Ben-Hur Around the World

The Wallace name has spread far and wide and with it the name Ben-Hur. Schools, taverns, and businesses of all sorts have traded on the marketing juggernaut that was Ben-Hur in the late 19th century.  There are a handful of places around the world that also took these names in tribute and likely in hopes of trading on the famous names.

The small community of Wallace, Indiana, is located in southeast Fountain County. Established in the early 1830s, the village had a blacksmith, cabinet maker, general stores, shoemaker and two doctors. When the community received its first post office, local leaders named it after Lew's father, Governor David Wallace. In 1951, there were eight students in the high school graduating class and Wallace could boast about the same number of firms that had been in business in 1880. As of the 2010 census, there were 105 people spread among 52 households in Wallace. 

It is interesting, given Lew Wallace’s lack of enthusiasm for traditional learning, that at least two schools in Indiana adopted his name. Lew Wallace High School in Gary, Indiana, has had an impressive history and continues to have an active alumni association. In Indianapolis, elementary school P.S. #107 is also named for Lew Wallace. At least one school in Albuquerque has also been named in honor of Lew Wallace, and New Mexico also has a Lew Wallace building as part of their State government complex. 

The name Ben-Hur saw greater utilization by people looking to identify their communities. Ben-Hur, California is an unincorporated community in Mariposa County. Again, a rural post office led to the naming of the community in the 1890s. The post office was closed in the 1950s, but the Ben-Hur name continues to be associated with the tiny settlement that remains. Ben-Hur in Lee County of western Virginia is another unincorporated settlement.

Yet another of the Ben-Hur communities is an unincorporated area in Limestone County, Texas. This town near Waco was originally named Cottonwood, but by 1895, there were three other communities in Texas named Cottonwood. The local residents decided to rename the town. At that time Ben-Hur, Texas, had a population of about 100. By World War II it had a thriving population of over 200, but today there are fewer than 100 people and a couple of closed businesses in Ben-Hur, Texas. 

Perhaps the most exotic of the Ben-Hur communities is a small settlement in the Kalahari Constituency of the Omaheke Region of Namibia on the border between Namibia and Botswana. Just how or why Ben-Hur was used to identify this settlement is not known.

Lew Wallace in the Movies

The name of Lew Wallace is widely remembered for the wildly successful movie interpretations of his masterwork Ben-Hur in 1925 and 1959. These were not the only times that the General’s name (and even the General) showed up in Hollywood movies. In 1914, Wallace’s book, The Prince of India, was adapted as a silent movie. This forty-four minute film moved along at a rapid pace and bore little resemblance to Wallace’s book. Starring Thurlow Bergen and William Riley Hatch, the plot involved a devil-may-care newspaper reporter, a stolen gem, a fun-loving Indian prince, a temptress, and a climatic scene with a run away trolley car. Lew Wallace would not have been pleased with the artistic license taken in the filming of this movie. 

The General himself has been represented in several productions. These include Land Beyond the Law (1937) which starred Dick Foran, a matinee idol of "B" movies and one of the movie industry’s most successful singing cowboys. Foran played wild and woolly Chip Douglas, who becomes a lawman after his father is killed in the New Mexico territory; through his efforts he helps avoid a range war. Although uncredited in the movie, Governor Lew Wallace is portrayed by Joe King. King was a talented character actor, director and writer. Working steadily from 1912 until 1946, he was in such significant movies as: They Died With Their Boots On, Sergeant York, Destry Rides Again, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Alexander’s Ragtime Band, Cain & Mable, and Anthony Adverse.

