Stephen Vincent Benet, the Commanding Officer’s Quarters and Benicia’s literary legacy

BACK IN SEPTEMBER 2001, just a few days before the eleventh day of that month became “9/11,” The Benicia Herald published my column called “Commandant’s Residence Must Be Restored.” Thirteen years later, the Commanding Officer’s Quarters in the Benicia Arsenal has been restored, thanks to donations, city and state money and the work of Benicia Parks and Community Services Superintendent/Project Manager Rick Knight. Now the COQ may be embarking on a new use as entrepreneur Carter Rankin seeks to open its doors to independent professionals who need flexible office space.

As we ponder the COQ’s future we have a chance next month to learn more about its past. On Oct. 5, the Benicia State Capitol will host a celebration of the most famous former occupants of the COQ, the Benet family, including son Stephen Vincent Benet, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning epic poem, “John Brown’s Body,” President John F. Kennedy’s favorite book.

The event will include the opening of the Benicia State Parks Association’s new exhibit, “The Literary Life in Benicia’s Arsenal: The Benet Years in Benicia, 1905-1911,” which will illustrate the fact that, during the years Colonel James Walker Benet was in command in Benicia, six future poets and writers surrounded him — among them four future winners of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, a future recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature and the authors of countless future best sellers.

Given the above, I’m resurrecting information from that column in 2001, information that may be of more interest now than it was back then. The focus of the column was an intriguing connection linking Stephen Vincent Benet’s childhood years living in the COQ, his poem “John Brown’s Body” and the book “Gone With the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell.

In 1905, when Benet was 7 years old, his family moved to Benicia. His father Colonel Benet, according to Stephen’s biographer, improved the grounds surrounding the COQ and extended “the natural charm” of the place. One visitor, UC-Berkeley professor and future Pulitzer Prize winner Leonard Bacon, remembered: “It wasn’t like an arsenal. It was like the back-drop of a romantic play, all pepper trees and acacias, and fountains and pillared porches.”

Young Stephen’s new home overflowed with books and was filled, often, with interesting guests — in addition to Bacon, there was the future Nobel Prize winner, red-haired “Red” (Sinclair) Lewis, and the future author of countless romance best sellers, Kathleen Thompson Norris. And then, of course, there were Stephen’s older brother and sister—William, a future Pulitzer Prize winner, and Laura, who would write more than thirty books for young people.

Stephen lived an almost idyllic life in Benicia. “There were books to read, evening games in the broad (great) room, horses to ride and the limitless excitements of the Post itself.”

As Benet wrote later: “I came from California and had been very happy there.”

In 1917, while a student at Yale, Benet remembered his Benicia years as a happy, imaginative time. In a poem published in the Yale literary magazine he saw himself “back in the great room … curled in a chair” with all his family nearby, “and the whole world a rush of happy voices.” Again he smelled “eves of perfume” and saw “days ablaze/with clear, dry heat on the brown rolling fields.” And he recalled at bedtime, safe in his room, “shudder(ing) with fearful ecstasy … over a book of knights and bloody shields.”

Then there is his description of the COQ as: “the big house, with the big porch and all California outside.”

As an adult Benet published numerous novels, short stories and collections of poetry. His work earned two Pulitzer Prizes and the O. Henry Award for the best short story of the year in 1932, 1937 and 1940. One of his short stories became the musical “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” Another, “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” became an opera and two movies, most recently a version starring Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins with Dan Aykroyd and Kim Cattrell.

In 1998, to mark Benet’s 100th birthday, a U.S. first-class postage stamp was issued in his honor. On this stamp, a boyish-looking Benet stands in front of a line of Civil War soldiers. Which brings us to our first “connection”: Benet lived in the post-Civil War-era Benicia Arsenal where, as he grew older, his father “talked endlessly to him … of the Civil War.” — talks that included discussions of his two grandfathers, who fought on opposite sides in that war.

“John Brown’s Body,” of course, is about the Civil War, which brings us to our second “connection.” The book-length poem was published in 1928. In the summer of that year, Peggy Marsh (also known as Margaret Mitchell) was herself busy writing a rambling novel about the Civil War.

One day Mitchell’s friend Frank Daniel, a book reviewer for the local newspaper, came to visit. He wanted to discuss his current assignment, “John Brown’s Body.” Daniel praised Benet’s work, then insisted on reading passages to Marsh.

As he read — according to Mitchell’s biographer — Peggy was so moved by “the eloquence and horror and superb craftsmanship” of the poem that she asked Daniel to stop reading, “fearing she would lose her nerve to continue her book.”

But Daniel kept reading “in spite of the fact,” as Peggy later recalled, “that I had flung myself on the sofa and stuck my fingers in my ears and screamed protests. I had to read it all then. The result was that I wondered how anybody could have the courage to write about the war after Mr. Benet had done it so beautifully.”

At least one scene in Peggy’s book — called “Gone With the Wind” and published eight years later — mirrors a scene in “John Brown’s Body.” In both books a Yankee soldier visits a southern plantation home already ransacked by the Union. In each, the lady of the house stops the Yankee; each woman has, for the first time, lifted a gun to protect her home. Further, the event that triggers this feminine bravery occurs when each Yankee discovers a sewing kit. In Benet’s work the Yankee finds an “old workbasket” containing “a pair of little gold-mounted scissors.” In Mitchell’s, the Yankee holds a “small rosewood sewing box fitted with gold thimble (and) gold-handled scissors.”

After “Gone With the Wind” was published, Benet wrote a review of the book. Mitchell was so pleased with Benet’s comments that she wrote him a seven-page thank-you letter: “I must admit that when I heard that you were to review me my heart sank. I suppose that needs some explanation … Your ‘John Brown’s Body’ is my favorite poem, my favorite book. I know more of it by heart than I do any other poetry. It means more to me, is realer than anything I’ve ever read by any poet, bar none, and I’ve read an awful lot of poetry …”

And so it went, from Benicia’s sun-browned Arsenal with its shade trees and Civil War-era buildings, to a stirring epic poem, to a world-famous novel and movie. Often in life, who can tell how thoughts and words might influence the future? Here’s a tiny bit of evidence that past thoughts and words, arising in our own former Arsenal, touched the world.

If You Go
Portions of “John Brown’s Body” will be presented on Oct. 5 at 2 p.m. at the Benicia State Capitol.

Donnell Rubay is a Benicia resident and the author of the Benicia-based novel, “Emma and the Oyster Pirate.” She has a degree in economics from the University of California-Berkeley.