Lieutenant Samuel Nicoll Benjamin, commander of the artillery at Fort Sanders and, in fact, of the fort itself during the Confederate attack, later married a daughter of Hamilton Fish of New York City.

President Grant chose Fish, a former governor of New York and a former U.S. senator, as his secretary of state in 1869, a post Fish held until 1877—making him Grant’s longest serving cabinet officer.

Lieutenant Benjamin’s widow was in attendance when her father died at home in 1893, according to historian Allan Nevins. Benjamin had died seven years previously, as a retired Army lieutenant colonel.