The Brains of the Confederacy

Most of the Jews that lived in America during the Civil War (1861-1865) lived in the north and supported the Union cause wholeheartedly. Nevertheless, there were some living in the south, and even some owned slaves on plantations. One of these was Judah Benjamin.

Judah P. Benjamin was born in 1811 on the British colony of Saint Croix, in the Danish West Indies, now the U.S. Virgin Islands. His parents, Phillip Benjamin and Rebecca de Mendes, were of Sephardic descent that could trace their lineage back to the Spanish Inquisition of 1492. The Benjamin family soon moved to America and settled in New Orleans after a stint in Charleston, South Carolina. When he was fourteen years old he went to Yale Law School, but for reasons unknown to historians he left before he graduated. He was admitted to the Louisiana bar and became a commercial lawyer, and helped that area grow economically. He soon became a political advocate for banking, finance, and railroad interests, things that soon would propel him into the political circle. Soon he established a sugar cane plantation with 150 slaves in Belle Chasse, Louisiana. After a sour marriage, where his wife took his only child to Paris, he sold all of his slaves in 1850, never to own one again.

 In 1842, Benjamin was elected to the Louisiana legislator, and in 1852 became the first acknowledged Jew to be elected to the U.S. Senate. First elected as a member of the Whig party, in 1858 he was reelected as a Democrat. He was asked by President Millard Fillmore if he would like to serve on the Supreme Court. Benjamin declined to be nominated, even though he would probably be confirmed.

Soon after he became a senator, another congressman challenged him to a duel over a suspected insult. That senator, future Confederate President Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, apologized and soon they became close friends. There were some people who did not like the fact that there was a Jew supporting the confederate cause. Senator Ben Wade of Ohio likened him to an “Israelite with Egyptian principles.” Judah responded, "It is true that I am a Jew, and when my ancestors were receiving their Ten Commandments from the immediate Deity, amidst the thunderings and lightnings of Mount Sinai, the ancestors of my opponent were herding swine in the forest of Great Britain." Most of the time, however, he just remained silent and smiled when anyone said an anti-Semitic comment.

After the South seceded and formed their new government in 1861, President Davis named Benjamin as his attorney general. Davis chose him because he “had a very high reputation as a lawyer, and my acquaintance with him in the Senate had impressed me with the lucidity of his intellect, his systematic habits, and capacity for labor”. In this capacity was when he first earned the nickname “the Brains of the Confederacy”.

Later that year Benjamin was appointed the Secretary of War. His appointment was scorned by Generals P.T. Beauregard and Stonewall Jackson, because it was his decision to give up Roanoke Island without a fight. In truth, the island had been defended with about 100 casualties, and reinforcements could not be sent because they were needed elsewhere. Nevertheless, the generals needed some to pin the blame on, and that person was Benjamin. He was cited in the confederate congress for messing up and resigned without protest. Jeff Davis did not want to publicly admit that the south had so few troops, but since he really liked Benjamin, he appointed him as Secretary of State.

In his new post, Benjamin tried hard to get the British to fight on the side of the Confederacy. The public opinion in England was opposed to slavery, so Benjamin made the announcement, “Let us say to every Negro who wishes to go into the ranks, 'Go and fight - you are free”. This would have also alleviated the shortage of troops. The great general of the south, Robert E. Lee, was a huge supporter of this plan, but it did not take effect until March 1865. By then the war was lost, and these troops would not have made any difference. Even with this declaration, the British were not persuaded to aid the South.

Five days after the Civil War had ended, President Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. Soon the Northerners were calling it a confederate conspiracy to reignite the war, and Judah Benjamin was one of the leaders. There was sustainable evidence that Booth had met with confederate leaders, and was receiving funds from them. To escape these rumors he fled to Florida. He realized that he would have to leave America so he decided to go to England via the Bahamas. On the trip to the island of Nassau, his ship exploded and he and the three Negro crewmen had to be rescued by an English warship. If that was not enough on the trip from the Bahamas, his ship caught fire but was able to make port in England. Once there he was admitted to the bar to begin his career as a lawyer anew. He died on May 6, 1884 in Paris and was buried there under the name of Philippe Benjamin.