General Order No. 11 (1862)

Last updated

Grant in 1861 Ulysses S Grant as Brigadier General, 1861.jpg
Grant in 1861

General Order No. 11 was a controversial Union Army order issued by Major-General Ulysses S. Grant on December 17, 1862 during the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War. The order expelled all Jews from Grant's military district, comprising areas of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky. Grant issued the order in an effort to reduce corruption among Union Army personnel and stop the illicit trade in Southern-produced cotton, which he perceived as being run "mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders". [1] During the war, the Lincoln administration had authorized licensed traders to do business with the Union Army, which created a market for unlicensed ones. Union Army commanders in the South were responsible for administering the trade licenses and trying to control the black market in Southern cotton, in addition to their regular military duties.

Contents

At Holly Springs, Mississippi, the supply depot of Grant's troops, Jews were rounded up and forced to leave the city on foot. On December 20, 1862, three days after Grant's order, Confederate States Army troops led by Major-General Earl Van Dorn raided Holly Springs, preventing the potential expulsion of further Jews. Although delayed by Van Dorn's raid, Grant's order was fully implemented in Paducah, Kentucky, where thirty Jewish families were forcibly expelled from the city. Jewish community leaders protested, and there was an outcry from members of the United States Congress and media outlets to the order; President Abraham Lincoln responded by countermanding it on January 4, 1863. Grant claimed during his 1868 presidential campaign that he had not issued the order due to any antisemitism but as a way to address a problem that "certain Jews had caused". [2] Historians and Grant biographers have generally been critical of the order.

Background

Military operations

General Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses S. Grant, engraving, Brisbin biography.jpg
General Ulysses S. Grant

On November 2, 1862, Union Major General Ulysses S. Grant, launched an aggressive Civil War campaign to take the Confederate citadel of Vicksburg, Mississippi. [3] On November 13, Grant's cavalry had advanced on and captured Holly Springs, Mississippi, and set up an advanced supply station. [4] On December 1, Grant's cavalry continued to move South, crossed the Tallahatchie River, and captured Oxford, Mississippi. [5] On December 8, Grant informed Henry Halleck, his commanding general, of his military convergence plan to advance on Vicksburg overland, while Union Major General William T. Sherman would advance on Vicksburg from the Mississippi River. [5] The Confederate commander of Vicksburg was General John C. Pemberton, who was stationed at Jackson, Mississippi, that was a distance of 45 miles from Vicksburg. [5] Grant's own Union military advance was made vulnerable to Confederate attack by a 190 mile railroad supply line. [6]

Grant's plan to capture Vicksburg by a joint-venture with Sherman's Army was thwarted by two Confederate raids. On December 10, 1862, breaking from Confederate General Braxton Bragg's Army, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest began a series of raids that disrupted Union positions. [7] Forrest destroyed Grant's rail and telegraphic communications, and inflicted 1,500 casualties on the Union Army. [8] Grant's northern communications were cut off from Jackson, Tennessee to Columbus, Kentucky. [9] On December 20, Confederate General Earl Van Dorn raided Union supply station at Holly Springs destroying "shops, depots, and warehouses." [10] Grant was defeated, extended into enemy territory, and forced to withdraw to Tennessee, his army foraging the land. On December 29, Sherman's assault on Vicksburg at Chickasaw Bayou was repulsed by Pemberton. [11]

Refugee cotton labor

While Grant prepared to attack Pemberton's Confederate army, his army was flooded by fugitive slaves, considered contrabands by the federal government. In early November, Grant initiated a labor camp system where former refugee slaves would pick cotton, shipped north, to aid the Union War effort. Grant ordered Chaplain John Eaton to take charge of the contrabands. In return the black refugees would be protected by the army and the profits from the sale of cotton would be given to the black workers to "compensate for food, clothing, and shelter." Grant believed the labor camp system would "make the Negro a consciously self-supporting unit...and start him on the way to self-respecting citizenship." [12] In November 1862, the first labor camp was established at Grand Junction. The Lincoln administration authorized Grant's program five days later. In December, Eaton was appointed by Grant to be superintendent of contrabands. African American common-law marriages were legalized. [13] On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, that expanded the war, to end slavery in the rebelling states. [14]

