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= = = Retirement = = =
During the meeting in spring of 2001 , the World Meteorological Organization retired the name Keith from the list above due to its high impact and replaced with the name Kirk for use in the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season . Although the name Kirk was not used during 2006 , instead it was used during the 2012 season . The remaining storm names were re @-@ listed for the 2006 season .
= = Season impact = =
This is a table of all of the storms that formed in the 2000 Atlantic hurricane season . It includes their duration , names , landfall ( s ) – denoted by bold location names – damages , and death totals . Deaths in parentheses are additional and indirect ( an example of an indirect death would be a traffic accident ) , but are still related to that storm . Damage and deaths include totals while the storm was extratropical or a wave or low , and all of the damage figures are in 2000 USD .
= Judah P. Benjamin =
Judah Philip Benjamin , QC ( August 11 , 1811 – May 6 , 1884 ) was a lawyer and politician who was a United States Senator from Louisiana , a Cabinet officer of the Confederate States and , after his escape to the United Kingdom at the end of the American Civil War , an English barrister . Benjamin was the first Jew to be elected to the United States Senate who had not renounced the religion , and the first of that faith to hold a Cabinet position in North America .
Benjamin was born to Sephardic Jewish parents from London , who had moved to St. Croix in the Danish West Indies when it was occupied by Britain during the Napoleonic Wars . Seeking greater opportunities , his family emigrated to the United States , eventually settling in Charleston , South Carolina . Benjamin attended Yale College but left without graduating and moved to New Orleans , where he read law and passed the bar .
Benjamin rose rapidly both at the bar and in politics . He became a wealthy slaveowner and served in both houses of the Louisiana legislature prior to his election to the Senate in 1852 There , he was an eloquent supporter of slavery , and resigned as senator after Louisiana left the Union in early 1861 . He returned to New Orleans , but soon left when Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed him Attorney General . Benjamin had little to do in that position , but Davis was impressed by his competence and appointed him Secretary of War . Benjamin firmly supported Davis , and the President reciprocated the loyalty by promoting him to Secretary of State in March 1862 while Benjamin was being criticized for the rebel defeat at the Battle of Roanoke Island .
As Secretary of State , Benjamin attempted to gain official recognition for the Confederacy by France and the United Kingdom , but his efforts were ultimately unsuccessful . To preserve the Confederacy as military defeat made its situation increasingly desperate , he advocated freeing and arming the slaves , but his proposals were not accepted until it was too late . When Davis fled the Confederate capital of Richmond in early 1865 , Benjamin went with him , but left the presidential party and was successful in escaping , whereas Davis was captured by Union troops . Benjamin made his way to Britain and became a barrister , again rising to the top of his profession before retiring in 1883 . He died in Paris the following year .
= = Early and personal life = =
Judah Philip Benjamin was born on August 11 , 1811 , in St. Croix of the Danish West Indies ( today the United States Virgin Islands ) , a colony then occupied by the British during the Napoleonic Wars . His parents were Sephardic Jews , Philip Benjamin and the former Rebecca de Mendes . Philip and Rebecca had been shopkeepers in London , and emigrated to the West Indies in search of better opportunities . Rebecca 's family had been prominent in Spain before being forced to leave under the Expulsion Edict of 1492 .
Judah , the third of seven children , was given the same name as an older brother who died in infancy . Following a tradition adhered to by some Sephardi , he was named for his paternal grandfather , who performed the brit milah , or circumcision ceremony . The Benjamins encountered hard times in the Danish West Indies , as normal trade was blocked by the British occupation . In 1813 the Benjamin family moved to Fayetteville , North Carolina , where they had relatives . Philip Benjamin was not financially successful there , and around 1821 moved with his family to Charleston , South Carolina . That city had the largest Jewish community in the United States and a reputation for religious tolerance . Philip was learned in his faith but was again unsuccessful in business ; Rebecca earned money for the family by operating a fruit stand near the harbor .
