15 facts I learned from a random Wikipedia article

Original prompt: click on "Random Wikipedia Article" and write about whatever comes up (you can try 3 times and pick your favorite). For the record, I got Alejandro Estivill, Fencing at the 2011 Pan American Games – Women's épée, and Benjamin F. Jonas. I chose Benjamin F. Jonas because it was the longest of the three entries and it had a photo.

1. He was born in Kentucky, moved to Illinois as a kid, and went to college and spent the rest of his life in Louisiana
2. Jonas's father was a merchant and lawyer
3. His father knew Lincoln (like they were real buds)
4. Despite this, Jonas sided with the confederacy
5. Not only did he side with the confederacy, but he joined the Confederate army and rose to the rank of major
6. He went to University of Louisiana (now Tulane)
7. Jonas was Jewish (I didn't know there were Jewish senators who served the Confederacy)
8. He was the second Jewish U.S. Senator from Louisiana and the third Jewish Senator overall
9. Jonas was the first Ashkenazi Jewish US senator
10. Although he was Jewish, he married a Christian woman and did not seem to practice Judaism openly
11. He was once elected to state senate, but said no thanks
12. Perhaps, as karma, he later ran for re-election for U.S. senate and lost
13. Shockingly, he was the last Jewish senator from the Deep South until Jon Ossoff (for context, Jonas left the senate in 1885)
14. He was chairman of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs when he was a U.S. senator
15. Jonas served as something called the Collector of the port of New Orleans (though I couldn't click on this title so I'm not 100% sure what it is)

(Prompt by Kimisha Cassidy)

Benjamin F. Jonas. Library of Congress description: "Jonas, Hon. Benjamin Franklin, Senator of Louisiana. Served in the Washington Artillery until 1863".