Cotton, illegal trade, smuggling

While Grant's Army marched deeper into the Confederate South, enemy territory, [15] as far as Oxford, Mississippi, northern traders followed, to profiteer in the cotton trade, driven by the North's "consuming need" for the highly sought after product, used to make Union tents. The Union naval blockade forced Southern cotton planters to find alternatives to exporting their product. [16] Extensive cotton trade continued between the North and South. Northern textile mills in New York and New England were dependent on Southern cotton, while Southern plantation owners depended on the trade with the North for their economic survival. The U.S. Government permitted limited trade, licensed by the Treasury and the U.S. Army. Corruption flourished as unlicensed traders bribed Army officers to allow them to buy Southern cotton without a permit. [17] Jewish traders were among those involved in the cotton trade; some merchants had been active in the cotton business for generations in the South; others were more recent immigrants to the North. [18]

Grant received contradictory information from Washington. The Treasury Department wanted to restore trade with the South, while the War Department believed profiteering from the sale of cotton aided the Confederacy and prolonged the war. Traders were allowed permits as long as the traders did not cross into Confederate held territory. Grant found this difficult to enforce, while he tried to stop cotton traders, including Jewish traders, from moving south with his army. [19]

The practice of cotton smuggling infuriated Grant. [16] Criticism of Jewish traders spread throughout the Union Army, although non-Jewish traders' involvement with illicit trade was rampant. Jewish traders were singled out and called "sharks" who fed upon soldiers. [20] As part of his command, Grant was responsible for issuing trade licenses in the Department of Tennessee, an administrative district of the Union Army that comprised the portions of Kentucky and Tennessee west of the Tennessee River, and Union-controlled areas of northern Mississippi. Grant resented having to deal with the distraction of the cotton trade. He perceived it as having endemic corruption: the highly lucrative trade resulted in a system where "every colonel, captain or quartermaster ... [was] in a secret partnership with some operator in cotton." [21] He issued a number of directives aimed at black marketeers.

Escalating hostility

On November 9, 1862, Grant sent an order to Major-General Stephen A. Hurlbut: "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out." [22] The following day he instructed Colonel Joseph Dana Webster: "Give orders to all the conductors on the [rail]road that no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them." [22] In a letter to General William Tecumseh Sherman, Grant wrote that his policy was occasioned "in consequence of the total disregard and evasion of orders by Jews." [23]

Grant explained his anti-Jewish policy to the War Department. Grant said that Treasury Department regulations were violated: "mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders". [24] In reference to Jewish traders Grant said: "they come in with their carpet sacks in spite of all that can be done to prevent it. The Jews seem to be a privileged class that can travel anywhere. They will land at any wood yard or landing on the river and make their way through the country. If not permitted to buy cotton themselves they will act as agents for someone else who will be at a military post with a Treasury permit to receive cotton and pay for it in Treasury notes, which the Jew will buy up at an agreed rate, paying gold." Grant proposed that the federal government "to buy all the cotton at a fixed rate and send it to Cairo, St. Louis or some other point to be sold. Then all traders---they are a curse to the Army---might be expelled." [25]

Grant and the cotton trade took on a more personal tone when his father Jesse Grant, and the Mack brothers, Jewish clothing contractors, visited Grant at his Southern base of Oxford. Jesse and Grant got along well with each other for a couple of days. Grant also treated his Jewish guests respectfully. The Mack brothers needed cotton to make Union army uniforms. Jesse Grant had been promised by the Mack brothers to receive a quarter of the profits, after Jesse had gotten his son Grant to bestow permits to buy cotton, and then be shipped to New York. When Grant found out about the business agreement between Jesse and the Mack brothers, Grant was livid. Grant abruptly sent Jesse and the Mack brothers packing north on the next train. [26] Grant may have felt betrayed to find out his own father was involved in the cotton trade that he despised. [27]

At the start of December 1862, Grant focused on Jewish traders as the primary cause of smuggling. On December 5, Grant told Sherman that "in consequence of the total disregard and evasion of orders by the Jews my policy is to exclude them so far as practicable from the Dept." [28] Grant tightened restrictions to try to reduce the illegal trade. On December 8, 1862, he issued General Order No. 2, mandating that "cotton-speculators, Jews and other Vagrants having not honest means of support, except trading upon the miseries of their Country … will leave in twenty-four hours or they will be sent to duty in the trenches." [23] As the days went by, Grant's anger mounted. Grant was not satisfied only with punishing Jewish traders, he desired to expel all Jewish people from his district. [28]

Issue of the order

Grant's Asst. Adjt. Gen. John Rawlins strongly objected to issuing General Orders No. 11. General-JARawlins.jpg
Grant's Asst. Adjt. Gen. John Rawlins strongly objected to issuing General Orders No. 11.