Judah and two siblings were boarded with relatives in Fayetteville for about 18 months after the rest of the family moved to Charleston . He attended the Fayetteville Academy , a well @-@ regarded school where his intelligence was recognized . In Charleston , his father was among the founders of the first Reform congregation in the United States , with shorter services conducted in English rather than Hebrew . Philip was ultimately expelled from that community , as he did not keep the Sabbath , and the extent of Judah 's religious education is uncertain . The boy 's intelligence was noted by others in Charleston , one of whom offered to finance his education .
At the age of 14 , in 1825 , Benjamin entered Yale College , an institution popular among white Southerners ; Vice President John C. Calhoun , a South Carolinian , was among its alumni . Although Benjamin was successful as a student at Yale , he left abruptly in 1827 without completing his course of study . The reasons for this are uncertain : in 1861 , when Louisiana left the Union and Benjamin resigned as a U.S. senator , an abolitionist newspaper alleged that he had been caught as a thief at Yale . He considered bringing suit for libel but litigation was impractical . In 1901 , his sole surviving classmate wrote that Benjamin had been expelled for gambling . One of his biographers , Robert Meade , considered the evidence of wrongdoing by Benjamin to be " too strong to be ignored " , but noted that at the time Benjamin left Yale , he was only 16 years old .
After a brief return to Charleston , Benjamin moved to New Orleans , Louisiana . According to Rabbi Bernard W. Korn 's volume on that city 's Jews , he " arrived in New Orleans in 1828 , with no visible assets other than the wit , charm , omnivorous mind and boundless energy with which he would find his place in the sun " . After working in a mercantile business , he became a clerk for a law firm , where he began to read law , studying as an apprentice . Knowledge of French was important in practicing law in Louisiana , as the state 's code is and was based on French and Spanish law . To earn money , he tutored French Creoles in English ; he taught the language to Natalie <unk> de St. Martin on the condition that she teach him French . In late 1832 , at age 21 , he was admitted to the bar .
Early the following year , Benjamin married Natalie , who was Catholic and from a wealthy French Creole family . As part of her dowry , she brought with her $ 3 @,@ 000 and two female slaves , aged 11 and 16 ( together worth about $ 1 @,@ 000 ) . Even before the marriage , Natalie St. Martin had scandalized New Orleans society by her conduct , and William De Ville , in his journal article on the Benjamin marriage contract , suggests that the " St. Martin family was not terribly distraught to be rid of their young daughter " and that " Benjamin was virtually <unk> to marry [ Natalie ] , and did so without hesitation in order to further his ambitions " .
The marriage was not a success . By the 1840s , Natalie Benjamin was living in Paris with the couple 's only child , Ninette , whom she raised as a Catholic . Benjamin would visit them annually . While a senator , in the late 1850s he persuaded Natalie to rejoin him and expensively furnished a home in Washington for all three to live in . Natalie and their daughter soon embarked again for France . Benjamin , publicly humiliated by his failure to keep Natalie , consigned the household goods to auction . There were rumors , never substantiated , both that Benjamin was impotent , and that Natalie was unfaithful .
Benjamin 's troubled married life has led to speculation that he was gay . Daniel Brook , in a 2012 article about Benjamin , suggests that early biographies read as though " historians are presenting him as an almost <unk> stereotypical gay man and yet wear such impervious heteronormative blinders that they themselves know not what they write " . These conjectures were not given scholarly weight until 2001 , when in an introduction to a reprinting of Meade 's biography of Benjamin , Civil War historian William C. Davis acknowledged " cloaked suggestions that he [ Benjamin ] was a homosexual " .
= = Louisiana lawyer = =
Within months of his admission to the bar , Benjamin argued his first case before the Supreme Court of Louisiana and won . Still , clients were slow to come in his first years in practice , and he had enough free time to compile and publish , with Thomas Slidell , the Digest of the Reported Decisions of the Superior Court of the Late Territory of Orleans and the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana in 1834 , which required the analysis of 6 @,@ 000 cases . The book was an immediate success and helped launch Benjamin 's career . When Slidell published a revised edition in 1840 , he did so alone , as Benjamin was too busy trying cases to allow him to participate .
