April 2025 Meeting
At our dinner meeting on April 16th, Civil War Round Table member Todd Stettner gave an outstanding program titled: “Judah P. Benjamin: Jewish Son of the Confederacy.” Attendance at the dinner meeting was 49.
American Jewish historian Bertram Korn, called Judah P. Benjamin, “the greatest Jewish political figure in our history.” Some detractors called him, “The Dark Prince of the Confederacy.” Judah Philip Benjamin was the son of an immigrant family from England and the British West Indies. He was a true southern patriot but largely unspoken of except by students and scholars of the Civil War. We tend to focus on the generals and great battles and lose sight of those who were politically trying
to give birth to a new nation.
In 1813 Benjamin’s family sailed north from St. Croix looking for a better life. They landed in Fayetteville, South Carolina. A few years later they moved on to Charleston. Benjamin developed a sharp intellect and at the age of 14 was admitted to Yale University. But in 1827, under mysterious circumstances, Benjamin left Yale and headed to New Orleans, a city booming with opportunity. He successfully apprenticed in the practice of law. Benjamin eventually opened his own very successful law practice specializing in commercial law. At the age of 21 he married Natalie St. Martin,16, a beautiful Creole girl and daughter of a prominent Catholic family. They had a daughter together, but Natalie ultimately grew bored with life in Louisiana and took her daughter and left for Paris. Benjamin went on to become one of New Orleans and Louisiana’s most affluent citizens.
In 1852 he ran for senator and was elected to represent the state of Louisiana. Benjamin had always been a skilled orator and in January of 1860, on the floor of the Senate, he delivers a rousing speech in support of South Carolina’s secession from the Union.
Subsequently, he and other southern senators leave the Senate. His former senate colleague Jefferson Davis, becomes the new president of the Confederate States of America and appoints him to be the Attorney General for the Confederacy. Before the war is over Benjamin will rise to become Secretary of War and then the Confederate Secretary of State. He is one of Jefferson Davis’ key advisors and personal confidants throughout the war. They remain lifelong friends. When the war ends Judah Benjamin flees with the rest of the Confederate cabinet and goes to Florida. He ultimately decides to go to England, where as a former citizen he is embraced by the British and becomes one of the leading barristers in Great Britain. He continues his specialty in commercial law, subsequently writing a book on the topic, which is still studied today. Judah Benjamin died in Paris in 1884,suffering from injuries obtained in a streetcar accident. He was buried in Paris.