On December 17, 1862, Grant was angered when he had received complaints by mail concerning Jewish traders in his department. The same hour, Grant issued General Order No. 11, expelling "Jews, as a class" to strengthen his earlier prohibition. [21] [29] Jewish persons who did not obey the order were to be arrested and forcibly removed as prisoners. [29] John Rawlins, Grant's lawyer and Asst. Adjt. Gen., strongly warned Grant not to issue the order. Grant refused to take Rawlin's advice concerning the order and told him: "Well, they can countermand this from Washington if they like, but we will issue it anyhow." [30]

Text

General Orders No. 11
_______
Head Quarters 13th Army Corps,
Department of the Tennessee,
Oxford, Miss. Dec. 17, 1862.
I.. The Jews, as a class, violating every regulation of trade
established by the Treasury Department, and also Department
orders, are hereby expelled from the Department.
II.. Within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order
by Post Commanders, they will see that all of this class of people
be furnished passes and required to leave, and any one re-
turning after such notification will be arrested and held in con-
finement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as pris-
oners, unless furnished with permit from Head Quarters.
III.. No permits will be given these people to visit Head
Quarters for the purpose of making personal application for
trade permits.
By Order of Maj. Genl. U.S. Grant
JNO. A. RAWLINS
Ass't Adj't Genl. [31]

Letter to Wolcott

In a letter of the same date sent to Christopher Wolcott, the United States Assistant Secretary of War, Grant explained his reasoning:

To Chistopher P. Wolcott
_______
Head Quarters, 13th Army Corps.
Department of the Tennessee
Oxford, Dec. 17th 1862
HON. C.P. WOLCOTT
ASST. SECTY OF WAR
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Sir:
I have long since believed that in spite of all the vigilance that
can be infused into Post Commanders, that the Specie regulations
of the Treasury Dept. have been violated, and that mostly by
Jews and other unprincipled traders. So well satisfied of this have
I been at this that I instructed the Commdg Officer at Columbus to re-
fuse all permits to Jews to come south, and frequently have had
them expelled from the Dept. But they come in with their Carpet
sacks in spite of all that can be done to prevent it. The Jews seem
to be a privileged class that can travel any where. They will land
at any wood yard or landing on the river and make their way
through the country. If not permitted to buy Cotton themselves
they will act as agents for someone else who will be at a Military
post, with a Treasury permit to receive Cotton and pay for it in
Treasury notes which the Jew will buy up at an agreed rate,
paying gold.
There is but one way that I know of to reach this case. That
is for Government to buy all the Cotton at a fixed rate and send
it to Cairo, St Louis, or some other point to be sold. Then all
traders, they are a curse to the Army, might be expelled.
I am, Sir, Very Respectfully
Your Obt Servant
U.S. Grant
Maj Genl. [32] [33]

Enforcement

Confederate Major General Earl Van Dorn Van Dorn's December 20, 1862 raid on Holly Springs, Grant's Union supply depot, spared many Jewish people, from potentially being expelled from Grant's military district. VanDornACW.jpg
Confederate Major General Earl Van Dorn
Van Dorn's December 20, 1862 raid on Holly Springs, Grant's Union supply depot, spared many Jewish people, from potentially being expelled from Grant's military district.

