General Benning

GENERAL BENNING. Opposite this marker stood the home of Henry Lewis Benning (1814-1875), the Confederate Brigadier General for whom Fort Benning was named. He was married in 1839 to Mary Howard Jones, daughter of Colonel and Mrs Seaborn Jones. General Benning was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia, member of the Georgia convention adopting the Ordinances of Secession, and Commissioner to the Virginia Convention, January 1861, to advocate Secession.

He entered the Confederate Army in August 1861, as colonel of the Seventeenth Ga. Regiment. As Brigadier General, he was often in command of Hood's famed Division of the First Corps. Participated with gallantry in the battles of Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chickamauga, The Wilderness, Thoroughfare Gap, Knoxville, Petersburg, Farmville, and others.

General Benning was distinguished for coolness and bravery and was called "Old Rock" by his troops. He was wounded severely in the second-day fighting in the Wilderness. At Appomattox he still commanded the Georgia Brigade. After the war, he returned to Columbus to practice law. 106-8 GEORGIA HISTORICAL COMMISSION 1953