In 1955, director Mervyn LeRoy brought Wallace to life in Greer Garson’s, Strange Lady In Town. In this movie, which co-starred Dana Andrews and Cameron Mitchell, Garson sets a western town on edge when she arrives and begins her own medical practice. Her first patient in Santa Fe has a toothache and is brought in by Billy the Kid. After all sorts of intrigue, Garson’s character attends the Governor’s ball where she meets Governor Lew Wallace who happens to mention two things. First, that he is working on a novel called Ben-Hur, and second, that he has a chronic heart condition. The ever helpful lady doctor suggests that perhaps his collar is too tight. This “miracle cure” for a heart condition actually contradicts what the town’s male doctor has told the Governor and more intrigue follows until (spoiler alert) the lady doctor and the gentleman doctor ride off together in his buckboard at the end of the movie.

The actor who portrayed Lew Wallace was Ralph Moody, a big, burly man who looked nothing like the real Lew Wallace. Moody often played gruff old men or Native Americans. He had an extraordinary career as a working actor from 1948 to his death in 1971 with well over 100 appearances in both movies and on TV. He was, in fact, one of Jack Webb’s favorite actors and appeared frequently in Dragnet.

Strange Lady in Town also introduced audiences to Susan Wallace in one of her rare portrayals on screen. Mrs. Wallace was portrayed by Louise Lorimer. Like Ralph Moody, Ms. Lorimer was a talented actress who worked steadily from 1934 until her retirement at age 87 in1985. She played alongside some of Hollywood’s leading lights in both the movies and on TV. Among the more significant movies she worked in were: Gentleman’s Agreement, Sorry Wrong Number, The Snake Pit, Sorrowful Jones, The Heiress, The Young Philadelphians, and Marnie. Her appearance as Mrs. Wallace was only slightly closer to reality than Ralph Moody’s presentation of Lew Wallace.

More recently Wallace has been portrayed (often more accurately) in documentaries and videos, including a 2006 film called: No Retreat from Destiny: The Battle That Rescued Washington. This production tells the story of the Battle of Monacacy. On the History and Discovery Channels, documentaries on Billy the Kid often discuss Wallace’s governorship using period photos and an occasional actor portraying Wallace.

Beyond the feature movies, Wallace’s Ben-Hur also appeared in books and movies as part of the plot. In Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, the famed private eye, Philip Marlowe, enters a book store that he believes is a front for evil doings. In an effort to trap the seductive woman running the store, Marlowe asks: "Would you happen to have a Ben Hur 1860?" She asks: "A first edition?" to which Marlowe replies "Third. The one with the erratum on page 116." The lady obviously doesn't know her Ben-Hur (since it was published in 1880 and there is no edition with an erratum on page 116) and, therefore, isn't the store owner. In Anne of Green Gables, Anne is caught reading Ben-Hur at school when she is supposed to be studying another subject.

For over 130 years Ben-Hur and Lew Wallace have been part of popular American culture. The impact of Wallace’s book is demonstrated in the many ways it and its author have been incorporated in other creative endeavors over the past century. Keep your eyes open and ears tuned, as you never know when Lew Wallace or Ben-Hur will show up to move a plot along.  

Sources: Marie Stocks for finding blog comments on the Slate article regarding Wallace in the movies and Kyle Gobel for watching The Big Sleep. Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Haunted Basements and the Mexican War

To put it politely, Lew Wallace was what today would be called an alternative learner. In his day, many in Indianapolis referred to Lew, the governor’s son, as rascal and worse. As a youth running around the capital city, Lew and his friends found their way into the basement of the Governor’s house that stood in the middle of the circle downtown where the Soldiers and Sailors Monument was to be built decades latter. For different reasons, this house was never occupied by any governors, but was used instead by others. One of the occupants was Judge Isaac Blackford who lived in and worked out of the old mansion. Many of the other local attorneys and judges began to use this house as an informal place to meet and socialize.

The basement of the house was a vast, unlighted cellar filled with boxes, barrels, and as Lew wrote in his autobiography, “. . . debris of such varied ins and outs as to be dangerous, if not quite impassable, to the unfamiliar.” The basement was also supposed to be haunted by a workman who, on good authority, was reportedly buried in deep, dark, dank cellar.

