Judah P. Benjamin, former Secretary State of…
July 1865 CE
Judah P. Benjamin, former Secretary State of the dissolved Confederacy, travels by sea to the Bahamas and then to England under a false name.
His escape from Florida to England is not without hardship.
The small sponge-carrying vessel on which he leaves Bimini bound for Nassau explodes on the way, and he and the three crewmen have to be rescued by a British warship.
His ship from the Bahamas to England catches fire, but manages to make it to port.
He is the only high-ranking Confederate politician to flee the country to avoid treason charges.
The historian Donald C. Simmons thinks that Benjamin may have considered joining his brother Joseph Benjamin, Colin J. McRae, the former Confederate Financial Agent in Europe, and other Confederates at New Richmond, British Honduras, in the Confederate settlements. (Simmons, Donald C. Confederate Settlements in British Honduras, McFarland and Company Publishers, 2001.)
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