Immediately after the order was issued, Jews at Holly Springs, Grant's supply depot, were rounded up and forcibly removed. Some Jewish traders were forced to evacuate the area forty miles on foot. [34] Seventy-two hours after Grant's order was issued, Holly Springs was raided by Confederate Major General Earl Van Dorn and his army of 3,500 Confederate troops. Union communication lines were broken for weeks, that resulted in many other Jews being spared from potential removal, and delayed full enforcement of Grant's order. [35] [10] [36]

On December 28, Grant's order was fully enforced at Paducah. Thirty Jewish families, shell-shocked and roughly treated, were ordered to leave Paducah within twenty-four hours. Jewish families in Paducah were forced to collect their personal belongings, shutter their homes and shops, and board a steamer on the Ohio River. [37] One Jewish resident of Paducah, Cesar Kaskel, a Union loyalist and president of the Paducah Union League Club, was summoned to Paducah's provost marshal, L.J. Waddell, and ordered by Waddell to leave the city. [38]

Jewish resistance

A group of Jewish merchants who were expelled from Paducah, Kentucky, led by Cesar Kaskel, sent a telegram to President Abraham Lincoln in which they condemned Grant's General Order No. 11 as "the grossest violation of the Constitution and our rights as good citizens under it". The telegram noted it would "place us ... as outlaws before the world. We respectfully ask your immediate attention to this enormous outrage on all law and humanity ..." [32] Throughout the Union, Jewish groups protested and sent telegrams to the government in Washington, D.C.

Kaskel led a delegation to Washington, D.C., arriving on January 3, 1863. [34] In Washington, he conferred with Jewish Republican Adolphus Solomons and a Cincinnati congressman, John A. Gurley. After meeting with Gurley, he went directly to the White House. Lincoln received the delegation and studied Kaskel's copies of General Order No. 11 and the specific order expelling Kaskel from Paducah. The President told General-in-Chief Henry Wager Halleck to have Grant revoke General Order No. 11, which Halleck did in the following message:

A paper purporting to be General Orders, No. 11, issued by you December 17, has been presented here. By its terms, it expells [ sic ] all Jews from your department. If such an order has been issued, it will be immediately revoked. [32]

One Jewish officer, Captain Philip Trounstine, of the Ohio cavalry, stationed in Moscow, Tennessee, resigned in protest, and Captain John C. Kelton, the assistant adjutant-general of the Department of Missouri, wrote to Grant to note his order included all Jews, rather than focusing on "certain obnoxious individuals," and noted that many Jews served in the Union Army. [39] [40] Grant formally rescinded the order, January 17, 1863, within three weeks after Lincoln revoked the order. [41]

Political response

The issue attracted significant attention in Congress and from the press. The Democrats condemned the order as part of what they saw as the US Government's systematic violation of civil liberties. The Democrats moved to censure Grant in the Republican-dominated Senate; the motion failed by a vote of 30–7. [36] Illinois congressman, and Grant supporter, Elihu Washburne, narrowly defeated a motion to censure Grant in the House by 56 votes to 53 votes. [36] Some newspapers supported Grant's action; the Washington Chronicle criticized Jews as "scavengers ... of commerce". [39] Most, however, were strongly opposed, with the New York Times denouncing the order as "humiliating" and a "revival of the spirit of the medieval ages." [39] Its editorial column called for the "utter reprobation" of Grant's order. [39]

One of Halleck's staff officers privately explained to Grant that the problem lay with the excessive scope of the order: "Had the word 'pedlar' been inserted after Jew I do not suppose any exception would have been taken to the order." According to Halleck, Lincoln had "no objection to [his] expelling traitors and Jew peddlers, which I suppose, was the object of your order; but as in terms proscribing an entire religious class, some of whom are fighting in our ranks, the President deemed it necessary to revoke it." The Republican politician Elihu B. Washburne defended Grant in similar terms. Grant's subordinates expressed concern about the order.

On January 6, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise of Cincinnati, leader of the Reform movement, led a delegation that met with Lincoln to express gratitude for his support. [34] Lincoln said he was surprised that Grant had issued such a command and said, "to condemn a class is, to say the least, to wrong the good with the bad." Lincoln said he drew no distinction between Jew and Gentile and would allow no American to be wronged because of his religious affiliation. [42] [ citation needed ]

Post-war repercussions

A cartoon by Bernhard Gillam depicting Grant courting Jewish voters in 1882 by crying "crocodile tears" over the persecution of Jews in Russia. The cartoon contrasts Grant's expressions of outrage with his own earlier actions. Grant's crocodile tears.jpg
A cartoon by Bernhard Gillam depicting Grant courting Jewish voters in 1882 by crying "crocodile tears" over the persecution of Jews in Russia. The cartoon contrasts Grant's expressions of outrage with his own earlier actions.

