P. W. Alexander was a former staffer of General Robert E. Lee.
Henry Lewis Benning was born in Columbia County, Georgia, the son of Pleasant Moon Benning and Malinda Meriwether White, planters. In 1834 he graduated with honors from the University of Georgia, Athens. Soon afterward he moved to Columbus, where he was admitted to the bar. Barely two years after entering upon his profession, Benning was appointed solicitor general for his judicial circuit. in 1839 he married Mary Howard Jones, daughter of a prominent Columbus attorney with whom Benning formed a partnership. They had ten children. A slavery and states' rights advocate in the mold of John C. Calhoun, Benning was an avid secessionist more than a decade before the Civil War began. In 1850 he called on Georgia to leave the Union and join a southern republic whose government would be controlled by deep south politicians. Despite Benning's efforts, Georgia repudiated secession and the following year rejected his congressional bid as a southern rights Democrat. In 1853 Benning was appointed an associate justice of the state supreme court... he recruited and organized the Seventeenth Georgia Infantry and was elected its colonel. On 23 April 1863 Benning received an overdue promotion to brigadier general... After the war, Benning returned to Georgia. -- National Biography Online http://www.anb.org (Retrived April 28, 2009)
From the description of P.W. Alexander letter to Henry L. Benning, 1872 July 7. (University of Georgia). WorldCat record id: 632338814
