Benjamin, Judah Philip (1811-1884), was a United States lawyer and statesman who was active in the Confederate cause during the Civil War (1861-1865). He served successively as attorney general, secretary of war, and secretary of state in the Cabinet of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy. Benjamin was perhaps the most trusted adviser of Davis.
Benjamin was born on Aug. 6, 1811, at St. Croix, now one of the U.S. Virgin Islands. When he was a child, his parents moved to South Carolina. Benjamin attended Yale College and later became a leading lawyer and planter. He joined the Whig Party and was elected a U.S. senator from Louisiana in 1853. At the end of the war, Benjamin moved to London and resumed his law practice. He died on May 6, 1884. His Treatise on the Law of Sale of Personal Property (1868) is still an important reference work.
