Charles J. Faulkner: the French connection

Image from bioguide.congress.gov

Suspected of assisting rebellion from abroad and later an aide to a well-known Confederate general, Charles James Faulkner was nevertheless able to make his way back to government work.

Born in Martinsburg, Virginia in 1806, Faulkner graduated from Georgetown University in 1822 before studying law and being admitted to the bar in 1829. Three years later, he was elected to the Virginia house of delegates, where he served until 1834. While there, he proposed the gradual elimination of slavery by a measure that would declare all children born to slave parents after July 1, 1840 to be free. The proposal was voted down, and Faulkner fell more into the pro-slavery camp due to his opposition to Abolitionists in the North. Faulkner was also a member of the state senate from 1841 until his resignation the next year, and returned to the house of delegates from 1848 to 1849. He was credited with introducing a bill that passed the house and formed the basis for the federal Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.

In 1850, Faulkner was elected to Congress as a Whig. He joined the Democrats and was elected to another three terms, chairing the Committee on Military Affairs in his last term.

One of Faulkner's biggest court cases, if perhaps one of his shortest-lived as well, was the representation of John Brown after the abolitionist's raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859. Faulkner and fellow attorney Lawson Botts were assigned to defend Brown, two of six lawyers who would take up the case before Brown's conviction. Faulkner immediately asked to be dismissed from the matter, saying he had been at the scene and heard the confessions of the raiders, that Brown did not approve of his appointment, and that he doubted the authority of the court to assign him. He still served in the role for one day before taking his leave.

Also in 1859, Faulkner was appointed Minister of France by President James Buchanan. Buchanan had offered Faulkner the post after his election in 1856, but Faulkner declined out of deference to his friend John Y. Mason, who was already serving in the position. He accepted Buchanan's second offer, as it came upon Mason's death. While he was Minister, Faulkner was able to secure the right of expatriation for American citizens visiting the country.

When the Civil War broke out in April of 1861, Faulkner found himself in a foreign country with his home state joining the Confederacy. Given his potential sympathy to the new government (a feeling shared by the French government), President Abraham Lincoln recalled Faulkner to replace him with William L. Dayton of New Jersey. Faulkner returned to the Washington, D.C. in August, intending to formally end his association with the government. There, he was arrested by order of the War Department.

Faulkner was suspected of successfully negotiating arms sales to the Confederacy while in Paris, a charge the New York Times reported was substantiated by "conclusive evidence" that had arrived on another transatlantic steamer. He was also accused of planning to return to Virginia to take command of a contingent of rebels who had elected him colonel. Faulkner appealed to the War Department, but was rebuffed and told he was being held as a hostage to be exchanged for Pennsylvania state treasurer James McGraw, who had been captured after the First Battle of Bull Run while searching for a friend's body.

Imprisoned at Fort Lafayette in New York Harbor, Faulkner was not released when McGraw was returned, but rather transferred to the custody of the Secretary of State. Now a political prisoner, he also changed prisons and was taken to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. He refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Union, which would have led to his release. In a rather strange deal with Secretary of State William H. Seward, Faulkner agreed to a 30-day release in December to travel to the Confederate capital in Richmond, Virginia to negotiate his own exchange for Republican Congressman Alfred Ely of New York. Like McGraw, Ely had been captured while observing the First Battle of Bull Run. Faulkner was able to secure Ely's release and remained in Richmond, where he was cheered by a crowd of thousands. Ely later credited him with advocating the improvement of Confederate prison conditions based on Faulkner's own treatment in a Union lockup.

Following his release, Faulkner joined the Confederate army and served as assistant adjutant general on the staff of General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. In a letter to a Jackson biographer in 1876, he says, "He was always equal to the position in which he was placed, whether it was in command of a regiment, a brigade, a division, or an army; and he could have with as much ease have handled 100,000 men upon the battlefield as he did 10,000." Accounts are mixed as to whether Faulkner stayed in the army after Jackson's death in 1863 or if he went to reside at his son-in-law's house at Appomattox. The matter is no doubt complicated by the fact that Faulkner's son, also a Charles J. Faulkner, served as an aide to two Confederate generals, including one who surrendered at Appomattox. Following the war, Faulkner made a visit to Washington, D.C. and said that he had been misrepresented by some newspapers, that he favored a union between the North and South and had joined Jackson's staff as a personal consideration for the Confederate officers instead of a political reason.

For a short period after the war, little information is available on Faulkner. The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibited any person who had previously taken an oath of support for the Constitution as a member of the federal or state government from holding any government office if they had supported the Confederacy in the Civil War. Faulkner certainly qualified for this restriction.

However, he soon returned to public life. In 1870, he was elected president of the Martinsburg and Potomac Railroad. In 1871, he was elected president of the Berkeley County Agricultural Society and also successfully defended the claims of the newly formed state West Virginia to Berkeley and Jefferson counties before the U.S. Supreme Court. He was a member of the West Virginia constitutional convention in 1872, the same year Congress voted to remove his Fourteenth Amendment disabilities. Faulkner was named a regent to West Virginia University, and the next year successfully ran for Congress.

After one term, Faulkner opted not to run for re-election and returned to law work. He wasn't quite done with government; in 1876 he ran for the U.S. Senate and in 1880 he tried for the nomination for Governor of West Virginia, but was unsuccessful in both attempts. He died at his estate, "Boydville," in Martinsburg in 1884.

