Helm, Emily Todd, 1836-1930.

Resident, Elizabethtown, Kentucky; half sister to Mary Todd Lincoln; wife of Ben Hardin Helm.

Biographical note: Emily (Emilie) Todd Helm was the wife of Confederate General Benjamin Hardin Helm, and half-sister of Mary Todd Lincoln. She was born in Lexington, Kentucky on November 11, 1836, one of nine children of Robert Smith Todd and his second wife, Elizabeth Humphreys. Todd had seven children by his first wife, Eliza Parker, including future First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln.

Benjamin Hardin Helm was born in Elizabethtown, Kentucky on June 2, 1831, son of future Kentucky Governor John Larue Helm. Benjamin Helm graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1851, but resigned his commision the following year for health reasons. He studied law at the University of Louisville and later at Harvard. He practiced law in Elizabethtown and later Louisville until the outbreak of the Civil War. Emilie Todd and Benjamin Helm were married in 1856 and had three children, Benjamin, Jr., Elodie, and Katherine.

Despite political differences, the Helms had a close relationship with Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln. Helm declined a commission in the Union Army offered to him by President Lincoln. After briefly supporting neutrality for Kentucky, Helm became a colonel in the Confederate Army's First Kentucky Cavalry.

Following the Battle of Shiloh, he was promoted to brigadier general. Early in 1863, he assumed command of the First Kentucky Brigade, known as the "Orphan Brigade." He was mortally wounded in September 1863, while leading troops in the Battle of Chickamauga.

Mrs. Helm was an active member of the Daughters of the Confederacy and took part in many military reunions. She became known as the "Mother" of the Orphan Brigade. She served as postmistress in Elizabethtown from 1883 to 1895. She later moved to Lexington, where she died in 1930 at the age of ninety-three.