Judah Benjamin

Resource Information

The work Judah Benjamin represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in San Francisco Public Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Judah Benjamin

Statement of responsibility

S.I. Neiman ; with a foreword by Otto Eisenschiml

Creator

• Neiman, S. I., (Simon I.), 1904-

Subject

• Biographies
• Jewish lawyers -- Great Britain -- Biography
• Jewish lawyers -- Southern States -- Biography
• Jewish statesmen -- Confederate States of America -- Biography
• Benjamin, J. P., (Judah Philip), 1811-1884
• Statesmen -- Confederate States of America -- Biography
• United States, Congress | Senate -- Biography
• Legislators -- United States -- Biography

Genre

• Biography
• Biographies

Language

eng

Summary

One hundred years after the Civil War, Judah P. Benjamin still remains one of the most mysterious figures to have emerged from that great and tragic conflict. Little known today, though he served the Confederate States of America as Atty. Gen., as Secretary of War and as Secretary of State, Benjamin was a profound influence on Jefferson Davis and one of the most powerful of the Confederate leaders. Complicated, problematical, deliberately ambiguous, he set out to expunge his name from the history of the Civil War. In this book, S.I. Neiman clarifies Benjamin's role in history, the man of whom Otto Eisenschiml has written, "the complete history of the Confederacy was buried with him." Judah P. Benjamin (or Jules Bonfal or Mr. Howard, the aliases he used in escaping federal troops) was born to Jewish parents in the Virgin Islands, and educated at Yale University. He built his first fortune as a lawyer in New Orleans, where he married a Creole beauty, Natalie St. Martin, who proceeded to be conspicuously and consistently unfaithful to him. He then became a plantation owner, entered politics and, after the collapse of the Confederacy, built another fortune in England. But the internal facts of Benjamin's life are more difficult to fathom: here was a man who never kept a copy of a letter he had written. Here was a man who did not appear to be concerned by his wife's infidelities. Here was a man for whom the Confederacy was more a personal than a sectional or a political cause. Bypassing the battles in the grand strategy of the Civil War, Neimen probes behind the formal mystery of the year and brings to life a lawyer whose mysterious influence on Jefferson Davis has puzzled historians throughout the years. Judah Benjamin is fascinating history and an intriguing discussion of a most singular man. -- Publisher

Biography type

individual biography

Cataloging source

WSU

Index

no index present

Literary form

non fiction