Maj. Gen. Benjamin H. Grierson (1826-1911), a Pennsylvania native, was a U.S. Army officer who led a lengthy raid through the South during the Civil War. His force of 1,700 men successfully destroyed Confederate property, took numerous prisoners, and ruined rail lines that disrupted supply lines. After the war, he remained in the U.S. Army and headed a regiment of so-called Buffalo Soldiers, troops comprised of black and white men, in campaigns against Native Americans in the West. He went on to command numerous forts until his retirement in 1890.
