Benjamin Hardin Helm

Benjamin Hardin Helm (June 2, 1831 – September 21, 1863) was an American politician, attorney, and Confederate brigadier general. A son of Kentucky governor John L. Helm, he was born in Bardstown, Kentucky. He attended the Kentucky Military Institute and the West Point Military Academy and then studied law at the University of Louisville and Harvard University. He served as a state legislator and the state's attorney in Kentucky. Helm was offered the position of Union Army paymaster by his brother-in-law, President Abraham Lincoln (Helm was married to Emilie Todd, the half-sister of Mary Todd Lincoln), a position which he declined. Helm joined the Confederate States Army. As a brigadier general, Helm commanded the 1st Kentucky Brigade, more commonly known as The Orphan Brigade. He died on the battlefield during the Battle of Chickamauga.

Early life

The son of lawyer and politician John L. Helm and Lucinda Barbour Hardin, Benjamin Hardin Helm was born in Bardstown, Kentucky on June 2, 1831. In the winter of 1846, at age 15, Helm enrolled at the Kentucky Military Institute, where he remained for three months. He left on his 16th birthday to accept an appointment at West Point the same day. Helm graduated in 1851 near his 20th birthday, ranked 9th in a class of 42 cadets. He became a brevet second lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Dragoons. He served at a cavalry school at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and at Fort Lincoln, Texas, but resigned his commission after a year, when he was diagnosed with inflammatory rheumatism.

Helm then studied law at the University of Louisville and Harvard University, graduating in 1853 and practicing law with his father. In 1855, he was elected to the House of Representatives of Kentucky from Hardin County, and was the state's attorney for the 3rd district of Kentucky from 1856 to 1858. On March 26, 1856, Helm married Emilie Pariet Todd, daughter of Robert Todd of Lexington and a half-sister of Mary Todd Lincoln.

In 1860, he was appointed assistant inspector-general of the Kentucky State Guard, which he was active in organizing. Kentucky remained officially neutral at the start of the American Civil War, but his brother-in-law, now President Abraham Lincoln, offered him the position of paymaster of the Union Army. Helm declined the offer, and returned to Kentucky to raise the 1st Kentucky Cavalry Regiment for the Confederate Army. Helm and the 1st Kentucky Cavalry were then ordered south.

While the Confederate Army launched its surprise attack at Shiloh, Helm's regiment performed detached service in northern Alabama, where it patrolled the Tennessee River and safeguarded the extreme right of the Confederate operations from being flanked by potential Union approaches from central Tennessee.

Following Shiloh, Helm was sent to Yazoo City, Mississippi to provide protection for the construction of the CSS Arkansas- a new ironclad for the Confederate Navy- to be completed.

Still commanding a brigade under Breckinridge, Helm sustained serious injuries at the Battle of Baton Rouge (1862) when his horse fell on him; crushing his leg and causing internal injuries that would prevent him from active service for several months. He recuperated in Chattanooga to recover. During this time he was briefly was assigned the administrative role commanding the Eastern District of the Confederate Department of the Gulf.

By January 1863, Helm was deemed fit to return to service, and left Chattanooga to rejoin the Army at Tullahoma. On his arrival on January 31, he was given command of the First Kentucky Brigade, commonly known as the "Orphan Brigade", after its commander, Roger W. Hanson, had just been killed at the Battle of Stones River.

Helm's brigade was part of John C. Breckinridge's division in the Army of Tennessee, where it participated in the 1863 Tullahoma and Chickamauga campaigns.

Battle of Chickamauga and death

In the fall of 1863, the 1st Kentucky Brigade formed a part of General Braxton Bragg's counteroffensive against Union Major General William Rosecrans at the Battle of Chickamauga. At 9:30 am on September 20, 1863, the divisions of Generals Breckinridge and Patrick Cleburne were ordered to move forward. While the remainder of Helm's men clashed with the Union line he was hit by an artillery shell fragment After being carried off the battlefield, Helm's surgeons concluded that his wounds would be fatal. On September 21, 1863, Gen. Helm succumbed to his wounds. However, the widowed Emilie Todd Helm was granted safe passage to the White House in December 1863.

In an official report of the Battle of Chickamauga, General Daniel Harvey Hill stated that Benjamin Helm's "gallantry and loveliness of character endeared him to everyone." In a letter to Emilie Todd Helm, General Breckinridge said, "Your husband commanded them [the men of the Orphan brigade] like a thorough soldier. He loved them, they loved him, and he died at their head, a patriot and a hero."