Lew Wallace Lewis " Lew " Wallace ( April 10 , 1827February 15 , 1905 ) was an American lawyer , Union general in the American Civil War , territorial governor and statesman , politician , and author . Wallace served as governor of the New Mexico Territory at the time of the Lincoln County War and worked to bring an end to the fighting . Of his novels and biographies , he is best known for his historical novel " " ( 1880 ) , a bestselling book since its publication , and called " the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century . " It has been adapted four times for films . Early life and career . Wallace was born in Brookville , Indiana , to David Wallace and Esther French ( Test ) Wallace . His father was a graduate of the United States Military Academy in West Point , New York , and served as lieutenant governor and governor of Indiana . When Wallace ' s father was elected as lieutenant governor of Indiana , he moved his family to Covington , Indiana . Wallace ' s autobiography contains many stories from his boyhood in Covington , including the account of the death of his mother in 1834 . In 1836 , at the age of nine , he joined his brother in Crawfordsville , Indiana , where he briefly attended Wabash Preparatory School . His father remarried , to Zerelda Gray Sanders Wallace , a prominent suffragist and temperance advocate , who was stepmother to the boys . Lew Wallace rejoined his father in Indianapolis . In 1846 , at the start of the Mexican - American War , Wallace was studying law . He left that pursuit to raise a company of militia and was elected a second lieutenant in the 1st Indiana Infantry regiment . He rose to the position of regimental adjutant and the rank of first lieutenant , serving in the army of Zachary Taylor , although he personally did not participate in combat . After hostilities , he was mustered out of the volunteer service on June 15 , 1847 . Career . Wallace was admitted to the bar in 1849 . In 1851 , he was elected prosecuting attorney of Indiana ' s 1st congressional district . In 1856 , he was elected to the Indiana State Senate after moving his residence to Crawfordsville . Marriage and family . On May 6 , 1852 in Crawfordsville , Wallace married Susan Arnold Elston . They had one son , Henry Lane Wallace ( 1853 – 1926 ) . Civil War . Wallace first met Abraham Lincoln after the Mexican War , and his admiration for the fellow lawyer contributed to Wallace ' s decision to join the Republican Party . Although not a strong abolitionist at the start of the American Civil War , Indiana ' s Republican governor Oliver P . Morton asked him to help raise troops ; Wallace , who sought a second chance for military glory , agreed on the condition that he be given command of a regiment . He was appointed state adjutant general and , on April 25 , 1861 , was appointed colonel of the 11th Indiana Infantry . After reading about elite units of the French Army he decided to train and outfit his men as Zouave s . In June 1861 , while stationed at Cumberland , Maryland , Wallace ' s regiment won a minor battle at Romney , West Virginia . He was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers on September 3 and given the command of a brigade . Forts Henry & Donelson . In February 1862 , while preparing for an advance against Fort Henry , Brig . Gen . Ulysses S . Grant sent two wooden gunboats ( timberclads ) down the Tennessee River for one last reconnaissance of the fort with Wallace aboard . In his report , Wallace noted an officer in the fort who was watching the Union ships as inquisitively as they were watching him . Little did Wallace know at that time the officer was Brig . Gen . Lloyd Tilghman , whom Wallace would replace as commander of Fort Henry in a few days . During the campaign Wallace ' s brigade was attached to Brig . Gen . Charles F . Smith ' s division and occupied Fort Heiman across the river from Fort Henry . Grant ' s superior , Maj . Gen . Henry W . Halleck , was concerned about Confederate reinforcements retaking the forts , so Grant left Wallace with his brigade in command at Fort Henry while the rest of the army moved overland toward Fort Donelson . Displeased to have been left behind , Wallace prepared his troops to move out at a moment ' s notice . The order came on February 14 , and when Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River , he was placed in charge of organizing a division of reinforcements arriving on transports . He organized two full brigades and a third incomplete , and took up position in the center of Grant ' s lines besieging Fort Donelson . During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15 , Wallace coolly acted on his own initiative to send a brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig . Gen . John A . McClernand , despite orders from Grant to avoid a general engagement . This action was key in stabilizing the Union defensive line . After the Confederate assault had been checked , Wallace led a counterattack which retook the ground that was lost . He was promoted to major general of volunteers to rank from March 21 . Shiloh . Wallace ' s most controversial command came at the Battle of Shiloh , where he continued as the 3rd Division commander