David Levy Yulee

We are familiar with some of the various Senators like Davis, Clay or Chesnut, who resigned and "went South" when the Confederacy was forming. One we rarely hear about was Senator David L. Yulee from Florida.His name actually David Levy and he was the first Jewish person elected to the U.S. Senate. I don't know much about this person but I read that his father and Judah Benjamin's father were first cousins.

 

[RedRover]

Senator Yulee was a railroad developer, and had property across Florida, including a plantation at Archer near Gainesville (Cottonwood) and a sugar plantation on the Homosassa River to the south (Margarita).
He was pretty popular in Florida. Though after resigning his Senate seat after Florida's secession, he did not assume any public offices under the Confederacy. He did successfully block some attempts by Confederate authorities to nationalize his railroad, or its iron, for a time.

His home in Fernandina on the east coast was confiscated by federal authorities during the war, and his Margarita sugar plantation was raided and the home and warehouse on "Tiger Tail Island" burned. The wreck of the sugar mill, a bit up the river, remains.

He was arrested and imprisoned at the end of the war.

 

[Pollaco]

What exactly were the charges against Yulee that resulted in his imprisonment.

 

[RedRover]

What exactly were the charges against Yulee that resulted in his imprisonment.

Secretary of War Stanton reported the charges as follows:

However, there was a published rumor that the arrest was simply to keep him out of Florida politics during the reorganization of the State government.

At the commencement of the unpleasantness, in the Senate chamber he made a speech about the secession of his State, and withdrew from that body alongside Jefferson Davis and Senator Mallory of Florida. This seemed to mark him to the Congress as a chief architect (in some's view) of the Southern proceedings.

The fact that parties from Davis' fugitive escort deposited baggage at his Archer plantation marked him again in 1865. From W.W. Davis' Civil War and Reconstruction in Florida:

In the summer of 1865 at Fort Pulaski, Yulee wrote the following seeking release:

....

...

By the time Yulee was released from custody in March, 1866, the government of Florida had been reorganized. Yulee's popularity and business ventures continued to his death in the 1880s.

 

[Pollaco]

It appears that Yulee was a brother-in-law to Joseph Holt, the Judge Advocate General of the Union Army.

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

Levy County, FL and the unincorporated community of Yulee, FL (located on the route of his former railroad) are both named after him. The ruins of his sugar mill are a small state historic site, now managed as part of nearby Homosassa Springs State Park.

 

[Pollaco]

It appears that Yulee was a brother-in-law to Joseph Holt, the Judge Advocate General of the Union Army.

I makes one wonder if a "heavyweight" like Holt might have intervened on Yulee's behalf. From what I've read Yulee did not spend alot of time "behind bars".

 

[RedRover]

I makes one wonder if a "heavyweight" like Holt might have intervened on Yulee's behalf. From what I've read Yulee did not spend alot of time "behind bars".

The State government sought his release in 1866.

Yulee was later paroled, and was granted amnesty in late 1867. The New York Herald suggested that Yulee's brother in law Joseph Holt likely had more to do with his arrest than with his eventual release.

 

[Pollaco]

I wasn't aware of a family feud. In-Laws!

 

[Pollaco]

There were 3 Wickliffe sisters, daughters of the ex Governor of Kentucky. They married Yulee, Holt, and a Judge Merrick.

 

[Bentonville]

I wasn't aware of a family feud. In-Laws!

I thought mine were bad.