Benjamin, Judah Philip (06 August 1811–06 May 1884), Confederate cabinet member, U.S. senator, and lawyer, was born at Christiansted, St. Croix, West Indies, the son of Philip Benjamin, a shopkeeper, and Rebecca de Mendes. St. Croix was under British rule at the time of Benjamin’s birth. He grew up in Charleston, South Carolina. Though his father’s circumstances were always modest, wealthy relatives and other benefactors helped him attend Yale (1825–1827), but he left as a junior under circumstances that remain unclear....
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Benjamin, Judah Philip (1811-1884), Confederate cabinet member, U.S. senator, and lawyer
Michael B. Chesson
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Benjamin, Judah Philip (1811-1884)
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Judah P. Benjamin. Daguerreotype from the studio of Mathew B. Brady. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-109992).
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Slidell, John (1793-1871), U.S. senator and Confederate diplomat
Carolyn E. De Latte
Slidell, John (1793–29 July 1871), U.S. senator and Confederate diplomat, was born in New York City, the son of John Slidell, a merchant and banker, and Margery Mackenzie. Slidell grew up amid the affluence of New York’s thriving mercantile community. After graduating from Columbia College in 1810, he spent several years in Europe working for a New York mercantile firm. He returned to New York, passed the bar examination, and pursued a bachelor’s carefree existence that involved him in a duel with an outraged husband. Sobered by this scandal, he sought his future in New Orleans....
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Wigfall, Louis Trezevant (1816-1874), U.S. and Confederate senator
Eric H. Walther
Wigfall, Louis Trezevant (21 April 1816–18 February 1874), U.S. and Confederate senator, was born Lewis Wigfall near Edgefield, South Carolina, the son of Levi Durand Wigfall and Eliza Thompson, planters. Both of Wigfall’s parents had died by his thirteenth year, when he was left to the care of a guardian. He received private tutoring, then attended Rice Creek Springs School, a military academy near Columbia, South Carolina. In 1834 he enrolled at the University of Virginia and, after almost challenging a fellow student to a duel over a misunderstanding at a school dance, decided to return to South Carolina. He completed his education at South Carolina College in 1837. He found oration in the school’s Euphradian Society more alluring than his regular classes, which he often skipped. A frequent visitor to off-campus taverns, Wigfall and several friends further defied the regimen of college life by spending three months in Florida in 1836 fighting in the Seminole Indian war. He rose to the rank of lieutenant, but years later he boldly called himself “colonel.”...
