of the Chattahoochoe circuit, and in 1853 became one of the justices of the supreme court of the state. In Auffust, 18G1, he was ajipointeil colonel of the 17th Oeorpia reRinient, and in the followinjir year was promoted brigadier-general, takina: part in the battles of Antietam. Fredericksburg. Gettys- burg. Chickauiauga, and the Wilderness. Gen. Benning was in command of his brigade at the surrender of Loe's army, after which h6 resumed the practice of law in Columbus, in partnership with his father-in-law. Col. Seaborn .Tones.
BENTLEY, Charles Eugene, clergyman and
politician, b. in Warner's, Onondaga co., N. Y.,
30 April. 1841. He studied at the Monroe insti-
tute and Oneida conference seminary. Until 1863
he lived on a farm, but in 1866 lie removed to
Clinton, Towa. anil in 1878 he moved to Butler
county, Nebraska, where he engaged in farming
and in preaching as a Baptist minister. In 1880
he became pastor of a church at Surprise. Neb.
He took an active interest in the Prohibition party
in the state, serving as chairman of the state con-
vention in 1884. and also as caTididate for repre-
sentative in congress, for governor, and for TJ. S.
senator, in none of which was he successful. In
Way. 1896. the Prohibition party split at its con-
vention at Pittsburg. Pa., on the question of the
nature of the platform. The majority or "narrow-gauge" report declared for prohibition alone
as a party issue: the minority report called for
planks in the platform in favor of free coinage,
government control of railroads and telegraphs, an
income tax. etc.. and the party of the minority,
about two hundred in number, withdrew from tlie
convention hall and nominated Bentley for presi-
dent and James Haywood Southgate, of North
Carolina, for vice-president, as candidates of the
National or Ijiborty party.
BERDAN, Hiram, inventor, b. in Plvniouth,
Mich., aljnut 1823 : d. in Wivshington, D'. C, 31
March, 1893. His father owned a stock-farm near
Rochester, N. Y., where tlie son was brought up.
He showed a taste for practical mechanics in early
boyhood. He also attained great skill as a marks-
man, and in April. 1861, was made colonel of the
1st regiment of U. S. sharpshooters, which he had
organized. The regiment was armed with a re-
peating rifle of his invention, the first of the kind
to be put into actual service. Col. Berdan was
brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers for his
conduct at Chancellorsville and major-general for
Gettysburg. After the close of the civil war he
went to Russia and sfient several years in superin-
tending the manufacture of his rifle there for the
Russian government. In 1888 he returned and
sued the United States for 1500,000 for infringing
his patents in the Springfield rifle; and in 1893
the court of claims awarded him .flOO.OOO. Be-
sides his rifle. Gen. Berdan invented a twin-screw,
armored, submarine gunboat; a long-distance
range-finder; a torpedo-boat for evading torpedo-
nets ; and a distance fuse for shrapnel shells.
BERENDT, Karl Hermann, scientist, b. in
Dantzic, 12 Nov., 1817; d. in Guatemala city,
Central America, 12 May, 1878. He studied at
various German universities, receiving his degree of
M. D. at Königsberg in 1842. In 1843 he began
practice at Breslau and also acted as privat-docent
in surgery and obstetrics at the university. In 1848
he was a member of the Vor-Parlament at Frankfurt.
His political sympathies forced him to remove
to America in 1851. He proceeded from New York
to Nicaragua, and spent two years in the study of
the ethnography, geography, and natural history
of that section. Two years later he moved to
Orizaba, Mexico, and thence to Vera Cruz, where
he remained from 1855 to 1862. He then gave up
medicine and devoted himself to natural science,
linguistics, and ethnology, paying special attention
to the Mayan tribes. He spent a year in
Tabasco, and thence came in 1863 to the United
States. Here he devoted the greater part of the
following year in copying manuscripts in the
Carter Brown library. At the request of the
Smithsonian institution he visited Yucatan; the
results of this visit are published in its report for
1867. In 1869 he explored the ruins of ancient
Centla, in the plains of Tabasco. He visited the
United States several times between this date
and 1876, his last visit. In 1874 he settled at
Coban, Vera Paz, partly to study the Maya
dialects of the region and partly to raise tobacco.
At the request of the Berlin museum he spent a
winter in securing and forwarding the sculptured
slabs of Santa Lucia de Cozumaljualpa,
Guatemala; but an attack of fever terminated his work.
He contributed many articles in English, German,
and Spanish to such works as Petermann's
“Mittheilungen” and the “Deutsch-Amerikanisches
Conversations-Lexicon.” Among his
published works are “Analytical Alphabet for the
Mexican and Central American Languages” (New
York, 1869); “Los escritos de D. Joaquin Garcia
Icazbalceta” (Merida, 1870); “Los trabajos
linguisticos de Don Pio Perez” (Mexico, 1871);
“Cartilla en lengua Maya” (Merida, 1871); “El
ramie” (1871); “On a Grammar and Dictionary
of the Carib or Karif Language,” in the
Smithsonian report for 1873; “Die Indianer des Isthmus
von Tehuantepec” in “Zeitschrift für Ethnologie”
for 1873; “The Darien Language,” in the “American
Historical Record” for 1874. Much of his
work is unpublished; some manuscripts are in
the library of the bureau of ethnology at
Washington and others in a private collection.
BERKOWITZ, Henry, clergyman, b. in Pitts-
burg, Pa.. 18 March, 1857. lie entered Cornell,
but was unable to complete the course. While
studying law he obtained a scholarship in the
Hebrew union college at Cincinnati when it was
first opened for the education of Jewish ministers
in 1875. He was graduated at McMieken univer-
sity in 1881 and at the Hebrew college in 1883,
and was one of the first to receive the new degrees
of bachelor of Hebrew and rabbi. Prior to his
his ordination he received a call from the Jewish
congregation at Mobile, and entered upon his
duties there on 1 Sept., 1883. He was one of the
founders of the Conference of rabbis of the south,
and has been secretary of that body since 1886.
He introduced the work of the American humane
society into Alabama, and has been vice-president
of the Mobile society since 1886. and of the na-
tional association since 1887. He was appointed
a trustee of the Hebrew college in 1884. and be-
came rabbi of the congregation at Kansas City,
Mo., in May, 1888. He received the degree of
D. D. from the Hebrew union college in 1887.
Dr. Berkowitz was associated with Rabbi Joseph
Krauskopf, of Philadelphia, in the authorship of
"The First Hebrew Union IJe.ider," " Second He-
brew Union Reader," and "Bible Ethics: A Manual
of Instruction in the History and Principles of
Judaism " : and published "Judaism on the Social
Question " (New Vork. 1888).
BERMUDEZ, Remigo Morales, president of Peru, b. in the province of Tarapaca. 30 Sept., 1836; d. in Lima. 31 March. 1894. His education was slight, and he early engaged in the nitrate trade in his native province. Joining the revolu-
