Benjamin Morgan Harrod was born on February 19, 1837, in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, the son of Charles and Mary (Morgan) Harrod. His father, a native of New England, was a well-to-do business man; his mother was a daughter of Benjamin Morgan, a Pennsylvanian who settled in New Orleans before 1800 and about 1823 was regarded as a visionary in that city because he advocated the paving of the streets.
Young Harrod was prepared for college in New Orleans and at Flushing, Long Island. He entered Harvard, and received the degree of B. A. in 1856. After his graduation he studied engineering and architecture in New Orleans.
In 1858 Benjamin Harrod began his career in the office of the United States Engineers, being assigned to the department in charge of construction of lighthouses and forts along the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi to the Rio Grande. He rapidly advanced from draftsman to assistant engineer and when the Civil War began he had two years’ engineering experience. He enlisted in the Confederate army as a private, but his engineering skill won him a commission as lieutenant of artillery. He saw service under Hen. M. L. Smith as a brigade and division engineer, taking part in the fortification and subsequent defense of New Orleans and Vicksburg. After the surrender of Vicksburg he was commissioned captain of engineers in Virginia and helped in the construction of the defenses around Richmond and Petersburg, remaining there until the surrender at Appomattox.
After the war, Harrod resumed his profession in New Orleans, but was deeply interested, as were all the Southern white men of his time, in the reconstruction of the commonwealth and in establishing white supremacy. He was one of the prominent men connected with the White League.
In 1877, with his appointment as chief of the state board of engineers of Louisiana, he became prominent in the branch of engineering with which he was thereafter identified. The most important duty of the board was to protect the alluvial lands of the state from the flood waters of the Mississippi by the construction of levees. Harrod’s work in this connection led President Hayes to appoint him in 1879 as a member of the Mississippi River Commission, formed in that year to undertake the improvement of navigation on the Mississippi River and its tributaries. This task involved the building of levees and ultimately resulted in the reclamation of 30, 000 square miles of fertile land for agricultural purposes.
In 1888 Harrod was appointed city engineer of New Orleans; later he served in advisory capacity; and between 1897 and 1902 he was in charge of the design and construction of the drainage system of the city, which, because much of the town is below the level of the river, presented a unique problem. He was appointed by President Roosevelt to membership on the Panama Canal Commission and served (1904 - 1907) until the plan of the canal had been determined. His last active work was in connection with the building of the Delgado Museum of Art in New Orleans, which now houses a large part of his valuable art collection. It has been said that while the Museum was in course of construction the committee would not hold a meeting without Major Harrod. He died in New Orleans in his seventy-sixth year.
Harrod was president of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1897.
In 1865 Harrod married Harriet Shattuck Uhlhorn of New Orleans, and after her death he married, September 11, 1883, her sister Eugenia Uhlhorn, who survived him. He had no children.
