Booknotes: An Ornament to His Country

New Arrival:

• An Ornament to His Country: The Life and Military Career of Benjamin Franklin Davis by Sharon A. Murray (Author, 2023).

After a long period of undue neglect, an impressive amount of detailed coverage of eastern theater Union cavalry leaders and operations has been published over the past two decades. This recent body of literature has exposed readers to a number of brigade and division commanders whose abilities and contributions are deserving of wider recognition. One of the those individuals is Benjamin Franklin "Grimes" Davis, his life and military career the focus of Antietam battlefield guide Sharon Murray's self-published biography An Ornament to His Country.

Born and raised in the Deep South (in Alabama and Mississippi), Davis was a West Point grad who elected to remain loyal to the United States during the Civil War. Comprising roughly a third of the book, there is substantial coverage of Davis's early life, his service as an underage teen soldier doing mostly guard duty during the War with Mexico, his West Point education, and his antebellum Regular Army service in Texas, California, and New Mexico Territory. Those sections are followed by accounts of his early Civil War period service in the First California Volunteer Cavalry, First US Cavalry, and as the colonel of the 8th New York cavalry regiment.

From the description: "A brave, daring and resourceful officer," Davis "was commended for his action at the May 4, 1862 Battle of Williamsburg and was instrumental in facilitating the exodus of the U.S. Cavalry from Harpers Ferry on September 14, 1862 during the Maryland Campaign. Davis was recognized for his stellar leadership during the fall 1862 campaign in Virginia including the November 5 Battle of Barbee's Crossroads. He was leading a brigade in Buford's Division during the opening salvos of the Battle of Brandy Station when he was mortally wounded." The 31-year-old Davis died on June 9, 1863, and it was John Buford that eulogized him with the phrase that became the title of this biography.

Numerous illustrations and ten maps are sprinkled about. I've often wondered where the "Grimes" nickname came from. According to Murray, the nickname emerged during his West Point days (by whom and why it was conferred being both unknowns) and was one "affectionately" used by his friends from then onward.

Of course, we can never know for certain how high Davis might have risen among the Union Army's cavalry leadership, but one can imagine a possible divisional command in his future had he lived to see the campaigns of 1864-65. Little remembered today outside of eastern theater cavalry scholars and enthusiasts, Davis remains a mostly obscure Civil War figure. Murray's biography represents an "attempt to correct that oversight and give Davis his just due."