Sources: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "The Great Rebellion: Important News From The National Capital" in the New York Times on Aug. 13 1861, "Miscellaneous War News" in the Philadelphia Press on Dec. 20 1861, "From Washington" in the New York Times on Jul. 26 1865, "The Rebel View of the War; It Is Again Presented By Hon. Charles J. Faulkner, of West Virginia" in the New York Times on Dec. 31 1876, "Obituary - Charles J. Faulkner" in the New York Times on Nov. 2 1884, The Trial in American Life by Robert A. Ferguson, The Public Life of Captain John Brown With An Autobiography of His Childhood and Youth by James Redpath, Journal of Alfred Ely, a Prisoner of War in Richmond by Alfred Ely, The Political Register and Congressional Directory: A Statistical Record of the Federal Officials, Legislative, Executive, and Judicial, of the United States of America, 1776-1878 compiled by Benjamin Perley Poore, The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans edited by Rossiter Johnson, The Statutes At Large and the Proclamations of the United States of America from March 1871 to March 1873, The Life of William H. Seward by Frederic Bancroft, History of Berkeley County, West Virginia by Willis Fryatt Evans

Judah Philip Benjamin: fugitive from justice?

Image from library.yale.edu

The American Civil War is steeped in enough myth and legend and accounts differing across the Mason-Dixon line that the truth might be difficult to track down. Judah Philip Benjamin didn't help historians much by staying quiet about his role in the Confederate government, despite allegations against him so damning that they forced his flight from the country.

Born in 1811 on the island of St. Croix in what are now the Virgin Islands, Benjamin later moved with his family to South Carolina. He attended Yale when he was only 14 years old, though he evidently left before graduation under mysterious circumstances. Moving to New Orleans, Benjamin entered the business of law but also dabbled in railroad development and sugar planting. He owned some 140 slaves until he sold his plantation in 1850.

In 1842, Benjamin was elected as a Whig to the Louisiana state legislature and subsequently became the second Jew to be elected to the U.S. Senate in 1852. When the Whig Party dissolved under the mounting pressures leading to the Civil War, Benjamin became a Democrat. After Louisiana seceded to join the group of states forming the Confederacy in 1861, Benjamin left the Senate and was appointed Attorney General of the Confederate government by president Jefferson Davis.

Though widely regarded as a capable official, Benjamin was not the most popular member of the cabinet, with some scholars attributing this to anti-Semitism. In September 1861, he was appointed the Confederacy's second Secretary of War. Clashing with military leaders, Benjamin was held accountable for the loss of Roanoke Island to Union forces as well as other losses in the western theater. Henry Foote, the Tennessee representative in the Confederate Congress, introduced a bill of no confidence against Benjamin in 1862.

Davis, not wanting to lose Benjamin's expertise, encouraged him to resign and appointed him as the Confederacy's third Secretary of State. Benjamin focused his efforts on cultivating diplomatic relations with England and France, including securing the Erlanger Loan, in which a French banking house agreed to market $15 million in Confederate cotton bonds to inject much-needed capital into the Confederacy's economy. Benjamin was still dogged by political enemies, however, who accused him of smuggling and transferring money to personal bank accounts in Europe. The rumors tended to focus on similar misconduct, with accusations that Benjamin had left Yale for thievery and stole money from the treasury when the cabinet had to vacate Richmond (the cabinet did pack up the treasury upon departure, however, and people are still trying to track down that gold).

Though it was advocated by other government and military officials as well, Benjamin came under fire for suggesting that slaves be allowed to fight for the Confederacy in exchange for emancipation. A subsequent vote in the Confederate Congress to find him "not a wise and prudent Secretary of State" failed in a tie. Despite being a controversial figure, Benjamin's likeness was printed on the Confederate two-dollar bill.

Benjamin's move through cabinet positions was more a result of the instability of the Confederacy than any proven scandal. It was a series of events toward the end of the war that made reconciliation with the United States an impossibility for him. By that time, he had become involved in covert activities against the United States, including encouraging dissent and funding spy rings operating out of Canada. This would not bode well for him when the cabinet fled the capital before its fall to Union forces. In April of 1865, John Wilkes Booth assassinated U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. In the aftermath of the shooting, Benjamin didn't come off in the best light. He'd burned documents before leaving Richmond and had financed an operation that aimed to kidnap Lincoln. How closely the Confederate spy operations were tied to the conspirators is unclear, but prior to the assassination Booth opened an account in the same bank that was a drop point for Confederate cash, and John Surratt (son of Mary Surratt, an assassination conspirator who was later convicted and hanged) ferried money to Confederate agents in Canada. William Seward, the United States Secretary of State, had been wounded in an assassination attempt connected to that on Lincoln and said he thought Benjamin had been the sole Confederate cabinet member in on the plot.

Benjamin was not the only one implicated in the assassination; Davis's name showed up frequently as well. Historians seem to agree that Benjamin had no part in the plot, saying the accusations arose out of a mixture of anti-Semitism and people offering testimony against the Confederate government officials in hopes of collecting a reward. However, fearing that he would not receive a fair trial in such an atmosphere, Benjamin fled in disguise. After a four-month journey, he departed the country by boat from Florida, escaping to the Caribbean before crossing the Atlantic to England. Davis was captured and indicted for treason, but the charges were later dropped; the story of the former Congressman, Senator, and Secretary of War from Mississippi is surely enough for a future entry.

Benjamin made his way to England, where he quickly settled into a career as a successful barrister. In 1872, he was elected to the Queen's Counsel. He died in 1884 on a visit to France, having never publicly spoken or written about his time in the Confederate government.

Sources: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, Leaders of the American Civil War: A Biographical and Historiographical Dictionary edited by Charles F. Ritter and Jon L. Wakelyn, Encyclopedia Britannica, "Judah Benjamin, The Jewish Confederate" by the American Jewish Historical Society, The Jewish Confederates by Robert N. Rosen, Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln by Edward Steers Jr., The Rebel and the Rose: James A. Semple, Julia Gardner Tyler, and the Lost Confederate Gold by Wesley Millett and Gerald White