under Maj . Gen . Grant . Wallace ' s division had been left in reserve . The 3rd Brigade commanded by Col . Charles Whittlesey was at Stoney Lonesome near Adamsville , Tennessee . Col . Morgan L . Smith ' s 1st Brigade and Col . John M . Thayer ' s Second Brigade were both located at Crump ' s Landing , five miles north of Pittsburg Landing , to the rear of the Union line . At about 6 a . m . on April 6 , 1862 , when Grant ' s army was surprised and nearly routed by the sudden appearance of the Confederate States Army under Albert Sidney Johnston , Grant sent orders for Wallace to move his division up to support the division of Brig . Gen . William Tecumseh Sherman located at Shiloh Church . Grant ' s orders to Wallace were given verbally to an aide , who transcribed and delivered them ; the orders were later lost during the battle . There were two main routes by which Wallace could move his unit to the front , and Grant ( according to Wallace ) did not specify which one he should take . Wallace chose to take the " upper " shunpike , which he believed was more usable and led to Shiloh Church ; he had the day before written a letter to another officer stating his intention to do so . Grant later claimed that he had specified that Wallace take the " lower " route along the river to Pittsburg Landing . Historians are divided , with some stating that Wallace ' s explanation is the most logical . Wallace arrived almost at the end of his march only to find that Sherman had been forced back and was no longer where he expected to find him . Sherman had been pushed back so far that Wallace was to the rear of the advancing Southern troops . A messenger from Grant arrived at 11 : 30 a . m . with word that Grant was wondering where Wallace was , and why he had not arrived near Pittsburg Landing , where the Union Army was making its stand . Wallace believed he could launch a viable attack from where he was , thus attacking the Confederates in their rear , but followed the new orders to proceed to the army ' s assistance via the river road . Wallace countermarched his troops along the same route and via a crossroads directly to the bridge crossing Snake and Owl creeks . Rather than realigning his troops so that the rear guard would be in the front , Wallace chose to countermarch his column ( a move that is still controversial today ) ; he argued that his artillery would have been greatly out of position to support the infantry when it would arrive on the field . Wallace marched back to the midpoint on the " upper " road . He proceeded to march over a new third path that would intersect with the lower road to join the army on the field , but the road had been left in terrible conditions by recent rainstorms and previous Union marches . Progress was slow due to the roads ' conditions , and countermarching the division was a command mistake . His division , when it finally arrived at Grant ' s position at about 7 p . m . , had marched a total of 15 miles in six and a half hours . The sun was down and fighting nearly over for the day , but it was not yet dark and Wallace ' s division was ordered to take a place on the right of the Union Army line . The Union Army won the battle the following day , with Wallace ' s division holding the extreme right of the Union line and being the first to attack on April 7 . At first , there was little fallout from this . Wallace was the youngest general of his rank in the army and was something of a " golden boy " . Soon , however , civilians in the North began to hear the news of the horrible casualties at Shiloh , and the Army needed explanations . Both Grant and his superior , Halleck , placed the blame squarely on Wallace , saying that his incompetence in moving up the reserves had nearly cost them the battle . Sherman , for his part , remained silent on the issue . Wallace was removed from his command in June and reassigned to command the defense of Cincinnati in the Department of the Ohio during Braxton Bragg ' s incursion into Kentucky . Later service . Wallace ' s most notable service came in July 1864 at the Battle of Monocacy in Maryland , part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864 . Although the some 5 , 800 - man force under his command ( mostly hundred - days ' men amalgamated from the VIII Corps ) and the division of James B . Ricketts from VI Corps was defeated by Confederate General Jubal A . Early , who had some 15 , 000 troops , Wallace was able to delay Early ' s advance toward Washington , D . C . for an entire day . This gave the city defenses time to organize and repel Early , who arrived at Fort Stevens in Washington at around noon on July 11 , two days after defeating Wallace at Monocacy , the northernmost Confederate victory of the war . General Grant relieved Wallace of his command after learning of the defeat of Monocacy , but re - instated him two weeks later . Grant ' s memoirs of the war praised Wallace ' s delaying tactics at Monocacy : If Early had been but one day earlier , he might have entered the capital before the arrival of the reinforcements I had sent . . . . General Wallace contributed on this occasion by the defeat of the troops under him , a greater benefit to the cause than often