Quiggle, President of John B. Gordon chapter 383 UDC, presented a program about Judah P. Benjamin. He was the first Jew to hold a Cabinet-level office in an American government. CSA President Jefferson Davis appointed Benjamin as Attorney-General. Benjamin did not own any slaves. He later served as the CSA ‘s Secretary of War and later Secretary of State.

He attended Yale Law School at the age of 14, but was soon expelled for improper conduct. He moved to New Orleans, where he studied law and passed the Bar Exam. He was elected to the United States Senate from Louisiana in 1852.

After the War Between the States, Benjamin escaped to England, where he was admitted to the British Bar and achieved financial success in his new home country. In 1872, he was presented the distinguished position of the Queen’s Counsel and was recognized as a leader of English law. He wrote a successful book called Law of Sale of Personal Property (1868). 

Judah P. Benjamin married Natalie St. Martin, who was at the young age of sixteen. He met her in Louisiana when he was trying to learn how to speak French. She was his tutor and they later married in 1833. They only had one child, a daughter named Ninette. Benjamin fell from a tram car in Paris, France in 1880 and suffered multiple injuries; he also developed kidney and heart problems.

Program speaker Quiggle said, “Judah P. Benjamin died on May 06,1884 in Paris, France at the age of 72.  His wife Natalie and daughter Ninette were by his side. He was buried at the Pere Lachaise cemetery under a headstone marked Philippe Benjamin in his daughter’s in-law’s family plot. Three grandchildren died in childhood and there were no direct descendants left.”

The UDC chapter donated a book to the Thomas County Public Library in honor of one of their members, Camille Davis. The name of the book is Boys of the Confederacy, Collated by Susan R. Hull. The book was also given in commemoration of Veteran’s Day.