Member Review Keep Smiling

[52ndFandS]

I've always been fascinated by Judah P. Benjamin. He was an asset most certainly and besides David Youlee the only Jewish person, Sephardicnas well, that I can think of within the Confederate government.

But the most striking thing about tge man are photographs. He always seemed to have a little bit of a smile on his face. With photography being as it was in that era, e.g. having you sit or stand stock still, braved at times, how did he manage that? You don't see it often in that time period.

I can only assume that he just had a constant smile on his face.

Anyone have any others with the same sort of thing come to mind?

 

[Bur Oak]

 

[Nathan Stuart]

That's an interesting observation.

In an earnest era, where subjects generally posed for their images looking mainly serious or grim, thought Benjamin's smiling look was unusual.

He appears to be smiling in most of the images of him.

However, below is a purported portrait of Benjamin, painted by an unknown artist in 1859, showing him wearing a more serious and pensive look.

(See: https://loebjewishportraits.com/portrait/judah-philip-benjamin-2/ )

Thought his smiling images add to his enigma.

 

[nc native]

Judah Benjamin was the first Jewish official to be appointed to any Presidential cabinet North or South. Oscar Straus was the first presidential cabinet appointee to serve in the United States government in 1906 when he was appointed Secretary of Labor. David Yulee was the first Jewish man to become senator when Florida elected him to office in 1845. Yulee was also the first Jew to serve a term in the US House of Representatives.

 

[52ndFandS]

That's an interesting observation.

In an earnest era, where subjects generally posed for their images looking mainly serious or grim, thought Benjamin's smiling look was unusual.

He appears to be smiling in most of the images of him.

However, below is a purported portrait of Benjamin, painted by an unknown artist in 1859, showing him wearing a more serious and pensive look.

View attachment 510596

(See: https://loebjewishportraits.com/portrait/judah-philip-benjamin-2/ )

Thought his smiling images add to his enigma.

If just didn't take so long for a portrait...

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

"It was revealed a quarter-century after the war that Benjamin and Davis had agreed for Benjamin to act as a scapegoat, rather than to reveal the shortage of arms.[88] Not knowing it, the Richmond Examiner accused Benjamin of "stupid complacency."[89] Diarist Mary Chestnut recorded that "the mob calls him Mr. Davis's pet Jew."[90] The Wise family never forgave Benjamin, to the detriment of his memory in Southern eyes. Wise'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.[88] 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."[88]"

Benjamin was incredibly smart and Davis made some huge mistakes in regards to how he took some of Benjamin's advice and going against it. Also, Davis made Benjamin Secretary of War and he had NO experience of anything of the kind. He was very loyal to Davis but he did not have the experience to contradict Davis when necessary.