Judah Benjamin is one of the most interesting people you've never heard about, one of the most important figures in the Confederacy who escaped to England after the war and became a successful attorney.
He was a remarkable orator, a strong advocate for states rights in the U.S. Congress where he represented Louisiana in the Senate and befriended Jefferson Davis, later president of the Confederacy.
He was also Jewish, which made him the target of anti-semitic attacks throughout the war from politicians and newspapers North and South.
Author Eli Evans does an excellent job of locating Benjamin as a Jew in the South, someone who could rise to a certain level of respectability provided he did not try for total social acceptance.
Benjamin was born in the West Indies, a British citizen, but his parents moved to Charleston where they ran a modest and generally unsuccessful grocery business in the port. Charleston had one of the largest Jewish concentrations in the U.S. at the time, but Benjamin's father was a rebel, who criticized his synagogue's leadership and spent more time arguing theology than he did running his business.
But young Benjamin was precocious and local leaders paid for him to attend Yale, where after two years, he left suddenly, under suspicion of theft or some other moral failing.
Leaving his family, Benjamin moved to New Orleans, and studied to be a lawyer, mastering the details of international trade that made the city a center for commerce. He also found a mentor in a local political leader who elected him to Congress in 1853. There he became a leading spokesman for the Southern states and their insistence that states rights gave them the power to reject legislation (primarily on slavery) with which they disagreed.
He also met and impressed Jefferson Davis, initially a fellow senator but later Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce.
When the Civil War began, Davis offered Benjamin the post of attorney general but later promoted him to secretary of war, a strange move given Benjamin's lack of military experience. But Davis considered himself to be the real chief of military decisions and Benjamin merely an aide who carried out his orders.
That became the men's relationship over the next four years, with Benjamin spending 10-12 hours a day at Davis' side, advising him on matters where he had expertise, but showing no interest in a political career of his own. He won Davis trust by his hard work and loyalty.
But Benjamin also had an ally, Davis' strong-willed wife, Varina. She admired not only his loyalty but also his concern for her husband, whose health was always frail and whose strong opinions and unwillingness to compromise often embroiled him in feuds with other Confederate leaders.
Author Evans is fortunate in that many of the letters Benjamin and Varina exchanged survive, giving us insight into the inner dynamics of the Davis administration and marriage. They also offer a look at Benjamin's emotions, something he rarely revealed. His concern for secrecy bordered on a mania - he kept no diary or journal and after the war he destroyed all of his papers, so much of his work for the Confederacy is hard to evaluate.
That, Evans argues, would be typical for someone who was Jewish in the South, an attempt to avoid attention if possible and to work quietly behind the scenes.
But Benjamin could not hide. He was criticized mercilessly by Southern newspaper editors who found they could berate Davis indirectly by targeting Benjamin. And Davis turned that to his advantage on several occasions, letting Benjamin take the heat for acting in his behalf.
What makes Evans' biography a joy to read is that he is good at details and scene-setting, most of all in describing the social milieu in Richmond during the war. His description of the fall of the city is gripping -- the frantic evacuation of the Confederate government, reduced to a couple of dozen soldiers and civilians on horseback and then Benjamin's own escape. He sews his gold coins into the seam of a ragged coat, hires a decrepit horse and wagon, and adopts a disguise as a French merchant who speaks no English. He convinces a Confederate officer who speaks French to accompany him as his translator and they set off on a month-long journey through Georgia and Florida until Benjamin eventually escapes via boat to the Caribbean and to England.
He has somehow managed to ship several hundred bales of cotton to England, the sale of which supports him financially until he can complete his British legal education. He writes a hugely successful legal textbook on commercial transactions, and rises in the bar to the point that when he retires years later, the cream of London's legal establishment shows up at a dinner in his honor. To my knowledge, no other top Confederate general or official had similar success after the war.
Benjamin is no hero. He was a slave-owner who admired and emulated the aristocratic planters who stifled Southern commerce with their single-minded focus on cotton, a crop that required thousands of slaves to raise. He does not argue against slavery and though he at the very end of the war pushed to allow slaves to win their freedom by joining the Confederate army, he did so only when there were no more white Southerners available.
But he is fascinating, nevertheless, a man who rises by his abilities on numerous occasions only to be knocked down, get back to his feet, and move forward again. Evans' biography has brought him from the shadows.

I learned a lot about the era of the Civil War.

2151 Judah P. Benjamin: The Jewish Confederate, by Eli N. Evans (read 2 Jul 1988) This 1988 biography is heavy on the fact Benjamin was a Jew, though he was not a practicing Jew in his adult life. He married a Catholic, but they lived apart most of their life. The book retraces the Civil War from the Confederate side. The book was good on the time after the Civil War--Benjamin died in Paris on May 6, 1884--when Benjamin became a leading English barrister. He is buried in Paris. A good book. ( )