American Civil War Monuments 

Ben Hardin Helm, CSA 

South Loop, Kentucky Avenue, between Union and Confederate Avenues

Vicksburg Military Park 

Photo Courtesy of LCWRT Member Paul Fridell

At Vicksburg, there are 4 very large busts on the South Loop of Kentucky Avenue. This one, erected in 1914, at a cost of $650 for the bronze, honors Ben Hardin Helm, and might be more in place at Chickamauga, where he died Sept. 21, 1863. Here at Vicksburg, he was not actively engaged, but “near the end of the spring of 1863, Breckenridge ordered Helm to deploy the brigade to Vicksburg, Mississippi to participate in General Joseph E. Johnston's unsuccessful attempt to break the siege”. Helm is buried in the Helm Family Cemetery, Elizabethtown, KY. Today, he is mostly remembered as Abraham Lincoln’s brother-in-law. 

Plaque: 

BEN HARDIN HELM

Brig. General C.S. Army

Commanding Ken. Brigade

Breckinridge's Division

Johnston's Army

Cadet U.S. Military Academy 1847

2nd Lt. U.S. Army March 31, 1852

Resigned October 9, 1852

Col. 1st Ken. Cav. Oct. 5, 1861

Brig. Gen. C.S. Army Mar. 14, 1862

Mortally wd. in battle Sept. 20, 1863