Background
BENNING, Henry Lewis was born on April 2, 1814 in Columbus, Georgia, United States, United States. Son of the part Cherokee Pleasant Moon and Matilda Meriwether (White) Benning.
BENNING, Henry Lewis was born on April 2, 1814 in Columbus, Georgia, United States, United States. Son of the part Cherokee Pleasant Moon and Matilda Meriwether (White) Benning.
Graduate Franklin College (now U. Georgia), 1834.
He graduated first in the class of 1834 from Franklin College (later the University of Georgia), studied law, and was admitted to the Columbus bar the following year. On September 12, 1839, he married Mary Howard Jones, the daughter of his law partner. They had a son and five daughters.
In 1837, Benning was solicitor general for the Chattahoochee Circuit, which included Columbus. He was a states’ rights Democrat who served as a delegate to the Nashville convention in 1850. He lost a bid for Congress in 1851, and from 1853 to 1859, he was a judge of the state Supreme Court.
An earnest advocate of secession, he was sent by the state secession convention in early 1861 as a commissioner to influence the secession of Virginia. In August 1861, he became a colonel of the 17th Georgia Regiment. He served under Robert Toombs in Virginia and frequently commanded Hood’s Division.
Benning (for whom Fort Benning, Georgia, was later named) participated in the battles of Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chickamauga, Wilderness, Knoxville, Petersburg, and Farmville. He was severely wounded in the arm during the second day of the Wilderness campaign, on May 6, 1864, and was incapacitated until the final days at Appomattox. He surrendered with Lee and was paroled on April 9,1865.
Benning was impoverished at the end of the war. He held no postwar public office but instead rebuilt his large, lucrative law practice.
"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.
Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.
Member Georgia General Assembly.
Married Mary Howard Jones, September 12, 1839, 10 children.