Benjamin West was born on July 18, 1835, in Ohio. He enlisted in the Union army on August 22, 1862, and he mustered in as a private in Company B of the 114^th Ohio Infantry on September 8. The regiment took part in the Siege of Vicksburg. West probably supported the Democratic Party, and he insisted that President Abraham Lincoln’s re-election in 1864 would bring “4 years more of war and blood Shed.” He also fiercely opposed the Union army’s use of Black soldiers. In December 1864, after Confederate forces “killed some of the U.S. Soldiers of African d[es]cent,” he wrote that “the only pitty it is that they did not kill all of them for they are fit for nothing but to eat up rations.” West mustered out on July 31, 1865.

 

West returned to Ohio after the war, and he married Margaret Stump there on December 5, 1865. They had at least two children: Sarah, born around 1867; and William, born around 1869. They moved to Center, Missouri, around 1868, and West worked as a farmer there. By 1870, he owned $1,000 of real estate and $500 of personal property. His wife died in the 1870s, and he married Caroline P. Harding on November 16, 1876. They had at least two children: Ben, born around 1883; and Warner, born around 1890. They moved to Nevada, Missouri, in the late 1800s, and he worked as a carpet weaver. He applied for a federal pension in July 1890 and eventually secured one. He died in Nevada, Missouri, on September 7, 1919.

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