Object Record
Images
Metadata
Object Name |
Portrait |
Title |
Benjamin Hardin Helm |
Catalog Number |
1986.70 |
Creator |
Bendann, David |
Date |
ca. 1863 |
Material(s) |
Paint/Canvas |
Dimensions |
H-26 W-21.5 D-2 inches |
Description |
This is a bust portrait of General Benjamin Hardin Helm. The attributed artist is David Bendann. Helm has gray eyes and red-brown hair with a full beard and mustache whiskers. He is wearing a blue-gray officer's jacket with a yellow-gold collar that has two stars, 12 buttons, and a red sash around the waist. Four strands of gold Confederate officer's sleeve braids are apparent on the outside of Helm's right sleeve. The painting is signed "Bendann" in the lower right margin and is directly to the right of Helm's sleeve. The frame is an oval gilded wood frame with a thin scrollwork carving detail in the center and a ribbon with beaded detail carving along the outside edge of the frame. |
Notes |
General Benjamin Hardin Helm was born on June 2, 1831. He was from Bardstown, Kentucky, and he attended the Kentucky Military Academy. In 1847, he entered the U.S. Military Academy where he graduated ninth in his class. After a brief stint on the Texas frontier, Helm resigned from the army and obtained a law degree in 1853 from the University of Louisville. He served one term in the Kentucky House of Representatives. Turning down a personal offer from Abraham Lincoln to serve in the Union army (Helm's wife, Emilie Todd, was the sister of Mary Todd Lincoln), in 1861, Helm became a colonel in the 1st Regiment of the Kentucky Confederate Calvary. Helm commanded the 1st Kentucky Brigade, commonly known as The Orphan Brigade which included the 2nd, 4th, 6th and 9th Kentucky Infantry regiments and Cobb’s, Byrne’s and Graves’s batteries of artillery, and, at times, the 3rd and 5th Kentucky Infantry. After the battle of Shiloh, he became a brigadier general and fought in the Louisiana campaigns. He took command of the Kentucky brigade of the Army of Tennessee and was killed on September 20, 1863 in the Battle of Chickamauga. Lincoln reportedly wept when he heard the news. Bendann, an artist from Maryland, was born in 1841 and died in 1915. |
Collection |
United Daughters of the Confederacy Collection |
Event |
American Civil War |
People |
Bendann, David Helm, Benjamin Hardin |
Subjects |
Portrait paintings Painting Art Soldiers Military uniforms Generals |
Search Terms |
American Civil War Confederate Confederate soldiers Confederacy Battle of Chickamauga Orphan Brigade |
Physical Holder |
Kentucky Historical Society - KHS |