A rare Sephardic Jew in the Old South and a favorite of Jefferson
Davis, Judah P. Benjamin has been described as "the brains of
the Confederacy". He held three successive Confederate cabinet
posts -- attorney general, secretary of war, and secretary of state
-- and was Davis's closest confidant in the government. But
some have questioned Benjamin's loyalty to Davis and the extent
of his influence. More than 140 years after Benjamin first appeared
on the Confederate scene, historians still debate his place in the
history of the Lost Cause. Originally published in 1943 and now
available for the first time in paperback, Robert Douthat
Meade's Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate Statesman provides an
absorbing account of the life of this enigmatic Civil War
figure.
Meade chronicles Benjamin's birth in the Virgin Islands; his
rise to power as a lawyer and politician in south Louisiana; his
election to the U.S. Senate in the 1850s; his outspoken role in the
secession controversy; his friendship with Davis; his prominent
role in the Confederate government; his daring escape after
Appomattox; and his brilliant second law career in England after
the war. Still the definitive study of Benjamin after nearly sixty
years, Meade's authoritative work is a classic of Civil War
biography.