Repudiation of order

After the Civil War, General Order No. 11 became an issue in the presidential election of 1868 in which Grant stood as the Republican candidate. The Democrats raised the order as an issue, with the prominent Democrat and rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise urging fellow Jews to vote against Grant because of his alleged anti-semitism. Grant sought to distance himself from the order, saying "I have no prejudice against sect or race, but want each individual to be judged by his own merit." [43] [44] He repudiated the controversial order, asserting it had been drafted by a subordinate and that he had signed it without reading, in the press of warfare. [21] In September 1868, Grant wrote in reply to Isaac N. Morris, a correspondent:

I do not pretend to sustain the order. At the time of its publication, I was incensed by a reprimand received from Washington for permitting acts which Jews within my lines were engaged in ... The order was issued and sent without any reflection and without thinking of the Jews as a set or race to themselves, but simply as persons who had successfully ... violated an order. ... I have no prejudice against sect or race, but want each individual to be judged by his own merit. [44] [45]

The episode did not cause much long-term damage to Grant's relationship with the American Jewish community. He won the presidential election, taking the majority of the Jewish vote. [21]

Reconciliation

In his book When General Grant Expelled the Jews (2012) historian Jonathan Sarna maintains that as president Grant became one of the greatest friends of Jews in American history. When he was president, he appointed more Jews to office than any previous president. He condemned atrocities against Jews in Europe, putting human rights on the American diplomatic agenda. [46]

In 1874, President Grant attended a dedication of the Adas Israel Congregation in Washington with all the members of his Cabinet. This was the first time an American President attended a synagogue service. Many historians have taken his action as part of his continuing effort to reconcile with the Jewish community. [47]

Grant has been estimated to have appointed more than fifty Jewish people to federal office including consuls, district attorneys, and deputy postmasters. Grant appointed Jewish citizen Simon Wolf Washington, D.C., recorder of deeds. Grant appointed Jewish citizen Edward S. Salomon territorial governor of Washington, the first time an American Jew occupied a governor's seat. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise said "Grant has revoked Grant's notorious order No. 11." [48]

Historical views and assessments

Historians have generally been critical of Grant and his General Order No. 11. Scholars have offered unique perspectives of Grant's controversial order, at a time when the Civil War had taken on a different nature. [49]

In 1951, historian Bertram Korn said Grant's General Order No. 11 order was part of a pattern by Grant. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed ... he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." [22]

In 1981, historian William S. McFeely said: "Grant was fed up with the cotton speculators and the greedy suppliers of goods to his armies, but rather than attack the entire voracious horde, which included an astonishing number of entrepreneurs---Among them Charles A. Dana and Roscoe Conkling, for example---Grant singled out the Jews. The ancient stereotype of the grasping trader was invoked; once again a frustrated man chose the age-old scapegoat." [50] McFeely mentioned General James H. Wilson who served under Grant. Wilson said Grant's General Order No. 11 was related to Grant's difficulties with his own father, Jesse Root Grant. Wilson recounted, "He [Jesse Grant] was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." [51] Wilson felt that Grant could not deal with the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps attacked those he saw as their counterpart: opportunistic traders who were Jewish. [51]

In 2001, historian Jean Edward Smith said: "December 1862 was the low point of Grant's Civil War career. In addition to his own and Sherman's aborted attempts to take Vicksburg, on December 17, Grant issued an order that would stain his reputation forever. In one of the most blatant examples of state-sponsored anti-Semitism in American history, Grant expelled all members of the Jewish faith from the Department of the Tennessee." [19]

In 2012, historian H.W. Brands said: "Grant shared the penchant for stereotyping Jews common to the age in America, and he may well have concluded that whatever loss they suffered by being treated as a group was a burden they would have to bear. If the inconvenience of this comparatively small class was the price of winning the war, he was willing to make them pay it. He demanded far more of his soldiers every day." [52]

In 2016, historian Ronald C. White said: "Although non-Jews participated widely in illegal trading, the military newspaper in Corinth called Jews "sharks" feeding upon soldiers." ¶ "In the midst of this growing anti-Jewish feeling, Grant issued General Orders No. 11 on December 17, 1862." [20]

In 2017, historian Ron Chernow said: "Whatever the exact sequence of events, Grant must have felt wounded by the situation, for he had railed at traders only to discover his father in cahoots with them. Grant's infamous order was a self-inflicted wound, issued at a moment of pique and over the objections of Rawlins. Besides pointing to the order's offensive nature, Rawlins predicted it would be countermanded by Washington." [26]