Benjamin became a specialist in commercial law , of which there was a great deal in New Orleans ' busy river port — a center of international commerce and the domestic slave trade . By 1840 , the city had become the fourth largest in the United States and among the wealthiest . Many of the best lawyers in the country practiced commercial law there , and Benjamin successfully competed with them . In one case , he successfully represented the seller of a slave against allegations that the seller knew the slave had incurable tuberculosis . Although Benjamin tried some jury cases , he preferred bench trials in commercial cases and was an expert at appeals .
In 1842 , Benjamin had a group of cases with international implications . He represented insurance companies being sued for the value of slaves who had revolted aboard the ship Creole in 1841 , as they were being transported in the coastwise slave trade from Virginia to New Orleans . The rebels had sailed the ship to Nassau in the Bahamas , British territory , where most were freed , as Britain had abolished slavery . The owners of the slaves brought suit for $ 150 @,@ 000 against their insurers , who declined to pay . Benjamin made several arguments , the most prominent of which was that the slaveowners had brought the revolt on themselves by packing the slaves in overcrowded conditions .
Benjamin asked in his brief to the court :
What is a slave ? He is a human being . He has feelings and passion and intellect . His heart , like the heart of the white man , swells with love , burns with jealousy , aches with sorrow , pines under restraint and discomfort , boils with revenge , and ever cherishes the desire for liberty ... Considering the character of the slave , and the peculiar passions which , generated by nature , are strengthened and stimulated by his condition , he is prone to revolt in the near future of things , and ever ready to conquer his liberty where a probable chance persons itself .
The court ruled for Benjamin 's clients , although on other grounds . Benjamin 's brief was widely reprinted , including by abolitionist groups . Historian Eli Evans , Benjamin 's biographer , does not believe that the argument in the Creole case represented Benjamin 's personal view ; rather , he was an advocate for his clients in an era when it was usual to write dramatically to distract attention from the weaker points of a case . Evans finds it remarkable and a testament to Benjamin that he could be elected to office in antebellum Louisiana , a slave society , after writing such words ; however , this may reflect more our present understanding of an antebellum slave society than their reality .
= = Electoral career = =
= = = State politician = = =
Benjamin was a supporter of the Whig Party from the time of its formation in the early 1830s . He became increasingly involved in the party , and in 1841 ran unsuccessfully for the New Orleans Board of Aldermen . The following year , he was nominated for the Louisiana House of Representatives . He was elected , though the Democrats alleged fraud : Whig supporters , to obtain the vote at a time when the state had a restrictive property qualification for suffrage , acquired licenses for carriages . A voter did not have to demonstrate that the carriage existed , but his license had to be accepted as evidence of ownership by election officials . The Democratic press blamed Benjamin as the strategist behind this maneuver . In 1844 , the legislature voted to hold a constitutional convention , and Benjamin was chosen as a delegate from New Orleans . At the convention , Benjamin successfully opposed counting a slave as three @-@ fifths of a human being for purposes of representation in state elections , as was done in federal elections . His position prevailed , and slaves were not counted at all for electoral purposes in Louisiana state elections . According to Evans , his " tact , courtesy , and ability to find compromises impressed the political elders in all corners of the state " .
Rabbi Myron Berman , in his history of Jews in Richmond , describes the attitude of antebellum white Southerners toward Jews :
Hidden beneath the free and easy relationships between Jew and Gentile in the antebellum South was a layer of prejudice that derived from historic anti @-@ Semitism . The obverse of the picture of the Jew as the Biblical patriarch and apostle of freedom was the image of the Judas @-@ traitor and the Shylock @-@ materialist who preyed on the misfortunes of the country . But the high incidence of Jewish assimilation , the availability of the black as a scapegoat for social ills , and the relative absence of crises — economic and otherwise — were factors which repressed , at least temporarily , the latent anti @-@ Jewish feeling in the South .
By the early 1840s , Benjamin was wealthy from his law practice and , with a partner , bought a sugar cane plantation , Bellechasse . This purchase , and the subsequent construction of a grand house there , advanced Benjamin 's ambitions ; the planter class controlled Louisiana politics and would only trust a man who also owned substantial land and slaves . The Benjamin marriage was by then failing , and he hoped in vain that his wife would be content at the plantation . Benjamin threw his energy into improving Bellechasse , importing new varieties of sugar cane and adopting up @-@ to @-@ date methods and equipment to extract and process the sugar . He purchased 140 slaves to work the plantation , and had a reputation as a humane slaveowner .
