Lewis Benedict was born on September 2, 1817, in Albany, New York, to Lewis Benedict and Susan Stafford. His father was a self-described “Gentleman” who owned $100,000 of real estate and $80,000 of personal property by 1860. Benedict graduated from Williams College in 1837, and his classmates remembered him as a “young man of fine natural gifts [and] a good scholar” who preferred “large courses of English reading, and the athletic sports.” After graduating, he worked as a lawyer in Canandaigua, New York, and he was appointed City Attorney in 1845. Three years later, he became Judge Advocate General. He supported the Whig Party and then the Republican Party, and as the election of 1860 approached, he “traveled extensively in the state…doing everything for the success of the Republican Party.”

 

Benedict reportedly realized early in the secession crisis that “the Slaveholders meant war.” He recognized “how thoroughly the South had become imbued with Calhounism and how determined they were to force the slavery question as a Sectional issue on the North.” When the Civil War broke out, he enlisted in the Union army and mustered in as a lieutenant colonel in the 2^nd Fire Zouaves, which later became the 73^rd New York Infantry. The regiment took part in the Siege of Yorktown and the Battle of Williamsburg. Confederate forces captured him in 1862, and he spent several months as a prisoner of war before being exchanged in August 1862.

 

Then, on September 12, 1862, he was promoted to colonel of the 162^nd New York Infantry. He remained fiercely committed to the Union cause, insisting that he was “engaged in a sacred war for moral, political and religious rights and [was] certain it will be prosecuted to the bitter end—to the subjugation of Secession.” He took part in the Siege of Port Hudson in 1863 and died in the Battle of Pleasant Hill on April 9, 1864. On March 13, 1865, he was posthumously brevetted brigadier general for “gallant conduct at Port Hudson.”

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