BENJAMIN HARRISON: BIOGRAPHY IN THREE VOLUMES
by Harry J. Sievers
BENJAMIN HARRISON: HOOSIER WARRIOR
(Volume One of Three)
ISBN 978-0-945707-16-5 $35.00
344 pages including illustrations, bibliography, and index.
In this opening volume of Harry J. Sievers’ biography of our
twenty-third President, the author has broken down the half-century-old
wall of secrecy, procrastination, and neglect surrounding the private papers
and personal life of Benjamin Harrison - Indiana’s adopted son. Here
for the first time is the full, documented account of the early years of
the grandson of “Old Tippecanoe.”
From Harrison’s boyhood on the family farm in North Bend,
Ohio, through the early days of his marriage, political beginnings, and struggle
to make a living as an Indiana lawyer, Father Sievers shows us a man whose
integrity and modesty endeared him to his intimates, and whose boldness
and courage in the Civil War won the devotion of his soldiers and earned
for him a brigadier-general’s star.
Although he was the grandson of a President and a descendant
of a long line of Virginia burgesses, “Little Ben’s” own chief assets were
simply a devoted wife, a gift for courtroom oratory, and an endless capacity
for plain, hard work. Nevertheless, in response to Lincoln’s desperate
call for volunteers, he left his law desk and raised the 70th Indiana Volunteer
Regiment, which he lead through such battles as Resaca, New Hope Church,
and Kenesaw Mountain. It was after his daring charge “up the ridge”
at Peach Tree Creek that “Fighting Joe” Hooker promised him his star: “Harrison,
by God, I’ll make you a Brigadier for this fight.”
The life of Benjamin Harrison, product of an Ohio-Indiana
era now almost forgotten, is the story of a man of courage, independence,
and integrity - a fascinating commentary on the men, ideas and politics of
the day.
