Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/28

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Benjamin William Brice (November 30, 1809 – December 4, 1892) was a lawyer, soldier, and graduate of the United States Military Academy who served in the United States Army during the Black Hawk War. Brice left the Army in 1832 and moved to Ohio to practice law, and in 1846 was elected an associate judge of the court of Licking County, Ohio. Later in 1846, Brice was appointed Adjutant General of the state militia by Governor William Bebb and served until 1847, when he resigned to re-enter the army to serve in the Mexican War.

He was later employed as the Paymaster General of the Union Army during the American Civil War and postbellum periods, Brice had on his retirement in 1872 risen to the rank of brevet major general. According to all reports and diaries, the paymaster's department was grossly inefficient at the beginning of the war in 1861. When Brice took charge, his efforts brought regulations up to date, eliminated nearly all the fraud, waste, and corruption, and officially established competitive examinations for paymaster candidates decades before civil service reform was enacted nation wide.