Benjamin scaled back his involvement in politics in the late 1840s , distracted by his plantation and law practice . His mother Rebecca , whom he had brought to New Orleans , died in 1847 during a yellow fever epidemic . In 1848 , Benjamin was a Whig member of the Electoral College ; he voted for fellow Louisiana planter , General Zachary Taylor , who was elected U.S. President . He and other Louisianans accompanied President @-@ elect Taylor to Washington for his inauguration , and Benjamin attended a state dinner given by outgoing president James K. Polk . In 1850 , Millard Fillmore , who succeeded Taylor after his death earlier that year , appointed Benjamin as judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California . He was confirmed by the Senate , but he declined the appointment as the salary of $ 3 @,@ 500 was too small . The following year , Benjamin assisted the United States Attorney in New Orleans in prosecuting American adventurers who had tried to spark a rebellion against Spanish rule in Cuba , but two trials both ended in hung juries .
= = = Mexican railroad = = =
Benjamin became interested in strengthening trade connections between New Orleans and California , and promoted an infrastructure project to build a railroad across the Mexican isthmus near Oaxaca . This would speed passenger traffic and cargo shipments . According to The New York Times , in an 1852 speech to a railroad builders ' convention , Benjamin said this trade route " belongs to New Orleans . Its commerce makes empires of the countries to which it flows . " Benjamin lobbied fellow lawmakers about the project , gained funds from private New York bankers , and even helped organize construction crews . In private correspondence he warned backers of problems ; project workers suffered yellow fever , shipments of construction materials hit rough seas , and actions or inaction by both U.S. and Mexican officials caused delays and increases in construction costs . Backers had invested several hundred thousand dollars by the time the project died after the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 .
= = = Election to the Senate = = =
Benjamin spent the summer of 1851 abroad , including a visit to Paris to see Natalie and Ninette . He was still away in October 1851 , when the Whigs nominated him for the state Senate . Despite his absence , he was easily elected . When the new legislature met in January 1852 , Benjamin emerged as one of the leading Whig candidates for election to the U.S. Senate seat that would become vacant on March 4 , 1853 . As the Louisiana legislature , responsible for electing the state 's senators , met once in two years under the 1845 constitution , it was not scheduled to meet again before the seat became vacant . Some Whig newspapers thought Benjamin too young and inexperienced at forty , despite his undoubted talent , but the Whig legislative caucus selected him on the second ballot , and he was elected by the two houses over Democrat Solomon W. Downs .
The outgoing president , Fillmore , offered to nominate Benjamin , a fellow Whig , to fill a Supreme Court vacancy after the Senate Democrats had defeated Fillmore 's other nominees for the post . The New York Times reported on February 15 , 1853 that " if the President nominates Benjamin , the Democrats are determined to confirm him . " The new president , Franklin Pierce , a Democrat , also offered Benjamin a place on the Supreme Court . Pierce Butler , a future Supreme Court justice , suggested in his 1908 biography of Benjamin that the newly elected senator likely declined these offers not only because he preferred active politics , but because he could maintain his law practice and substantial income as a senator , but could not as a justice . As an advocate before the U.S. Supreme Court , Benjamin won 13 of his first 18 cases .
Judah Benjamin was sworn in as senator from Louisiana on March 4 , 1853 , at a brief meeting called just prior to President Pierce 's inauguration . These new colleagues included Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois , Robert M. T. Hunter of Virginia , and Sam Houston of Texas . The slavery issue was in a brief remission as much of the country wished to accept the Compromise of 1850 as a final settlement . When the Senate was not in session , Benjamin remained in Washington , D.C. , conducting a lucrative practice including many cases before the Supreme Court , then conveniently located in a room of the Capitol . His law partners in New Orleans took care of his firm 's affairs there . About this time Benjamin sold his interest in Bellechasse , lacking the time to deal with plantation business .