Lew and a few of his cohorts found this basement and its intrigue impossible to pass up and used the lower area of the house as a meeting and rendezvous spot much as the lawyers did upstairs. Boys being boys, they decided it would be fun to take long poles and begin punching the underside of the floors just as the attorneys were engaging in their debates and discussions. The more the men yelled and stomped their feet, the louder the boys would hit the underside of the floor. The rascals could easily hear when the men had had enough and were headed to the basement to apprehend the criminals so like rats, the boys scattered into the dark recesses of the cellar to preselected hiding places.

After a couple of these episodes, the men turned the tables and had the local sheriff of the court and several bailiffs lie in wait for the boys. At the first thump, the cellar doors were seized shut and with lanterns each boy was fished out by his shirt collar. As Wallace wrote: “With an inconceivable hardness of heart, the myrmidons took us up-stairs and before the judges. There I made the acquaintance of Isaac Blackford . . .” Lew continued his wayward existence and eventually struck out on his own when his father had had enough of his poor behavior and poor scholarship. During this time, young Wallace did undertake the study of law, but also grew increasingly interested in the turmoil in Texas and discovered that he had a gift for public speaking when he began recruiting men to fight in the Mexican War.

A few years after his escapade in the basement, imagine his dismay when he and others interested in pursuing a legal career appeared in court to take the bar examination. “We advanced and stood in a body outside the railing. As we did so, I observed the clear, gray eyes of his honor, Isaac Blackford, rest on me with a look so sharp and cold it shot me full of rigors. He had waited a long time for what the baseballists would call his innings. At last it was come. Would he make a worm of me and thread me on his hook?”

The good judge did not make a worm of Lew and thread him on a hook. The judge made no speech, but rather gave the young men their instructions and sent them with a bailiff off to a room to take the exam. The exam took hours and hours to complete and at the end of the ordeal, Lew was not particularly satisfied with his answers. As he recorded in his autobiography, at the bottom of the last page he wrote a note, “. . . the flippancy of which makes my face burn as I now write:

‘Hon. Isaac Blackford, Examining Judge:  Dear Sir,--I hope the foregoing answers will be to your satisfaction more than they are to mine; whether they are or not, I shall go to Mexico.  Respectfully, Lew Wallace.”

Two or three days after completing the examination, Wallace received a letter from the post office:  “Supreme Court-Room, Indianapolis.  Mr. Lew Wallace:  Dear Sir—The Court interposes no objection to you going to Mexico.  Respectfully, Isaac Blackford.”

As Wallace noted in his memoirs, the communication was not attached to a license to practice law. It took service in the Mexican War and the love of a good woman named Susan to bring Lew successfully back to his law studies in the early 1850s.

Lew's Gift to the Sultan

As his tour of duty as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the Ottoman Empire came to an end in 1884, Lew Wallace was offered a number of gifts from his friend, Sultan Abdul Hamid II. These included Arabian horses, jewels, and works of art. As a representative of the government of the United States, Wallace graciously declined these expressions of friendship and gratitude. According to legend, as Wallace closed his office and packed his residence, the Sultan was able to secretly include the painting called The Turkish Princess, some elaborate carpets and a few other items in the shipping crates. The crates were delivered to Crawfordsville before Lew and Susan returned home. These items sent by the Sultan remained undiscovered by Wallace until he was back in Crawfordsville and opened the crates. The Turkish Princess, said to be one of the Sultan’s daughters, remains one of the highlights of the Study. These were not the only presents exchanged between the Sultan and Wallace.

One of the reasons the crates returned to Crawfordsville in advance of Wallace was because Lew and Susan concluded their time in the Middle East with a tour of Europe. On that tour, Lew stopped in London to fulfill a favor asked of him by the Sultan. The sovereign leader of the Ottoman Empire wanted a dog. As Lew wrote to his son, Henry, in February of 1885, he spent four days in London doing nothing but looking at dogs as London was the greatest dog market in the world. He looked at everything from a King Charles spaniel that was so small it could be put in an overcoat pocket to a boar-hound as big as a burro.

