Henry L . Benning Henry Lewis Benning ( April 2 , 1814 – July 10 , 1875 ) was a lawyer , legislator , judge on the Georgia Supreme Court , and a Confederate general during the American Civil War . He is also noted for the U . S . Army ' s Fort Benning , which was named in his honor . Early life and politics . Benning was born on a plantation in Columbia County , Georgia , the son of Pleasant Moon and Malinda Meriwether White Benning , the third of eleven children . He attended Franklin College ( now the University of Georgia ) , graduating in 1834 . While a student , he was a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society . After college , he moved to Columbus , Georgia , which would be his home for the rest of his life . He was admitted to the bar at age 21 . On September 12 , 1839 , Benning married Mary Howard Jones of Columbus . The couple had ten children ; five daughters would survive Benning , and one of his sons was mortally wounded during the Civil War . Benning was active in Southern politics and an ardent secessionist , bitterly opposing abolition or emancipation of slaves . In a letter to Howell Cobb in 1849 he stated that a Southern Confederacy would not be enough — because a Confederacy might itself eventually be become divided into northern and southern regions as slavery waned in some of the states — and called for a Southern " consolidated Republic " that " will put slavery " under the control of those most interested " in it . " In 1851 he was nominated for the U . S . Congress as a Southern rights Democrat , but was not elected . In 1853 he was elected an associate justice of the Georgia Supreme Court , where he was noted for an opinion that held that a state supreme court is not bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States on constitutional questions , but that the two courts must be held to be " coordinate and co - equal " . Following the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 , Benning took an active part in the state convention that voted to secede from the Union , representing Muscogee County . In March 1861 , the Southern states that had seceded appointed special commissioners to travel to those other slaveholding Southern states that had yet to secede . Benning served as the Commissioner from Georgia to the Virginia Secession Convention , trying to persuade Virginia politicians to vote to join Georgia in seceding from the Union . Civil War . Although he was considered for a cabinet position in the government of the newly established Confederate States of America , he chose to join the army instead and became the colonel of the 17th Georgia Infantry , a regiment he raised himself in Columbus on August 29 , 1861 . The regiment became part of Toombs ' s Brigade in the Right Wing of the Army of Northern Virginia , under Gen . Robert E . Lee . As a newly minted army officer , Benning immediately ran into political difficulty . He questioned the legality of the Confederate government ' s Conscription Act and spoke against it openly as a violation of states ' rights . Refusing to obey certain orders , he came close to being court - martial ed , but influence from his friend , Col . T . R . R . Cobb , defused the situation . The first significant action he saw was at the Second Battle of Bull Run in August 1862 . At the Battle of Antietam , Benning ' s brigade was a crucial part in the defense of the Confederate right flank , guarding " Burnside ' s Bridge " across Antietam Creek all morning against repeated Union assaults . His courage in battle was no longer questioned by his superiors , and he became known as the " Old Rock " to his men . He was promoted to brigadier general on April 23 , 1863 , with date of rank of January 17 , 1863 . For most of the rest of the war , Benning continued as a brigade commander ( " Benning ' s Brigade " ) in the division of the aggressive John Bell Hood of Texas . He missed the Confederate victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville because his brigade was stationed in southern Virginia along with the rest of Lt . Gen . James Longstreet ' s First Corps . However , they returned for active combat in the Battle of Gettysburg . There , on July 2 , 1863 , Benning led his brigade in a furious assault against the Union position in the Devil ' s Den , driving out the defenders at no small cost to themselves . That September , Longstreet ' s Corps was sent west to assist Gen . Braxton Bragg ' s Army of Tennessee . On the second day of the bloody Battle of Chickamauga , Benning participated in Longstreet ' s massive charge against a gap in the Union line , even as his horse was shot out from under him . He mounted another horse , which was also killed . Finally , he cut loose a horse from a nearby artillery battery and rode into combat bareback . During a surprise Union counterattack against his brigade , many of his men fled and Benning ran off to Longstreet to report the calamity . Riding an old artillery horse and whipping it with a piece of rope , Longstreet wrote after the war that Benning was " Greatly excited and the very picture of despair . " Benning said , " General , I am ruined ; my brigade was suddenly attacked and every man killed ; not one is to be found . Please give me orders where I can do some fighting . " Longstreet responded impassively , " Nonsense , General , you are not so badly hurt . Look about you . I know you will find at least one man , and with him on his feet report your brigade to me , and you two shall have a place in the fighting line . " Longstreet ' s reply humiliated Benning , but instilled enough determination in him to return to find his brigade and prevail in the battle . Benning ' s Brigade fought at the Battle of Wauhatchie outside Chattanooga , Tennessee , and joined Longstreet ' s Corps in its unsuccessful Knoxville Campaign in late 1863 . Returning to Virginia , the brigade fought against Union Lt . Gen . Ulysses S . Grant in the 1864 Overland Campaign , where Benning was severely wounded in the left shoulder during the Battle of the Wilderness on May 5 . This wound kept him out of the remainder of the campaign and much of the subsequent Siege of Petersburg , but he was able to return in time for the waning days of that lengthy campaign . His brigade withstood strong Union assaults against its entrenchments , but was forced to withdraw along with the rest of Lee ' s army in the retreat to Appomattox Court House in early April 1865 . Benning , heartbroken , was one of the final officers to lead his men to the surrender ceremony . Postbellum life . After the war , Benning returned to Columbus to resume the practice of law . He found that his house had been burned and that all of the savings had disappeared , and that now he had to support the widow and children of his wife ' s brother , who had been killed in the war , along with his own family . In 1875 General Benning had a stroke , termed apoplexy at the time , on his way to court and died in Columbus . He is buried in Linwood Cemetery near downtown Columbus . In memoriam . The huge U . S . Army installation , Fort Benning , near Columbus and home of the United States Army Infantry School , is named in memory of Benning .