Benjamin L. Beall

Benjamin Lloyd Beall, (1801–1863), U. S. Army officer, who served in the U.S. Cavalry, in the antibellum Indian Wars, Mexican American War, and American Civil War.

Beall was born at Ft. Adams in Rhode Island in the year 1800. His father, Lloyd Beall, was a career officer, who in 1814, was a Major of Artillery stationed at Ft. McHenry. His two brothers, Lloyd James Beall and John were to become officers in the army. On March 25, 1814, at age thirteen years and five months, Ben was admitted to West Point. In June 1818, Cadet Benjamin Beall was ranked 16th out of 19 cadets in his section. Despite having spent four years at the Military Academy, he was placed in the third (sophomore) class. So he decided to take his leave—without permission. On October 16, 1818, the post adjutant ordered that “due to his absence without leave, Cadet Beall be discharged from the Institution and his name . . . dropped from the rolls accordingly." This was not to be the end of the military career of Benjamin Lloyd Beall. In 1818, with the aid of some influential friends of his late father, Beall secured a clerkship with the War Department, where he would remain there for the next 18 years.Benjamin Lloyd Beall, was born in 1801 in Washington, D.C., the son of Lloyd Beall a career artillery officer in the United States Army. Benjamin Beall was admitted to the United States Military Academy at West Point on January 1, 1814. Beall would recount how he arrived at the Military Academy a brash youth, fully "equipped with a pointer and a liquor flask." Beall described his new cadet uniform as consisting of an "embroidered coat, tights, high top boots with tassels, cocked hat & sword" and mentioned how he almost got into a fist-fight in New York with a street urchin who had taunted him by "singing out 'there goes a middy on half pay.'" (Staff Records, (Proceedings of the Academic Board) U.S. Military Academy for June 1818, U.S. Military Academy Cadet Application Papers, 1805-1866 and Orders of the Adjutant for 16 October 1818, U.S. Military Academy, NARA RG 688. See also George Stammerjohan and Will Gorenfeld, ‘”Dropped from the Rolls: The West Point Years of Benjamin Beall: 1814-1818”, Military Collector & Historian, Spring 2002, vol. 54, no. 1, 16.)

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