He first considered a St. Bernard but realized the breed would not do well in hot and humid Constantinople. He then considered the boar-hound like Prince Bismarck of Prussia owned. When Wallace inspected the dog, he felt the face was treacherous and full of malice. “He did not seem so much a dog as a dangerous beast of prey.”

Another dog considered was the stag-hound. A breed of dog belonging to Sir Walter Scott that Wallace ultimately felt entirely unsuited for his mission. These were hunting dogs, and in his opinion not particularly handsome, which would not do for the Sultan, who was known for his appreciation of all things beautiful.

English Mastiff from Wikimedia Commons

After considering several breeds, Wallace looked at the English mastiff. The first one brought to him was about two years old and had won first prize in competition in the United Kingdom. Wallace was immediately impressed and asked about buying the animal. Both the dog and its purchase price were fit for a king. The seller noted that the dog was priced at only 500 guineas—or about $3,000!! In Wallace’s day, that was a lot to pay for a dog—even one headed off to be a royal companion. When Wallace declined the purchase, the dealer offered an eight month old offspring from the first dog at a more reasonable price.

Wallace purchased the puppy. It was the finest dog he had ever seen with a head like a lion’s and already standing thirty-six inches at the shoulder and six feet from tip of the tail to muzzle. Not only was he the size of a lion, the dog had the tawny color of a lion. When Wallace was showing the dog at his hotel, one of the curious guests climbed on a window to look in as a burglar or thief might do. When the dog saw this “thief” his eyes reddened, the hair on this back stood up, and he growled in a most menacing manner. Wallace was thrilled at this protective stance taken by the dog.

Wallace named the dog ‘Victorio’ after an Apache Indian chief who caused Wallace great difficulty in New Mexico, but whom Wallace respected for his military prowess. After Wallace shipped the dog, the Sultan began asking after the dog, inquiring about its delivery and was thrilled when it arrived. He immediately ordered that the dog be sent to the palace. When it was brought into the reception room, the crowd scattered believing it was, in fact, a lion. In reports that Wallace received he was pleased to hear that the dog was happily playing with the Sultan’s daughter, perhaps the girl in the painting given to Wallace of The Turkish Princess, and becoming a favorite companion of the Sultan himself. It proved to be a present that held special meaning for both the gift giver and the recipient and represented the special bond between two men of such different backgrounds. 

William Seward, Jr. and the Battle of Monocacy

A photo taken in 1906 of the 1832 Frederick, MD, B&O
station; photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

In the summer of 1864, John W. Garrett, President of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, came to see General Lew Wallace. Mr. Garrett expressed concern for the safety of Washington (as well as his railroad). His personnel were reporting detachments of Confederate troops in the Shenandoah Valley and, according to him, such appearances were precursors of trouble. General Wallace decided to go to the western limit of his command, the Monocacy River, southwest of Frederick, Maryland. Upon his arrival at the blockhouse guarding the rail junction (Monocacy Junction) he found the country alive with rumor. A Confederate army, reported to be between 5,000 and 35,000 men strong, was thought to have crossed the Potomac River on the 2^nd or 3^{rd of} July. Its exact whereabouts and destination were both unknown. The civilians that General Wallace sent to gather information were turned back by rebel cavalry at every pass in the mountains west of Frederick. General Wallace believed this cavalry was screening a larger army.

Two miles north of the junction, a stone bridge called the Jug Bridge crossed the Monocacy, carrying the National Road that led to Baltimore. At the junction there was an iron railroad bridge and, a few hundred yards southwest of it, the wooden covered bridge of the Georgetown Pike, the road to Washington. Any invading army intent on Washington or Baltimore would have to come this way. After brief consideration, General Wallace believed that Washington was the objective. He began putting men in place. 

