General Lew Wallace ~ A Most Interesting Man

by Ramona K. Cecil

General Lew Wallace

One of my favorite movies growing up was Ben Hur. I first saw it as a child at a drive-in movie theater from the back seat of a 1956 Chevy while on summer vacation with my family. What I didn’t learn until years later was that the author of that story was a fellow Hoosier, and, arguably, one of the most interesting men of the nineteenth century.

 

Best known for his famous novel about the life of Christ, Wallace is said to have rather been known for his military career during the Mexican-American War and the Civil War.

 

 

 

 

Born in 1827 in Brookville, Indiana—about 80 miles west of where I live—Lewis Wallace was the second of four sons born to David Wallace, a military man, lawyer, and politician. A graduate of West Point Military Academy, Lew’s father went on to serve in Indiana’s General Assembly, as the state’s lieutenant governor, governor, and then as a member of the U.S. Congress.

 

From an early age, Lew’s life seemed set on a similar path as his father’s. At sixteen he left his formal education to make his own way in the world and joined a local militia. When he was nineteen, the Mexican War broke out and Lew established a recruiting office for the Marion Volunteers in Indianapolis. Though he never saw combat, Lew served under General Zachary Taylor and earned the rank of first lieutenant.

 

Mexican-American War

 

 

 

 

 

Susan Wallace

 

 

 

After the war he returned to Indiana and married Susan Arnold Elston, who later became an author in her own right. Lew began a career in the law and was elected prosecuting attorney of Indiana’s 1st congressional district, but the military remained a large part of his life. In 1860, with another war looming, he organized the Crawfordsville Guards Independent Militia and adopted for them the colorful Zouave uniform patterned after the uniform of the French Army in Algeria.

 

Zouaves

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the Civil War broke out, Wallace’s militia became the 11th Volunteer Infantry Regiment and was mustered into the Union Army with now Colonel Lew Wallace in command.

 

 

During the war Wallace rose to the rank of Major General, winning acclaim in several battles including that of Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, and Monocacy. But sadly, Wallace became most noted for a costly blunder during the battle of Shiloh. Though he blamed the error on miscommunication, the stain it left on his military service was never fully expunged.

 

Battle of Fort Donelson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                          

Battle of Shiloh

 

 

 

                                                                    

 

 

 

 

Near the end of the war, Wallace served in Texas near the Rio Grand and was involved in discussing proposals dealing with the surrender of the Confederate Army in the Southwest. He was also appointed to the military commissions that investigated the Lincoln assassination conspirators and Henry Wirz, commandant of Andersonville, the notorious Confederate prisoner-of-war camp. After the war, General Wallace even found time to run down to Mexico and help the Mexican army expel Maximilian’s French occupation forces.

 



Civil War Military Commission

French Mexican War



     

Henry Wirz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 With that accomplished, Wallace returned to his law practice in Indiana, but the law held no appeal for him, so he turned to writing and, like his father before him, to politics. After two unsuccessful bids for a seat in Congress, he was appointed governor of the New Mexico Territory. There he worked to end Apache raids on settlers and resolve the Lincoln County War, a violent range war, during which, he became acquainted with such historic figures as Billy the Kid and sheriff Pat Garrett, the man who eventually killed the young outlaw. It was during Wallace’s time in the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe that he completed his novel, Ben Hur.

Lew Wallace, Governor of New Mexico

Billy the Kid

Sheriff Pat Garrett

                              

You might think that at this point Lew Wallace had accomplished enough to fill a couple of life times, but the general was not done yet.

In 1881, at the age of 54, Wallace was appointed U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople, Turkey, a position he held until 1885.

 

Lew Wallace and Sultan Abdul Hamid II

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wallace had dabbled in writing fiction from his teen years, having begun his first novel The Fair God at the age of seventeen. The work was not published until thirty years later.

 

 

Robert G. Ingersoll

Indifferent to religion, Wallace generally believed in the “Christian conception of God.” It was an incident on a train ride to Indianapolis in 1876 that caused him to more closely examine his beliefs and subsequently led him to write Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ. On the train he met Robert G. Ingersoll, a well-known agnostic lecturer. After a lengthy debate with the man about religious ideology, Wallace felt the need to fully research Christianity so as to clarify in his own mind, his beliefs. Four years later Ben Hur, one of ten books written by Wallace, was published by Harper & Brothers and is considered “the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century.” The story has been dramatized in stage plays and several Hollywood movies including the best known; the 1959 adaptation starring Charlton Heston.

 

Poster for 1901 Stage Play

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ben Hur Movie Poster 1925

Ben Hur Movie Poster 1959

 

                   

 

                        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To cap off his incredible life and accomplishments, Wallace patented several inventions, built a seven-story apartment building in Indianapolis, and drew up plans for a private study for his Crawfordsville, Indiana home. At the outbreak of the Spanish American War, when Wallace was seventy-one, he tried to enlist and offered his services to raise and lead a military force, but was rejected because of his age.

                                            

Lew Wallace Study and Museum, Crawfordsville, Indiana

Blancherne Apartments

 

                

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lew Wallace Home, Crawfordsville, Indiana

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lew Wallace Grave, Oak Hill Cemetery, Crawfordsville, Indiana

General Lew Wallace died February 15, 1905 at his home in Crawfordsville, Indiana, and is buried in Crawfordsville’s Oak Hill Cemetery. The state of Indiana commissioned a marble statue of Wallace in military uniform for the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington D.C.

 

Marble Statue of Lew Wallace
Statuary Hall, Washington D. C.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many would consider a life that held a third of what Lew Wallace accomplished a life well lived. To my mind, the Dos Equis man has nothing on Indiana’s General Lew Wallace; definitely a most interesting man.

 

 

 

 

 

Ramona K. Cecil is a poet and award-winning author of historical fiction for the Christian market. A proud Hoosier, she often sets her stories in her home state of Indiana.

Check out her website at www.ramonakcecil.com