Elkanah Bent (died 1866) was a US Army major during the Mexican-American War and a smuggler during the American Civil War. The illegitimate son of Senator Charles Edwards, Bent utilized his father's connections to become a West Point cadet and later an officer in the Mexican war; however, he was also infamous for his womanizing, his cruelty, his hot temper, and his arrogance, as he believed himself to be a "military genius" and later harbored ambitions of overthrowing Confederate president Jefferson Davis and becoming the emperor of a slave-holding empire. After his West Point rival Orry Main thwarted his blockade-running enterprise and his attempted coup against Davis, Bent embarked on a revenge journey that left Main and George Hazard's wife Constance dead, only to be tracked down and killed by George Hazard and Orry's cousin Charles Main in 1866.
Biography[]
Bent as an instructor
Elkanah Bent was born in Georgia, the illegitimate son of US Senator Charles Edwards. Using his father's political influence, he became a West Point instructor during the early 1840s and antagonized Ned Fisk for his abolitionist sympathies, George Hazard for his belief that the East was superior to the South, and Orry Main for South Carolina's sense of superiority over Georgia. Bent was forced to leave the academy after his enemies arranged for him to be caught with the prostitute Alice Peet, but he later blackmailed his father into giving him a superior rank during the war with Mexico. At the 1847 Battle of Churubusco, he ordered Main and Hazard to lead a suicidal charge against the Mexican Army, resulting in Main being wounded and permanently crippled. Bent would acquire a reputation as "Bent the Butcher" in Monterrey and was also rumored to have shot his own men in the back.
After the war, George located Bent and beat him, threatening to kill him if he ever tried to harm them again. During the Civil War, Bent smuggled forbidden luxury goods through the US Navy blockade of the South and became lovers with Ashton, the wife of politician James Huntoon. Eventually, Orry Main discovered his illegal smuggling operation and captured his blockade runners, arrested his men, and destroyed most of his merchandise. Bent decided to carry out his revenge against Orry with the help of Ashton, blackmailing Orry's wife Madeline Fabray LaMotte Main into leaving the Mont Royal Plantation lest they reveal her partial Black ancestry. He later attempted to kill Madeline in Charleston, killing her gambler friend Rafe Baudeen but ultimately being fought off. He was arrested for treason for his involvement in Huntoon's planned coup against Jefferson Davis, and he was apparently killed when a barn containing ammunition was set on fire by Huntoon and Ashton. In the summer of 1865, Bent had his revenge by murdering Orry in Richmond and George Hazard's wife Constance Flynn in Philadelphia, but Charles Main and George Hazard ultimately tracked him down to the West and hanged him for his crimes.
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