= = = Spokesman for slavery = = =
Benjamin 's view that slavery should continue was based in his belief that citizens had a right to their property as guaranteed by the Constitution . As Butler put it , " he could no more see that it was right for Northern people to rob him of his slave than it would be for him to connive at horse stealing " . He avoided the arguments of some that the slaves were inferior beings , and that their position was ordained by God : Evans ascribes this to Benjamin not being raised as a slaveowner , but coming to it later in life . Benjamin joined in a widespread view of white Southerners that the African American would not be ready for emancipation for many years , if ever . They feared that freeing the slaves would ruin many and lead to murders and rapes by the newly liberated of their former masters and mistresses . Such a massacre had been feared by Southerners since the Haitian Revolution , the violent revolt known as " Santo Domingo " in the South , in which the slaves of what became Haiti killed many whites and mulattoes in 1804 while gaining independence from French control . When the anti @-@ slavery book Uncle Tom 's Cabin was published in 1852 , Benjamin spoke out against Harriet Beecher Stowe 's portrayal . He said that slaves were for the most part well treated , and plantation punishments , such as whipping or branding , were more merciful than sentences of imprisonment that a white man might receive in the North for similar conduct .
In early 1854 , Senator Douglas introduced his Kansas – Nebraska Bill , calling for popular sovereignty to determine whether the Kansas and Nebraska territories should enter the Union as slave or free states . Depending on the outcome of such elections , slavery might spread to territories closed to it under the Compromise of 1850 . In the debate over the bill , Benjamin defended this change as returning to " the traditions of the fathers " , that the federal government not legislate on the subject of slavery . He said that the South merely wished to be left alone . The bill passed , but its passage had drastic political effects , as the differences between North and South that had been settled by the Compromise were reopened . The Whig Party was torn apart North from South , with many Northern Whigs joining the new Republican Party , a group pledged to oppose the spread of slavery . Benjamin continued to caucus with the remains of the Whig Party through 1854 and 1855 , but as a member of a legislative minority , he had little influence on legislation , and received no important committee assignments .
In May 1856 , Benjamin joined the Democrats , stating they had the principles of the old @-@ time Whig Party . He indicated , in a letter to constituents , that as Northern Whigs had failed to vote to uphold the rights granted to Southern states in the Constitution , the Whigs , as a national party , were no more .
At a state dinner given by Pierce , Benjamin first met Secretary of War Jefferson Davis , whose wife Varina described the Louisiana senator as having " rather the air of a witty bon vivant than of a great senator " . The two men , both ambitious for leadership in the South and the nation , formed a relationship that Evans describes as " respectful but wary " . The two had occasional differences ; when in 1858 , Davis , by then a Mississippi senator , was irritated by Benjamin 's questioning him on a military bill and suggested that Benjamin was acting as a paid attorney , the Louisianan challenged him to a duel . Davis apologized .
Benjamin , in his speeches in the Senate , took the position that the Union was a compact by the states from which any of them could secede . Nevertheless , he understood that any dissolution would not be peaceful , stating in 1856 that " dreadful will be the internecine war that must ensue " . In 1859 , Benjamin was elected to a second term , but allegations of involvement in land scandals and the fact that upstate legislators objected to both of Louisiana 's senators being from New Orleans stretched the contest to 42 ballots before he prevailed .
= = = Secession crisis = = =
Benjamin worked to deny Douglas the 1860 Democratic presidential nomination , feeling he had turned against the South . Douglas contended that although the Supreme Court , in Dred Scott v. Sandford , had stated Congress could not restrict slavery in the territories , the people of each territory could pass legislation to bar it . This position was anathema to the South . Benjamin praised Douglas 's opponent in his re @-@ election bid , former congressman Abraham Lincoln , for at least being true to his principles as an opponent of the expansion of slavery , whereas the senator considered Douglas to be a hypocrite . Benjamin was joined in his opposition to Douglas by Senator Davis ; the two were so successful that the 1860 convention was not able to nominate anyone and split into Northern and Southern factions . The Northerners backed Douglas while Southern delegates chose Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky . Despite their agreement in opposing Douglas , Benjamin and Davis differed on some race issues : in May , Benjamin voted for a bill to aid Africans liberated by U.S. naval vessels from illegal slave ships , in order to return them to their native continent from Key West . Davis and many other Southerners opposed the bill .
