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(1823 - 1887)
Home State: South Carolina
Education: Harvard Law School
Branch of Service: Staff
Unit: Ripley's Brigade
Before Sharpsburg
He inherited Rice Hope Plantation on the Cooper River at Monck's Corner, Charleston (now Berkeley) County, SC on the death of his father in 1859, growing rice with at least 130 slaves on about 2,000 acres. He mustered in Charleston, SC on 17 April 1861 as First Lieutenant of Company B, DeSaussure's (SC) Cavalry Squadron, South Carolina Army, and joined General Roswell Ripley on 2 September 1862 as Captain and Assistant Adjutant General (AAG).
On the Campaign
He was with the brigade in Maryland and mentioned by General Ripley in his after-action report:
Captain B. H. Read and Lieutenant H. H. Rogers, acting on my staff, rendered, throughout the operations, valuable and efficient service. Captain Read remained on the field [at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862] after I had been disabled.
The rest of the War
His appointment as Captain and AAG was confirmed 13 October (to date from 2 September) 1862. He was with the General in the 1st Military District of SC to February 1864, then at Headquarters, Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida to at least September 1864.
After the War
He sold Rice Hope Plantation in 1875.
References & notes
His service basics from Krick,1 his Confederate Officer's Index Card, and his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860. His gravesite is on Findagrave.
He married Mary Julia Middleton (1829-1904) in February 1854 and they had 4 children.
Probably named for his great-uncle Congressman Benjamin Huger (1768-1823). His mother was Emily Ann Huger.
More on the Web
A beautifully restored classical couch he owned is now in the collection of Colonial Williamsburg.
Birth
03/17/1823 in SC
Death
10/12/1887; Henderson County, NC; burial in Calvary Episcopal Church Cemetery, Fletcher, NC
1 Krick, Robert E.L., Staff Officers in Gray; A Biographical Register of the Staff Officers in the Army of Northern Virginia, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003, p. 250 [AotW citation 34022]
2 US War Department, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, Record Group No. 109 (War Department Collection of Confederate Records), Washington DC: US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), 1903-1927 [AotW citation 34023]