Lew Wallace

Biography

Lew Wallace, son of Indiana’s governor, grew up in Indianapolis where he first took up the law. He fought in the Mexican–American War before being elected to the state Senate. When the Civil War erupted, he returned to the battlefield, rising to major general and famously thwarting Confederate General Jubal Early’s 1864 assault on Washington, D.C. After the war, Wallace was appointed governor of the New Mexico Territory and later served as U.S. minister to Turkey. An avid writer, he produced many works, but his enduring legacy rests on *Ben‑Hur: A Tale of the Christ*, which debuted as a Broadway play and was adapted into film several times, the 1959 version being the most celebrated.