falls to the lot of a commander of an equal force to render by means of a victory . Wallace suffered greatly by the loss of his reputation as a result of Shiloh . He worked all his life to change public opinion about his role in the battle , even begging Grant in letters and in person to vindicate him . Grant refused to do so , and in 1884 wrote an article on Shiloh for " The Century Magazine " again stating his belief that Wallace had taken the wrong road on the first day of battle . The letter Wallace had written stating his plans to take the shunpike was found after the article ' s publication , causing Grant to change his mind ; he wrote that the letter " modifies very materially what I have said , and what has been said by others , about the conduct of General Lew . Wallace at the battle of Shiloh " . While reaffirming that he had ordered Wallace to take the river road , Grant stated that he could not be sure how accurately Wallace had received his verbal orders . The " Century " article , however , became the chapter on Shiloh in Grant ' s memoirs of the war , and has influenced many later accounts of Wallace ' s actions on the first day of battle . Despite his great fame and fortune from " Ben - Hur " Wallace lamented , " Shiloh and its slanders ! Will the world ever acquit me of them ? If I were guilty I would not feel them as keenly . " Later in the war , Wallace directed the U . S . government ' s secret efforts to aid Mexico in expelling the French occupation forces which had seized control of their country in 1864 . He participated in the military commission trial of the Lincoln assassination conspirators , as well as the court - martial of Henry Wirz , the commandant in charge of the South ' s Andersonville prison camp . Post - war career . Wallace resigned from the army on November 30 , 1865 . After the end of the war , Wallace continued to try to help the Mexican army to expel the French and was offered a major general ' s commission in the Mexican army . Multiple promises by the Mexicans were never fulfilled , and Wallace incurred deep financial debt . Wallace held a number of important political posts during the 1870s and 1880s . He was appointed as governor of New Mexico Territory from 1878 to 1881 , during a time of violence and political corruption . He was appointed as U . S . Minister to the Ottoman Empire from 1881 to 1885 . As governor , Wallace offered amnesty to many men involved in the Lincoln County War . In the process he met with the outlawed William Henry McCarty , also known as Billy the Kid . On March 17 , 1879 , the pair arranged that the Kid would act as an informant and testify against others involved in the Lincoln County War , and , it has been claimed , that in return the Kid would be " scot free with a pardon in [ his ] pocket for all [ his ] misdeeds . " According to this account , Wallace , facing the political forces then ruling New Mexico , was unable to come through on his end of the bargain . The Kid returned to his outlaw ways and killed additional men . In the 21st century , supporters of Billy the Kid made a request for a posthumous pardon , based on the claim of a pardon promised and not delivered by Wallace , to then - Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico . On December 31 , 2010 , on the eve of leaving office , Richardson turned down the pardon request , citing a " lack of conclusiveness and the historical ambiguity " over Wallace ' s actions . Descendants of Wallace and Billy the Kid ' s killer , Sheriff Pat Garrett , were among those who opposed the pardon . Taking up writing again after the war , Wallace published his first novel in 1873 . While serving as governor , Wallace completed his second novel , which made him famous : " " ( 1880 ) . It became the best - selling American novel of the 19th century , surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe ' s " Uncle Tom ' s Cabin " and is considered the most influential Christian book of the 19th century . The book has never been out of print and has been adapted for film four times . The historian Victor Davis Hanson has argued that the novel drew from Wallace ' s life , particularly his experiences at Shiloh , and the damage it did to his reputation . The book ' s main character , Judah Ben - Hur , accidentally causes injury to a high - ranking commander , for which he and his family suffer tribulations and calumny . He first seeks revenge , and then redemption . Wallace went on to publish several novels and biographies , plus his autobiography ; but " Ben - Hur " was his most important book . He designed a writing study , built 1895 – 1898 , adjacent to his residence in Crawfordsville . Now called the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum , it was designated a National Historic Landmark and is operated as a house museum , open to the public . Despite using many friends in Washington to influence the government , Wallace ' s offer in 1898 to raise and lead a division of soldiers for the Spanish - American War was refused ; when he attempted to enlist as a private , he was rejected given his age of 71 . Wallace died on 15 February 1905 of atrophic gastritis in Crawfordsville and is buried there in Oak Hill Cemetery .