to Henry Benning.

Early life and education

Henry L. Benning was born on a plantation in Columbia County, Georgia, the third of eleven children of Pleasant Moon Benning and Malinda Meriwether White Benning. His grandfather, Richard White of Richmond, Virginia, had served in the Revolutionary War. In 1820, his father operated the plantation with the labor of 24 enslaved people, and later relocated the family to Harris County, Georgia, in 1832. A decade later, Benning owned 60 slaves in that county. By 1860, he had become a judge of the county's superior court.

Politician

In 1840, Benning began his political career, but failed to secure a seat in the Georgia General Assembly.

In 1850, Benning became one of the Georgians who gathered with representatives of eight other slaveholding states in Nashville, Tennessee to ponder actions should Congress stop slavery's expansion westward into new territories. However, the Compromise of 1850 stopped that secession movement. In 1851, he was nominated for the U.S. Congress as a Southern rights Democrat but again failed to win election.

Benning led Georgia's delegation to the Democratic National Convention in 1860, and led his delegation in walking out of the convention when delegates failed to insert a plank supporting slavery into the national party's platform. This split within the Democratic party effectively delivered the general election to the opposing Republican Party.

American Civil War

Although he was considered for a cabinet position in the government of the newly established Confederacy, he chose to join the Confederate army instead. Benning recruited the 17th Georgia Infantry, a regiment. On August 29, 1861, those troops elected him as their colonel.

As a newly minted army officer, Benning immediately ran into political difficulty. He questioned the legality of the Confederate government's Conscription Act and spoke against it openly as a violation of states' rights. Refusing to obey certain orders, he came close to being court-martialed, but influence from his friend, Colonel T. R. R. Cobb, defused the situation. The first significant action he saw was at the Second Battle of Bull Run in August 1862. At the Battle of Antietam, Benning's brigade was a crucial part in the defense of the Confederate right flank, guarding "Burnside's Bridge" across Antietam Creek all morning against repeated Union assaults. His courage in battle was no longer questioned by his superiors, and he became known as the "Old Rock" to his men. He was promoted to brigadier general on April 23, 1863, with date of rank of January 17, 1863.

Benning's Brigade fought at the Battle of Wauhatchie outside Chattanooga, Tennessee, and joined Longstreet's Corps in its unsuccessful Knoxville Campaign in late 1863. Returning to Virginia, the brigade fought against Union Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant in the 1864 Overland Campaign, where Benning was severely wounded in the left shoulder during the Battle of the Wilderness on May 5.

Years before Margaret Mitchell published her Civil War novel, Gone with the Wind, she wrote an article in the Atlanta Constitution (December 20, 1925) in which she referenced the Benning family and their experiences during the war.

Regarding Mary Benning, Mitchell wrote, "She was a tiny woman, frail and slight, but possessed of unusual endurance and a lion’s heart. The battles she fought at home were those of nearly every Southern woman, but her burdens were heavier than most. Left in complete charge of a large plantation, this little woman, who was the mother of ten children, was as brave a soldier at home as ever her husband was on the Virginia battlefields. She saw to it that the crops were gathered, the children fed and clothed, and the Negroes cared for. To her fell the work of superintending the weaving and spinning of enough cloth, not only to clothe her own children and servants, but also Confederate soldiers. While her husband was away she buried her aged father, whose end was hastened by the war."

Many of her descriptions of the Bennings are reflected in the lives of the O'Haras and others in the novel.

Death and legacy

On his way to a court appearance on July 10, 1875, Benning had a stroke (termed apoplexy at the time). He died in Columbus and was buried in Linwood Cemetery. He had survived his wife, Mary Benning, by about seven years. His firstborn son, Seaborn Jones Benning, had died of consumption on December 12, 1874.

In 1918, at the request of the Columbus Rotary Club, the U.S. Army named its new U.S. Army Infantry School in Muscogee County Fort Benning. During World War II, a Liberty ship was named in honor of Benning. The , United States Merchant Marine 0946, was built in Baltimore, Maryland and went into service on March 9, 1943. The ship hauled cargo and troops throughout the Pacific theater.

In 2020, during the George Floyd protests, there were renewed calls to rename U.S. Army installations named after Confederate soldiers, including Fort Benning. Fort Benning was renamed Fort Moore, after Vietnam War era Lieutenant General Hal Moore Jr. and his wife, Julia as of May 11, 2023. It became the only base named for a married couple. However, in March 2025 it resumed its former name, although now officially honoring an unrelated soldier, Corporal Fred G. Benning of Neligh, Nebraska, who received the Distinguished Service Cross for heroics in 1918 during World War I.

See also

  • List of Confederate States Army generals
  • List of signers of the Georgia Ordinance of Secession

References

Citations

Bibliography

  • Dameron, J. David. General Henry Lewis Benning: A Biography of Georgia's Supreme Court Justice and Confederate General. Heritage Books: Westminster, Maryland: 2008.
  • Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher. Civil War High Commands. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. .
  • Freeman, Douglas S. Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command. 3 vols. New York: Scribner, 1946. .
  • Hewitt, Lawrence C. "Henry Lewis Benning." In The Confederate General, vol. 1, edited by William C. Davis and Julie Hoffman. Harrisburg, PA: National Historical Society, 1991. .
  • Kane, Sharyn, and Richard Keeton. Fort Benning, the Land and the People . National Park Service.
  • Tagg, Larry. The Generals of Gettysburg. Campbell, CA: Savas Publishing, 1998. .
  • Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959. .
  • Henry L. Benning Papers at Columbus State University
  • Henry L. Benning at Benning-Cobb-Russell Family of Georgia