Between June and December 1860 , Benjamin was almost entirely absorbed in the case of United States v. <unk> , that was tried in San Francisco during the latter part of that period . The case concerned a land grant by the former Mexican government of California . <unk> had leased part of his land to British mining companies , and when American authorities ruled the grant invalid , they hired Benjamin ; he spent four months in San Francisco working on the case . The trial began in October , and Benjamin gave an address lasting six days . The local correspondent for the New York Times wrote that Benjamin , " a distinguished stranger " , drew the largest crowds to the courtroom and " the Senator is making this terribly tedious case interesting " . Benjamin sailed for New York once the case was submitted for decision in early November . The court 's ruling , rendered in January 1861 , was substantially for the company but , not satisfied , it appealed . It lost the case entirely to an adverse decision by the U.S. Supreme Court , three justices dissenting , the following year . Benjamin was by then a Confederate Cabinet officer , and could not argue the case . His co @-@ counsel filed his brief with the court .
By the time Benjamin returned to the East Coast , the Republican candidate , Lincoln , had been elected president , and there was talk , in Louisiana and elsewhere , of secession from the Union . The New Orleans Picayune reported that Benjamin favored secession only in the last resort . On December 23 , 1860 , another Louisiana periodical , the Delta , printed a letter from Benjamin dated the eighth stating that , as the people of the North were of unalterable hostility to their Southern brethren , the latter should depart from the government common to them . He also signed a joint letter from Southern congressmen to their constituents , urging the formation of a confederation of the seceding states . According to a letter reportedly written by Benjamin during the crisis , he saw secession as a means of obtaining more favorable terms in a reformed Union .
With Southern opinion turning in favor of secession , Benjamin made a farewell speech in the Senate on December 31 , 1860 , to a packed gallery , desirous of hearing one of the South 's most eloquent voices . They were not disappointed ; Evans writes that " historians consider Benjamin 's farewell ... one of the great speeches in American history " . Benjamin foresaw that the South 's departure would lead to civil war :
What may be the fate of this horrible contest none can foretell ; but this much I will say : the fortunes of war may be adverse to our arms ; you may carry desolation into our peaceful land , and with torch and firebrand may set our cities in flames ... you may do all this , and more , but you never can subjugate us ; you never can convert the free sons of the soil into vassals , paying tribute to your power ; you never can degrade them to a servile and inferior race . Never ! Never !
According to Geoffrey D. Cunningham in his article on Benjamin 's role in secession , " Swept up in the popular cries for independence , Benjamin willingly went out with the Southern tide . " He and his Louisiana colleague , John Slidell , resigned from the U.S. Senate on February 4 , 1861 , nine days after their state voted to secede from the Union .
= = Confederate statesman = =
= = = Attorney General = = =
Fearful of arrest as a rebel once he left the Senate , Benjamin quickly departed Washington for New Orleans . On the day of Benjamin 's resignation , the Provisional Confederate States Congress gathered in Montgomery , Alabama , and soon chose Davis as president . Davis was sworn in as provisional Confederate States President on February 18 , 1861 . At home in New Orleans for , it would prove , the last time , Benjamin addressed a rally on Washington 's Birthday , February 22 , 1861 . On February 25 , Davis appointed Benjamin , still in New Orleans , as attorney general ; the Louisianan was approved immediately and unanimously by the provisional Congress . Davis thus became the first chief executive in North America to appoint a Jew to his Cabinet .
Davis , in his memoirs , remarked that he chose Benjamin because he " had a very high reputation as a lawyer , and my acquaintance with him in the Senate had impressed me with the lucidity of his intellect , his systematic habits , and capacity for labor " . Meade suggested that Davis likely wanted to have a Louisianan in his Cabinet , but that a smarter course of action would have been to send Benjamin abroad to win over the European governments . Butler called Benjamin 's appointment " a waste of good material " . Historian William C. Davis , in his volume on the formation of the Confederate government , notes , " For some there was next to nothing to do , none more so than Benjamin . " The role of the attorney general in a Confederacy that did not yet have federal courts or marshals was so minimal that initial layouts for the building housing the government in Montgomery allowed no space to the Justice Department .
