Benjamin Henry Grierson was a music teacher from Illinois who, although afraid of horses, volunteered for service in the cavalry during the Civil War, commanding a cavalry division Army of the Tennessee and reaching the rank of major general in the United States Volunteers. He is most noted for Grierson's Raid, an 1863 expedition through Confederate-held territory that severed enemy communication lines between Vicksburg, Mississippi and Confederate commanders in the Eastern Theater. After the war, he became colonel of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, an African-American regiment from 1866 until his retirement in 1890.