In 2017, historian Charles W. Calhoun said: "The question dated from late 1862, when Grant had issued an order expelling "Jews, as a class," from the area of his command in Mississippi for violating trade restrictions. The ill-advised order reflected his frustrations in trying to control illicit commerce behind the lines, and Lincoln countermanded it as soon as it came to his attention." [53]

In 2018, historian Paul Kahan said: "Offended by the swarm of speculators and traders who profited from the war, Grant issued his infamous General Order No. 11, which included three points, the first of which commanded: "The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the Department [of the Tennessee] within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order." [54]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Civil War</span> 1861–1865 conflict in the United States

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union. The central conflict leading to war was a dispute over whether slavery should be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prohibited from doing so, which many believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ulysses S. Grant</span> Civil War general, U.S. president (1869 to 1877)

Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th president of the United States, serving from 1869 to 1877. In 1865, as commanding general, Grant led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vicksburg campaign</span> 1862–63 American Civil War campaign in Mississippi

The Vicksburg campaign was a series of maneuvers and battles in the Western Theater of the American Civil War directed against Vicksburg, Mississippi, a fortress city that dominated the last Confederate-controlled section of the Mississippi River. The Union Army of the Tennessee under Major General Ulysses S. Grant gained control of the river by capturing this stronghold and defeating Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton's forces stationed there.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Border states (American Civil War)</span> Slave states that did not secede from the Union during the American Civil War

In the American Civil War (1861–65), the border states or the Border South were four, later five, slave states in the Upper South that primarily supported the Union. They were Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, and after 1863, the new state of West Virginia. To their north they bordered free states of the Union, and all but Delaware bordered slave states of the Confederacy to their south.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Army of the Tennessee</span> Unit of the Union Army during the American Civil War

The Army of the Tennessee was a Union army in the Western Theater of the American Civil War, named for the Tennessee River. A 2005 study of the army states that it "was present at most of the great battles that became turning points of the war—Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, and Atlanta" and "won the decisive battles in the decisive theater of the war."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turning point of the American Civil War</span>

There is widespread disagreement among historians about the turning point of the American Civil War. A turning point in this context is an event that occurred during the conflict after which most modern scholars would agree that the eventual outcome was inevitable. The near simultaneous Battle of Gettysburg in the east and fall of Vicksburg in the west, in July 1863 is widely cited as the military climax of the American Civil War. Several other decisive battles and events throughout the war have been proposed as turning points. The events are presented here in chronological order with only the positive arguments for each given.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earl Van Dorn</span> Confederate States Army general

Earl Van Dorn was an American Major General who started his military career as a United States Army officer and became famous for successfully leading a defense of a Native American settlement from the Comanche. He joined Confederate forces in 1861 after the Civil War broke out and was a Major General when he was killed in a private conflict.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grenville M. Dodge</span> Union Army general during the American Civil War

Grenville Mellen Dodge was a Union Army officer on the frontier and a pioneering figure in military intelligence during the Civil War, who served as Ulysses S. Grant's intelligence chief in the Western Theater. He served in several notable assignments, including command of the XVI Corps during the Atlanta Campaign.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John A. McClernand</span> American politician and Union general (1812–1900)

John Alexander McClernand was an American lawyer, politician, and a Union Army general in the American Civil War. He was a prominent Democratic politician in Illinois and a member of the United States House of Representatives before the war. McClernand was firmly dedicated to the principles of Jacksonian democracy and supported the Compromise of 1850.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Aaron Rawlins</span> Union Army general and 29th Secretary of War

John Aaron Rawlins was a general officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War and a cabinet officer in the Grant administration. A longtime confidant of Ulysses S. Grant, Rawlins served on Grant's staff throughout the war, rising to the rank of brevet major general, and was Grant's chief defender against allegations of insobriety. He was appointed Secretary of War when Grant was elected President of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western theater of the American Civil War</span> American Civil War area of operations

The western theater of the American Civil War encompassed major military operations in the states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee, as well as Louisiana east of the Mississippi River. Operations on the coasts of these states, except for Mobile Bay, are considered part of the Lower Seaboard Theater. Most other operations east of the Appalachian Mountains are part of the eastern theater. Operations west of the Mississippi River took place in the trans-Mississippi theater.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mississippi in the American Civil War</span>

