[BIOGRAPHICAL.]
Benjamin Harrison, twenty-third President of the United States, was born Tuesday, August 20, 1833, at North Bend, Hamilton County, Ohio. He is the second son of the late John Scott and Elizabeth Irwin Harrison.
His father—the third son of President William Henry Harrison and Anna Symmes—was born at Vincennes, Indiana, was twice elected to Congress as a Democrat, from the Cincinnati district, and died in 1878.
General William Henry Harrison, ninth President of the United States, was the third son of a famous signer of the Declaration of Independence—Benjamin Harrison, of Virginia, and his wife Elizabeth Bassett. This Benjamin Harrison, "the signer," was one of the first seven delegates from Virginia to the Continental Congress. He reported the resolution for independence, was Speaker of the House of Burgesses, and was thrice elected Governor of Virginia, dying in 1791; he was the eldest son of Benjamin and Anna Carter Harrison, both of whom were descended from ancestors distinguished for their high character and their services to the colony of Virginia.
Ben Harrison's boyhood was passed upon his father's farm in Ohio. At the age of 14, with his elder brother Irwin, he attended Farmer's College at Cincinnati, preparatory to entering Miami University at Oxford, Ohio, from which institution he graduated in 1852.
He studied law in the office of Judge Belamy Storer at Cincinnati, and in March, 1854—with his bride, Miss Caroline W. Scott, to whom he was wedded October 20, 1853—he located at Indianapolis and began the practice of the law.
In 1860 he was elected reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court of Indiana, as a Republican, receiving 9,688 majority.
In July, 1862, he was commissioned by Gov. Oliver P. Morton as second lieutenant, and raised Company A of the Seventieth Indiana Volunteer Infantry, was commissioned captain, and on the organization of the regiment was commissioned colonel. In August his regiment entered the field and became a part of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the 20th Army Corps, Gen. W. T. Ward, of Kentucky, brigade commander. At the battle of Resaca, Sunday, May 15, 1864, the Seventieth Regiment led the brigade in a gallant charge, and its colonel signally distinguished himself, being among the first to scale the bloody parapet. He actively participated in the engagements at Cassville, New Hope Church, Gilgal Church, Kulps Hill, and Kenesaw. Following that great captain in the Atlanta campaign, initiatory to his famous march to the sea, Colonel Harrison at the battle of Peach Tree Creek, July 20, 1864, in the crisis of the fight, without awaiting orders, seized an important position and successfully resisted, at great loss, the terrific assaults of a large detachment of Hood's army. For this brilliant achievement, upon the recommendation of Major-General Joe Hooker, he was brevetted in March, 1865, by President Lincoln, a brigadier-general, to date from January 23, 1865.