13. Henry Lewis Benning, Confederate States Army
Henry Lewis Benning did not attend West Point or serve in the United States Army before the Civil War. He had no military experience whatsoever when he received a political appointment as a Colonel of infantry, raising his own regiment, the 17th Georgia infantry. He was a virulent supporter of slavery and an ardent supporter of the superiority of whites over blacks. A noted jurist in antebellum Georgia and an associate justice of the state’s Supreme Court, he addressed the Virginia secession convention in 1861, informing the delegates, “that a separation from the North was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of slavery”. Benning warned the convention that if slavery were abolished, “We will be completely exterminated, and the land will be left in the possession of the blacks, and then it will go back to a wilderness and become another Africa…”
He served with distinction during the war, though the lawyer in him couldn’t resist his challenging the decisions of his superiors and the Confederate government, including disputing the Conscription Act as illegal. He was severely wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864, but returned to action and was with the Army of Northern Virginia when it surrendered at Appomattox in April, 1865. Benning’s family, including his wife and their Georgia plantation, provided Margaret Mitchell with the inspiration for many of the characters in Gone With the Wind, including the O’Hara and Wilkes families. Benning continued to oppose civil rights for blacks after the war, working as an attorney in Columbus, Georgia for the remainder of his life.