On July 9, 1864, 6,500 troops under the command of General Wallace met 14,000 battle–hardened veterans of the Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Jubal Early, on the farm fields near Monocacy Junction. Confederate troops held the field at day’s end, but Wallace and his men had delayed them long enough that reinforcements ultimately sent by Union General-in-Chief U.S. Grant would reach the lightly-defended U.S. capital just in time. Early’s plans to capture Washington were quashed. The battle of Monocacy is now known as the “battle that saved Washington.”

General Grant later wrote that Wallace had done more for the cause by losing this battle than many generals had accomplished by winning.

As the Battle of Monocacy loomed, the city of Washington panicked. One of the men in Wallace’s small army was Colonel William Seward, son of Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Henry Seward, and the commander of the hard-fighting Ninth New York Heavy Artillery. Seward’s regiment was in the middle of the Monocacy battle and according to Wallace’s official report the Ninth New York had 102 killed and wounded with 99 missing for a total of 201 casualties. Seward’s family, in Washington, received continuing reports from the battlefield and was well aware of Wallace’s valiant defense but ultimate defeat.

William Henry Seward, Jr.

The Secretary of State stayed at the War Department reading telegrams coming in from the battle until almost midnight. He had just returned home when Secretary of War Edwin Stanton arrived at the Seward residence to tell the family that there were reports that young William was wounded and taken prisoner. Colonel Seward’s brother, Augustus, left early the next day to go to Baltimore in an effort to ascertain the truth of the rumors. Based on reports he could gather, Augustus determined that his brother had been wounded, but not captured—although his whereabouts were unknown in the panic and chaos that was gripping both Washington and Baltimore.

By that evening there was a telegram at the Seward home from General Wallace: “I have the pleasure of contradicting my statement of last night. Colonel Seward is not a prisoner, and I am now told he is unhurt. He behaved with rare gallantry.” While Colonel Seward was reported safe on July 10, Washington definitely was not—Jubal Early’s veterans were marching on the city. On July 11, Early’s army arrived in front of Ft. Stevens, the northernmost fort in Washington’s defensive chain. Early could see the flag flying on the dome of the U.S. Capitol.

The city was in real jeopardy--Grant’s reinforcements had not yet arrived--but luck was on the Union side because Early delayed his attack. Grant’s reinforcements arrived on the night of the 11^th and battled with Early’s men on July 12. During this fighting, President Lincoln arrived at Ft. Stevens and insisted on watching the action from the ramparts. He was thus exposed to Confederate sharpshooters, who killed an officer standing nearby, whereupon the President was convinced to move off the walls.

As it turned out, Wallace’s information relayed to the Seward family was still not correct. Colonel Seward had in fact been injured. He suffered a slight wound to his arm and broke his leg when his horse was shot and fell on him during the battle. Seward was unable to walk off the battlefield and only escaped capture when he found a mule and, using his silk handkerchief as a bridle, was able to ride off the field ahead of the Confederates. Within eight weeks Seward was promoted to brigadier general and served throughout the remainder of the war. A banker before the war, General Seward returned to a successful career in banking after his time in the military. He followed politics, supported charitable causes, served as a director for a number of corporations, and was involved in historical and patriotic societies until his death in 1920, over 50 years after Lew Wallace’s battle that saved Washington—a battle that directly affected the outcome of the Civil War and likely changed the history of the nation.

Many years later General Wallace encountered one of the Confederate commanders, J. B. Gordon, at a White House reception. Gordon told Wallace he was the only Yankee who ever whipped him. Wallace replied that, in the end, his men ran from the field. “In that sense you are right,” Gordon countered, “but you snatched Washington out of our hands.”

Sources: Shadow of Shiloh, Gail Stephens, Indiana Historical Society Press, 2010

                Seward, Lincoln’s Indispensable Man, Walter Stahr, Simon & Schuster, 2012

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