Creator: Benning, Henry L. (Henry Lewis), 1814-1875.
Collection number: 2225
View finding aid.
Abstract: Confederate Army officer, having served as colonel with the 17th Georgia Volunteers and after as brigadier general of the 15th, 20th, and 2nd Georgia regiments (Toombs’ Brigade), 1st Division, Army of Northern Virginia. Primarily military papers of Benning in southside Virginia and in North Carolina, including resignations; reassignments; reports of casualties; items relating to the arrest of Lt. Henry McCauley; lists of persons having available supplies and produce; and correspondence concerning a riot in Raleigh, N.C., in September 1863, and the alleged involvement of one of Benning’s officers, Lt. Col. W.S. Shepherd. Correspondents include Robert A. Toombs, Zebulon B. Vance, James A. Seddon, John D. Whitford, Samuel Cooper, and Jerome Bonaparte Robertson. Prewar items consist of miscellaneous legal papers, including the marriage contract, 1834, of Elijah Cook and Mary V. Walker of Harris County, Ga., and several items relating to the sale of slaves. Postwar items pertain to the compilation of records and histories of the war and include Benning’s notes for Edward P. Alexander’s history of Longstreet’s Corps.
Repository: Southern Historical Collection
Collection Highlights: Primarily military papers of Benning, Confederate Army officer of Georgia and Virginia. Items relating to slavery include the summary of a Baldwin Superior Court case arising from the sale of blacks seized by the state of Georgia because of a violation of the U.S. law prohibiting the importation of slaves (1818); and information about a case brought before the Supreme Court of Georgia that involved the sale of slaves in connection with a mortgage foreclosure (1855). Microfilm only.