Wallace was studying law at the start of the Mexican-American War in 1846. Afterward he joined his father in Indianapolis. In 1836, at the age of nine, he joined his brother in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he briefly attended Wabash Preparatory School. Wallace's autobiography contains many descriptive stories of this boyhood in Covington, including the account of the death of his mother in 1834. When Wallace's father was elected as lieutenant governor of Indiana, he moved his family to Covington, Indiana. His father was a graduate of the United States Military Academy and served as lieutenant governor and Indiana Governor his stepmother, Zerelda Gray Sanders Wallace, was a prominent suffragist and temperance advocate. Wallace was born in Brookville, Indiana, to David Wallace and Esther French Test Wallace. There are some striking similarities: the book's main character, Judah Ben-Hur, accidentally causes injury to a high-ranking commander, for which he and his family suffer no end of tribulations and calumny. Historian Victor Davis Hanson argued that the novel was based heavily on Wallace's own life, particularly his experiences at the Battle of Shiloh and the damage it did to his reputation. The book has never been out of print and has been filmed four times. It grew to be the best-selling American novel of the 19th century. While serving as governor, Wallace completed the novel that made him famous: Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880).

Wallace, facing the political forces then ruling New Mexico, was unable to come through on his end of the bargain and The Kid returned to being an outlaw.

On March 17, 1879, the pair arranged that the Kid would act as an informant and testify against others involved in the Lincoln County War, and, in return, the Kid would be 'scot free with a pardon in pocket for all misdeeds'. As governor, he offered amnesty to many men involved in the Lincoln County War in the process he met with Billy the Kid.

Minister to the Ottoman Empire from 1881 to 1885. He served as governor of New Mexico Territory from 1878 to 1881, and as U.S. Wallace held a number of important political posts during the 1870s and 1880s.

Wallace participated in the military commission trial of the Lincoln assassination conspirators as well as the court-martial of Henry Wirz, commandant of the Andersonville prison camp. Lewis 'Lew' Wallace (Ap– February 15, 1905) was a lawyer, governor, Union general in the American Civil War, American statesman and author, best remembered for his historical novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.

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