In the closing days of the month, the Union forces in Missouri under Brig. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis organized in what was to become the Army of the Southwest. Rather than join with one of the four new divisions on their march into Arkansas, Curtis assigned Benteen’s cavaliers as his headquarters bodyguard. In that capacity, Frederick forged a friendship with Curtis’s Commissary of Subsistence, an outspoken West Point captain named Philip H. Sheridan.

For most of his first two years of military service, Frederick Benteen engaged his cavalry against ‘bushwackers’, irregulars, and local guerrilla bands in the areas in and around Missouri. A thoroughly respected and well-regarded leader, Benteen drew from those experiences lessons that would serve him so well in later years. Ironically, perhaps, Benteen mastered the art of irregular warfare long before he would take to the Great Plains during the Indian wars.

In August 1862, as General Ulysses S. Grant brought the Army of the Tennessee to bear on Vicksburg, Benteen’s battalion launched an assault against the Confederate supply vessel Fair Play. The converted luxury steamboat, used primarily to transport quartermaster stores from Mississippi to fragmentary forces in Louisiana and southern Arkansas, was reportedly carrying a large shipment of weapons and ammunition. The ship’s manifest listed her chief engineer as Theodore C. ‘Charley’ Benteen.

With Frederick Benteen leading the way, the Union cavalry captured Fair Play, destroyed a Confederate supply depot along the shore, and routed the rebel forces garrisoned there. His father, who knew nothing of Frederick’s role in his capture, spent the duration of the war in a Federal prison; Union troops released Charley Benteen’s crewmates at Helena, Ark.

Shortly after the Fair Play incident, the 1st Missouri Cavalry reorganized into the 9th Missouri Cavalry. In December, the regiment joined with the 28th Missouri Volunteers, becoming the 10th Missouri Cavalry. On December 11, 1862, under the provisions of Special Order 218, Frederick Benteen was promoted to second major of the regiment. Benteen’s close friend, William J. DeGress took Benteen’s captaincy in C Company two days later.

On February 15, 1863, the 10th Missouri Cavalry joined with the Army of the Tennessee at Grant’s forward command post at Corinth, Mississippi. Soon after arriving, a long-running feud erupted between the regimental lieutenant colonel, William D. Bowen, and the senior major, Thomas Hynes, resulting in the court-martial of the latter. Hynes never returned to duty with the 10th Missouri and Benteen became the senior major of the regiment.

In July 1863, Grant finally took Vicksburg, the Army of the Potomac found victory at Gettysburg, and Kate Benteen gave birth to the couple’s first child, Caroline Elizabeth, in St. Louis (sadly, she would die before reaching her first year). On July 7, Bowen’s ongoing and continual war with the officers of the regiment left Benteen in command of the 10th Missouri. He wasted no time, leading the regiment in its first true taste of regular combat in a minor, yet spectacular, cavalry clash at Iuka. Benteen’s bravery and audacity earned a singular commendation from the Union cavalry commander, Colonel Florence M. Cornyn. It would not be the last time Frederick Benteen received official accolades for his ability to lead troops in battle.

Success continued to follow Frederick Benteen and, on February 27, 1864, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and commander of the 10th Missouri Cavalry. April brought new reorganization and the regiment joined the 3rd and 4th Iowa Cavalry under the colors of Brig. Gen. Edward F. Winslow’s brigade. The reorganization would remain unchanged until the end of the war.

On October 22, a gunshot wound to Winslow’s left leg resulted in Benteen taking command of the brigade in the midst of battle at Westport, Mo. Benteen led his brigade in a charge that broke through Confederate lines and came within moments of trapping J.O. Shelby’s brigade. Three days later, Benteen’s 1,300 cavaliers routed a Confederate division of 7,000 men north of Mine Creek; Benteen himself had the right skirt of his overcoat shot off when, during the cavalry charge, he took his mount over one of the rebel guns.

As the pursuit of the retreating Confederates began, General Curtis drafted a letter to Willard P. Hall, the Union governor of Missouri, urging his support in securing a brigadier’s commission for Frederick Benteen. On November 23, Governor Hall forwarded his recommendation to President Lincoln, noting that he had already nominated Benteen as a Brigadier General of the Enrolled Militia of Missouri. Sadly, Benteen would remain a lieutenant colonel for the remainder of the war.

Even as Governor Hall penned his letter to the president, the 10th Missouri Cavalry was steaming from St. Louis to join the Cavalry Corps, Military Division of the Mississippi, at Clarksville, Tennessee. The commanding general of this new organization, a 27-year-old West Pointer named James Harrison Wilson, was to become Benteen’s mentor in the coming months.

Wilson’s raid into the Deep South marked the defeat of the last organized Confederate resistance. From Nashville, Wilson’s divisions marched into Alabama and soundly defeated the rebel stronghold of Selma, taking the city as the president lay dying in Washington. The following afternoon, they continued the march into Columbus, Georgia, then on to Atlanta, where Benteen would garrison his forces.

On June 7, 1865, Wilson recommended that Benteen be brevetted brigadier general for gallant and meritorious service. He specifically noted Benteen’s distinguished and conspicuous bravery in the official reports dispatched to the War Department. But the war was over and the Army was in the process of being dismantled. In Washington, Wilson’s request was noted and ignored.

Yet, Frederick Benteen felt no slight. In just four short years, he had risen from a sign painter to a regimental commander of cavalry. He personally led one of the largest cavalry charges of the war at Mine Creek. The War Department denied his promotion simply because the war ended before his turn came.

In Atlanta, Wilson became the military governor of Georgia and his cavalry corps, the largest cavalry force of the war, was disbanded. On 23 June 1865, Benteen reported to Macon to clarify another change not reflected in the orders deactivating the 10th Missouri Cavalry: Frederick W. Benteen was to be promoted to colonel and given command of one of the new volunteer units to garrison postwar Atlanta.

Most Civil War veterans wanted to go home. Benteen’s experiences during the war, combined with Wilson’s influence and guidance, convinced him to remain in the military. The prospect of returning to a sign painter’s life in St. Louis no longer appealed to him. Benteen saw the promise of the future in his new assignment.

To Benteen’s surprise, however, his new command would consist of the former slaves that followed the march of Wilson’s Cavalry Corps through Alabama and Georgia. Benteen was a Southerner by birth, his father a slave owner, and his personal association with slaves and servants undoubtedly prejudiced. Yet, if he was to enjoy a postwar military career, he could not reject the opportunity.

On July 15, Benteen mustered into the 138th United States Colored Troops (USCT) in Nashville; four days later, he resigned from the 10th Missouri Cavalry. The tour in Atlanta was pleasurable for Frederick and Kate. They purchased a home in the city and a former plantation south of the city. On January 6, 1866, the 138th USCT was disbanded and Benteen became a civilian once again.

By summer, with Congress in the midst of expanding the Regular Army to meet the security requirements of an expanding frontier, Benteen was seriously considering returning to the military. The Army Act passed on July 28 authorized 30 new regiments, four of which were cavalry; the 9th and 10th Cavalry were designated ‘colored’ units while the 7th and 8th Cavalry were segregated for white recruits. In September, Benteen applied for a Regular Army commission in one of the regiments.

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