Meade found the time that Benjamin spent as attorney general to be fruitful , as it allowed him the opportunity to judge Davis 's character and to ingratiate himself with the president . Benjamin served as a host , entertaining dignitaries and others Davis had no time to see . At the first Cabinet meeting , Benjamin counseled Davis to have the government buy 150 @,@ 000 bales of cotton for shipment to the United Kingdom , with the proceeds used to buy arms and for future needs . His advice was not taken , as the Cabinet believed the war would be short and successful . Benjamin was called upon from time to time to render legal opinions , writing on April 1 to assure Treasury Secretary Christopher Memminger that lemons and oranges could enter the Confederacy duty @-@ free , but walnuts could not .
Once Virginia joined the Confederacy , the capital was moved to Richmond , though against Benjamin 's advice — he believed that the city was too close to the North . Nevertheless , he traveled there with his brother @-@ in @-@ law , Jules St. Martin ; the two lived in the same house throughout the war , and Benjamin probably procured the young man 's job at the War Department . Although Alabama 's Leroy Walker was Secretary of War , Davis — a war hero and former U.S. War Secretary — considered himself more qualified and gave many orders himself . When the Confederates were unable to follow up their victory at the First Battle of Manassas by threatening Washington , Walker was criticized in the press . In September , Walker resigned to join the army as a brigadier general , and Davis appointed Benjamin in his place . Butler wrote that Davis had found the cheerfully competent Benjamin " a most useful member of the official family , and thought him suited for almost any post in it . " In addition to his appointment as War Secretary , Benjamin continued to act as Attorney General until November 15 , 1861 .
= = = Secretary of War = = =
As War Secretary , Benjamin was responsible for a territory stretching from Virginia to Texas . It was his job , with Davis looking over his shoulder , to supervise the Confederate Army and to feed , supply , and arm it — in a nascent country with almost no arms manufacturers . Accordingly , Benjamin saw his job as closely tied to foreign affairs , as the Confederacy was dependent on imports to supply its troops . Davis had determined on a " defensive war " strategy — the Confederacy would await invasion by the North , then seek to defeat its armies until Lincoln tired of sending them . Davis and Benjamin worked together closely , and as Davis came to realize that his subordinate was loyal both to the Confederacy and to Davis personally , he returned complete trust in Benjamin . Varina Davis wrote , " It was to me a curious spectacle , the steady approximation to a thorough friendliness of the President and his War Minister . It was a very gradual rapprochement , but all the more solid for that reason . "
In his months as War Secretary , Benjamin sent thousands of communications . According to Evans , Benjamin initially " turn [ ed ] prejudice to his favor and play [ ed ] on the Southerner 's instinctive respect for the Jewish mind with a brilliant performance " . Nevertheless , Benjamin faced difficulties that he could do little about . The Confederacy lacked sufficient soldiers , trained officers to command them , naval and civilian ships , manufacturing capacity to make ships and many weapons , and powder for guns and cannon . The Union had these things , and moved to block the South 's access to European supplies , both by blockade and by buying up supplies the South might have secured . Other problems included drunkenness among the men — and their officers — and uncertainty as to when and where the expected Northern invasion would begin . Further , Benjamin had no experience of the military , or of the executive branch of the government , placing him in a poor position to contradict President Davis .
An insurgency against the Confederacy developed in eastern Tennessee in late 1861 , and at Davis 's order , Benjamin sent troops to crush it . Once it was put down , Benjamin and Davis were in a quandary about what to do about its leader , William " Parson " Brownlow , who had been captured , and eventually allowed him to cross to Union @-@ controlled territory in the hope that it would cause Lincoln to release Confederate prisoners . While Brownlow was in Southern custody , he stated that he expected , " no more mercy from Benjamin than was shown by his illustrious predecessors towards Jesus Christ " .