Mississippi was the second southern state to declare its secession from the United States, doing so on January 9, 1861. It joined with six other southern states to form the Confederacy on February 4, 1861. Mississippi's location along the lengthy Mississippi River made it strategically important to both the Union and the Confederacy; dozens of battles were fought in the state as armies repeatedly clashed near key towns and transportation nodes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Sarna</span> American historian

Jonathan D. Sarna is the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History in the department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeremiah C. Sullivan</span> Union United States Army general (1830–1890)

Jeremiah Cutler Sullivan was an Indiana lawyer, antebellum United States Navy officer, and a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He was among a handful of former Navy officers who later served as infantry generals during the war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ulysses S. Grant and the American Civil War</span> Wartime career of the prominent Union general

On the onset of the American Civil War in April 1861, Ulysses S. Grant was working as a clerk in his father's leather goods store in Galena, Illinois. When the war began, his military experience was needed, and congressman Elihu B. Washburne became his patron in political affairs and promotions in Illinois and nationwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jesse Root Grant</span> Father of US President Grant (1794–1873)

Jesse Root Grant was an American farmer, tanner and successful leather merchant who owned tanneries and leather goods shops in several different states throughout his adult life. He is best known as the father of Ulysses S. Grant and the one who introduced Ulysses to military life at West Point. Jesse was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and was one of seven children. He was a self-made man who rose from poverty to become a wealthy merchant.

<i>The Jewish Confederates</i> 2001 history book authored by Robert N. Rosen

The Jewish Confederates is a 2001 history book authored by Robert N. Rosen about Jewish citizens of the Confederate States of America who served in the Confederate States Army (CSA) during the American Civil War of 1861–1865. As they made up just 0.2% of the CSA, their story had not been heavily researched before Rosen, a Jewish lawyer in Charleston, South Carolina, with a master's degree in history from Harvard University, authored the book. It received both praise and criticism in many academic journals. Rosen has written two more books about the city of Charleston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William S. Hillyer</span> American Civil War general

William Sillman Hillyer was an American lawyer and Union officer who advanced through the ranks to Brevet Brigadier General during the American Civil War. Before the war he practiced law in Saint Louis where he met Ulysses S. Grant. During most of the Civil War he served under General Grant and was with him at the Battle of Fort Donelson, Battle of Shiloh and the Siege of Vicksburg. Hillyer was chosen by General Grant to be a member of his staff, and was one of its original members and the last surviving member of the original staff. After the war he served as a Treasury agent under presidents Johnson and Grant. He later pursued a political career in New York but was unsuccessful due to opposition from various political rivals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holly Springs Raid</span>

The Holly Springs Raid saw Earl Van Dorn lead Confederate cavalry against a Union supply depot at Holly Springs, Mississippi during the American Civil War. The mounted raiders achieved complete surprise, capturing the Federal garrison and destroying $1.5 million of supplies intended for Ulysses S. Grant's army. In the following days, Van Dorn's troopers moved north along the Mississippi Central Railroad almost to Bolivar, Tennessee, destroying track and bridges, before escaping into northern Mississippi. The damage inflicted by the Holly Springs Raid together with the harm caused by Nathan Bedford Forrest's West Tennessee Raids forced Grant's Union army to withdraw to Memphis. Additionally, both Van Dorn and Forrest's raids obstructed the full implementation of Grant's controversial General Order No. 11 for weeks, preventing many Jewish people from being expelled from Grant's military district.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cesar Kaskel</span> Southern Unionist and Victim of General Order No. 11

Cesar J. Kaskel was a Prussian-born Southern Unionist during the American Civil War.

