Benét Family Papers

Brigadier General S. V. (Stephen Vincent) Benét was born 22 January 1827 in St. Augustine, Florida. He studied at Hallowell's school in Alexandria, Virginia and then at the University of Georgia and the United States Military Academy, where he graduated in 1849. He was appointed to the Ordnance Corps, and served at the Watervliet Arsenal, at Washington, at Frankford Arsenal, again at Washington, and then at the St. Louis Arsenal. In 1859 he became Assistant Professor of Geography, History, and Ethics at West Point, and from 1861 until 1864 was instructor of Ordnance and the Science of Gunnery. From 1865 until 1869 he was in command of Frankford arsenal. In 1869 he became Assistant to the Chief of Ordnance, and in 1874 he succeeded to Chief of Ordnance with the rank of Brigadier General. He translated Jomini's Political and Military History of the Campaign of Waterloo (New York, 1853) and he is the author of a treatise on "Military Law and the Practice of Courts-Martial" (1862) and "Electro-Ballistic Machines and the Schultze Chronoscope" (1866).

He married Laura Amanda Walker and together they had two sons, James Walker Benét and Laurence Vincent Benét.

James Walker Benét (1857-1928), a Colonel in the U.S. Army, was born 16 July, 1857 in Richmond, Kentucky. He graduated from West Point Academy in 1880 and went on to serve most of his military career in the Army Ordnance Department. From 1890 until his retirement in 1921, he served at the Frankford Arsenal, Philadelphia (1890-1984); Bethlehem Iron Works, South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (1894-1898); Ordnance Headquarters, Buffalo, New York (1898-1899); Watervliet Arsenal, New York (1904-1905, 1919-1921); Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois (1904-1905), Benicia Arsenal, California (1905-1911), and Augusta Arsenal, Georgia (1911-1918).

James Walker Benét married Frances Neill Rose (1860-1940) of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1883. Ms. Rose, born 23 October, 1860 in Washington, D.C., was the child of William John Rose and Mary Lee Mahon. She attended Mrs. Sutton's School for Girls. Their children include authors Laura Benét, William Rose Benét, and Stephen Vincent Benét.

Laura Benét (1884-1979) was educated at the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York, and at Vassar and Moravian colleges. She worked at the Spring Street Settlement in New York City from 1915 to 1917 and at the American Red Cross in Augusta, Georgia from 1917 to 1919. She later took on editorial and free-lance writing assignments. She was the author of several poetry collections, fiction, and biographical works.

William Rose Benét (1886-1950) was educated at Albany Academy and Yale College (1903-1907). After college, Benét worked for Century Magazine as a reader. He served in the U.S. Air Services during the First World War, and after the war took work as a copy writer for an advertising firm. In 1920, Henry Seidel Canby brought Benét on as an assistant editor at the New York Evening Post and in 1923, Canby, Benét, and their fellow editors left the Post to form the Saturday Review.

William Rose Benét was the author of several collections of poetry, a novel, and a collection of essays. His autobiography in verse, The Dust Which Is God (1941), was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1942. In addition to his long-standing (1923-1950) position with the Saturday Review, Benét contributed to several compilations of English-language poetry and literature.

William Rose Benét married four times, to: Teresa Frances Thomson (1912-1919), with whom he had three children, James Walker Benét (1914-2012), Kathleen Anne (Benét) Fry, and Frances Rosemary (Benét) Dawson; poet Elinor Wylie (1923-1928); actress Lora Baxter (1932-1937); and children's book author Majorie Flack (1941-1950).

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943), educated at Summerville Academy and Yale College (1915-1919), was a well known and widely read author in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. After the success of his long poem, John Brown's Body (1928), for which he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1929, he regularly published poems, short stories, and other work in popular magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and The Saturday Evening Post. His short story, "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1936) was awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award in 1937. In addition to poetry and short stories, he is the author of novels, book reviews, essays, radio and stage plays, screenplays, and speeches.

Stephen Vincent Benét and Rosemary Carr married in 1921. They had three children, Thomas, Stephanie Jane, and Rachel.

Biographical information taken from Arlington National Cemetary website and other sources.