Benjamin had difficulty in managing the Confederacy 's generals . He quarreled with General P.G.T. Beauregard , a war hero since his victory at First Manassas . Beauregard sought to add a rocket battery to his command , an action Benjamin stated was not authorized by law . He was most likely relaying Davis 's views , and when challenged by Beauregard , the president backed Benjamin , advising the general to " dismiss this small matter from your mind . In the hostile masses before you , you have a subject more worthy of your contemplation " . In January 1862 , Thomas J. " Stonewall " Jackson 's forces had advanced in western Virginia , leaving troops under William W. Loring at the small town of Romney . Distant from Jackson 's other forces and ill @-@ supplied , Loring and other officers petitioned the War Department to be recalled , and Benjamin , after consulting Davis , so ordered , using the pretext of rumored Union troop movements in the area . Jackson complied , but in a letter to Benjamin asked to be removed from the front , or to resign . High @-@ ranking Confederates soothed Jackson into withdrawing his request .
The power of state governments were another flaw in the Confederacy and a problem for Benjamin . Georgia Governor Joseph E. Brown repeatedly demanded arms and the return of Georgian troops to defend their state . North Carolina 's governor , Henry T. Clark , also wanted troops returned to him to defend his coastline . After Cape Hatteras , on North Carolina 's coast , was captured , Confederate forces fell back to Roanoke Island . If that fell , a number of ports in that area of the coast would be at risk , and Norfolk , Virginia , might be threatened by land .
General Henry A. Wise , commanding Roanoke , also demanded troops and supplies . He received little from Benjamin 's War Department that had no arms to send , as the Union blockade was preventing supplies from being imported . That Confederate armories were empty was a fact not publicly known at the time . Benjamin and Davis hoped the island 's defenses could hold off the Union forces , but an overwhelming number of troops were landed in February 1862 at an undefended point , and the Confederates were quickly defeated . Combined with Union General Ulysses S. Grant 's capture of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in Tennessee , this was the most severe military blow yet to the Confederacy , and there was a public outcry against Benjamin , led by General Wise .
It was revealed , a quarter century after the war , that Benjamin and Davis had agreed for the secretary to act as scapegoat rather than reveal the shortage of arms . Not knowing this , the Richmond Examiner accused Benjamin of " stupid complacency " . Diarist Mary Chestnut recorded , " the mob calls him Mr. Davis 's pet Jew " . The Wise family never forgave Benjamin , to the detriment of his memory in Southern eyes . The general 's son , Captain Jennings Wise , fell at Roanoke Island , and Henry 's grandson John Wise , interviewed in 1936 , told Meade that " the fat Jew sitting at his desk " was to blame . Another of the general 's sons , also named John Wise , wrote a highly popular book about the South in the Civil War , The End of an Era ( 1899 ) , in which he said that Benjamin " had more brains and less heart than any other civic leader in the South ... The Confederacy and its collapse were no more to Judah P. Benjamin than last year 's birds nest . "
The Confederate Congress established a special committee to investigate the military losses ; Benjamin testified before it . The Secretary of State , Virginia 's Robert M. T. Hunter , had quarreled with Davis and resigned and in March 1862 , Benjamin was appointed as his replacement . Varina Davis noted that some in Congress had sought Benjamin 's ouster " because of reverses which no one could have averted , [ so ] the President promoted him to the State Department with a personal and aggrieved sense of injustice done to the man who had now become his friend and right hand . " Richmond diarist Sallie Ann Brock Putnam wrote , " Mr. Benjamin was not forgiven ... this act on the part of the President [ in promoting Benjamin ] , in defiance of public opinion , was considered as unwise , arbitrary , and a reckless risking of his reputation and popularity ... [ Benjamin ] was ever afterwards unpopular in the Confederacy , and particularly in Virginia " . Despite the promotion , the committee reported that any blame for the defeat at Roanoke Island should attach to Wise 's superior , Major General Benjamin Huger , " and the late secretary of war , J.P. Benjamin " .
= = = Confederate Secretary of State = = =
Throughout his time as Secretary of State , Benjamin tried to induce Britain and France to recognize the Confederacy — no other nation was likely to do so unless these powerful states led the way . The protection this would bring to the Confederacy and its foreign trade was hoped to be enough to save it .
= = = = Basis of Confederate foreign policy = = = =