References

  1. ↑ John Y. Simon (1979). The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 7: December 9, 1862 – March 31, 1863. SIU Press. p. 56. ISBN   9780809308804.
  2. ↑ Shelley Kapnek Rosenberg; et al. (2005). History of the Jews in America: Civil War Through the Rise of Zionism. Behrman House, Inc. pp. 22–23. ISBN   9780874417784.
  3. ↑ White 2016, p. 243.
  4. ↑ White 2016, p. 247.
  5. 1 2 3 White 2016, p. 248.
  6. ↑ Brands 2012, p. 211, 217.
  7. ↑ White 2016, pp. 248–249.
  8. ↑ Miller 2019, pp. 226–227.
  9. ↑ Miller 2019, p. 227.
  10. 1 2 White 2016, p. 249; Miller 2019, p. 226.
  11. ↑ White 2016, p. 250-251.
  12. ↑ Miller 2019, pp. 208–209.
  13. ↑ Miller 2019, pp. 209–210.
  14. ↑ Chernow 2017, p. 242.
  15. ↑ Brands 2012, p. 2017.
  16. 1 2 Chernow 2017, p. 232.
  17. ↑ David S. Surdam, "Traders or traitors: Northern cotton trading during the Civil War," Business & Economic History, Winter 1999, Vol. 28 Issue 2, pp 299–310 online
  18. ↑ Jonathon D. Sarna, When General Grant Expelled the Jews (2012), pp 5–8.
  19. 1 2 Smith 2001, p. 225.
  20. 1 2 White 2016, p. 251.
  21. 1 2 3 4 See also Feldberg, M. (ed.), "General Grant's Infamy," Blessings of Freedom: Chapters in American Jewish History (American Jewish Historical Society 2002), at p. 119.
  22. 1 2 3 Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War (1951), p. 143.
  23. 1 2 Frederic Cople Jaher, A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness, p. 199. Harvard University Press, 1994. ISBN   0-674-79007-3
  24. ↑ Brands 2012, pp. 217–218.
  25. ↑ Brands 2012, p. 218.
  26. 1 2 Chernow 2017, p. 234.
  27. ↑ Chernow 2017, pp. 234–235.
  28. 1 2 Chernow 2017, p. 233.
  29. 1 2 Miller 2019, p. 259.
  30. ↑ Miller 2019, p. 260.
  31. ↑ The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 7: December 9, 1862-March 31, 1863, page 50 Archived March 26, 2020, at the Wayback Machine
  32. 1 2 3 Jacob Rader Marcus, The Jew in the American World: A Source Book, pp. 199–203. Wayne State University Press, 1996. ISBN   0-8143-2548-3
  33. ↑ The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 7: December 9, 1862-March 31, 1863, page 56 page 57 Archived March 26, 2020, at the Wayback Machine
  34. 1 2 3 Feldberg.
  35. ↑ Sarna 2012b.
  36. 1 2 3 Chernow 2017, p. 235.
  37. ↑ Chernow 2017, pp. 235–236; Sarna 2012a, p. 6.
  38. ↑ Sarna 2012a, pp. 4–6.
  39. 1 2 3 4 Robert Michael, A Concise History Of American Antisemitism, p. 91. Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. ISBN   0-7425-4313-7
  40. ↑ Brooks D. Simpson, Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822–1865, p. 165. Houghton Mifflin Books, 2000. ISBN   0-395-65994-9
  41. ↑ Smith 2001, pp. 226–227.
  42. ↑ Andrew Glass (December 17, 2007). "Grant expels Jews from war zone Dec. 17, 1862". Politico. Retrieved February 3, 2020.
  43. ↑ Smith 2001, pp. 459–460.
  44. 1 2 Simon, John Y. (1967). The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant: July 1, 1868 – October 31, 1869. Vol. 19. Southern Illinois University Press. p. 37. ISBN   0-8093-1964-0 . Retrieved March 20, 2015.
  45. ↑ Shelley Kapnek Rosenberg, Challenge and Change: Civil War Through the Rise of Zionism, p. 22. Behrman House, Inc., 2005. ISBN   0-87441-778-3
  46. ↑ Jonathon D. Sarna, When General Grant Expelled the Jews (2012)p xi, 89, 101
  47. ↑ "Precedents: Jews and Presidents". The Philadelphia Jewish Voice. 1 (2). August 2005.
  48. ↑ Chernow 2017, pp. 642–643.
  49. ↑ White 2016, p. 235; Brands 2012, pp. 215–216.
  50. ↑ McFeely 1981, p. 123.
  51. 1 2 McFeely 1981, p. 124.
  52. ↑ Brands 2012, pp. 218–219.
  53. ↑ Calhoun 2017, p. 46.
  54. ↑ Kahan 2018, p. 14.

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.