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Letter from James Dillingham to Clossmann & Co. Bordeaux France. He is talking of the accounts for the company in New Orleans. He was the owner of the ships Creole and Talma mentioned in the letter.
Clossmann is a French winemaker going back to the 18th century.
The lawyer who Dillingham recommend in the letter history has been labeled by one source as "Confederacy's second in command".
3 ¼” x 5 ¼”
Judah Philip Benjamin, QC (1811 – 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 hold a Cabinet position in North America and the first to be elected to the United States Senate who had not renounced his faith.
Judah Benjamin attended Yale College but left without graduating. He 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 planter and slaveowner and was elected to and served in both houses of the Louisiana legislature prior to his election by the legislature to the US Senate in 1852. There, he was an eloquent supporter of slavery. After Louisiana seceded in 1861, Benjamin resigned as senator and returned to New Orleans.
He soon moved to Richmond after Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed him as Attorney General. Benjamin had little to do in that position, but Davis was impressed by his competence and appointed him as 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.
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