Indiana- Lewis Wallace
Born April 10, 1827, in Brookville, Indiana, Lewis Wallace would one day be a subject of one of the two statues representing Indiana, in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol.
Among Wallace’s accomplishments is the authoring of a bestselling historical novel that became an Academy Award winning blockbuster film years after his death! More on that later…
Lewis Wallace’s father, David Wallace, was a graduate of West Point and later governor of Indiana. His mother, Esther French Test Wallace, sadly died from tuberculosis when Lewis was seven-years-old.
Lewis Wallace’s adventurous attitude began as a youth. He had his troubles at school but loved reading. He became a reporter for the Indianapolis Daily Journal for a short spell and studied law in his father’s law office.
In 1846, when the Mexican-American War broke out, 19-year-old Wallace left to raise a company of soldiers for the First Regiment of Indiana Volunteers. He was also a member, and served as a 2nd Lieutenant, but did not participate in combat.
The next step upon his return was the continuation of law study. He passed the bar exam in 1849 and set up a law practice in Covington, Indiana. He married Susan Elston in 1852 and they had a son.
Lewis “Lew” Wallace was elected to Indiana State Senate in 1856, and organized the Montgomery Guards, a militia unit. At the onset of the Civil War, he was appointed colonel of the 11th Indiana Infantry. He later was promoted to major general in Ulysses S. Grant’s Army and at age 34, was one of the youngest Union officers to hold that rank.
General Wallace is credited with a number of successes during the Civil War, however, there was some controversy about his actions during the Battle of Shiloh. It seems the fog of war and confusion over messaging was at the root of the problem.
After the war, Wallace made two unsuccessful bids for a seat in Congress. He supported Republican presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes in the 1876 election. President Hayes later appointed Wallace as governor of the New Mexico Territory, where he served from 1878 until 1881.
In 1881, President James A. Garfield appointed Wallace United States Minister to Turkey. He served as minister to Turkey until 1885.
When Lew Wallace returned to the United States he had more time to focus on writing, something he had done throughout his life. He wrote three historical novels, the most famous was Ben-Hur, which was published in 1880. The novel was very popular and was adapted into a stage play and opened at the Broadway Theater in New York City in 1899. Decades after Wallace’s death, Ben-Hur was made into a motion picture, starring Charlton Heston. It was awarded 11 Academy Awards in 1959.
During the last years of his life Wallace lectured extensively. Lew Wallace: An Autobiography, his last book, was published posthumously in 1906. It can be found online…I read some of it and found Wallace’s recollections from his childhood especially entertaining. One memory of his was about attending William Henry Harrison’s Convention in 1840, when Wallace was 13. (Page 73) Here’s the link to Volume I of the autobiography. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.76794/page/n91/mode/2up
Lewis Wallace died on February 15, 1905, in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Five years later in 1910 a statue of Wallace was donated by Indiana to the National Statuary Hall Collection.
Diana Erbio is a freelance writer and author of “Coming to America: A Girl Struggles to Find her Way in a New World”. Read more in her series Statues: The People They Salute visit The Table of Contents and the Facebook Page. (I’ll be adding to the Substack Table of Contents as I transfer the Blog Posts. Please subscribe to this Substack 😊🇺🇸🤓)
Lee wallace was also one of the judges for the sentencing of the Lincoln conspirators