JEWS WHO FOUGHT ON BOTH SIDES IN THE CIVIL WAR…..INTERESTING HISTORY…..SEE NOTE PLEASE
http://www.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/news/jt/cover_story/gray_and_blue_jews_of_the_civil_war/30850
Gray And Blue Jews Of The Civil War Yonatan Grossman-Boder
TODAY, AMERICAN JEWS ARE FIGHTING A RATHER UNCIVIL WAR OF WORDS AND IDEOLOGY ABOUT ISRAEL AND AMERICAN DOMESTIC POLICIES…..RSK
Passover was just around the corner that spring in 1862 when J.A. Joel, like so many other Jews, sought fixings for his seder. But it was a little harder for Joel, who was stationed at Sewell Mountain in eastern Fayette County, W.Va., with the Union’s 23rd Ohio Infantry.
Joel turned to his fellow Jews in the regiment — 20 in all — to acquire the necessary items. With some foraging, the group found eggs, chickens and cider. Also, the group members procured matzoh and haggadot from their Jewish regimental merchant.
Unfortunately, they could not find horseradish. However, Joel recounted they “found a weed, whose bitterness, I apprehend, exceeded anything our forefathers ‘enjoyed.’” They also obtained a lamb. Though uncertain which part to use for the seder, Joel wrote that “Yankee ingenuity prevailed, and it was decided to cook the whole and put it on the table.”
With matzoh, egg, maror (bitter herbs), a shank bone and wine in hand, the men of the 23rd celebrated the Festival of Freedom in grand style. Joel was proud of their accomplishment and wrote to a local newspaper, “There, in the wild woods of West Virginia, away from home and friends, we consecrated and offered up to the ever-loving G-d of Israel our prayers and sacrifice.”
During the Civil War, J.A. Joel was one of approximately 10,000 Jews who fought in the armies of the Union and Confederacy. His story reminds us during this sesquicentennial anniversary of the Civil War that the history of the Jews in the United States is part of the larger story of American history.
Just as the Civil War forever changed the nature of our union, so, too, did it forever change the nature and self-identity of American Jewry.
Jewish Geography, Neutral Turf
Jews had been part of America’s defense since the founding of the nation in the Revolutionary War. But the Civil War was different, in sheer numbers alone. In the decade prior to the war, the American Jewish population skyrocketed from 50,000 to 150,000.
Approximately 2,500 Jewish soldiers served in the army of the Confederacy and 7,500 in the Union army. Jews served in the armies en masse, and those who did not serve rallied to aid their national cause.
Jews fought side by side with their Christian comrades. Yet, as the bloody war was tearing apart the nation — and many families — Jews remarkably remained a unified minority.
Col. Marcus M. Spiegel of the 120th Ohio Infantry witnessed firsthand the unity of the Jewish community across battle lines as a member of the invading Union army in Memphis during 1862. We know his story from Spiegel’s numerous letters to his wife that have survived the war.
While walking along the scenic Memphis riverbank in full colonel’s regalia, including his spurs and sword, Spiegel noticed two fellow Jews. Remembering that it was Saturday, Spiegel called out to them, “Happy Sabbath, dear people,” frightening the Southern family because they were being addressed by an invading Union officer.
Yet, Spiegel wrote his wife, “I asked where one could eat a kosher lunch. The gentleman said I could go with him, or to Mr. Levy. … I went to Levy and … when I sat at the table and Levy took a good look at me he said … ‘Dear God, a son of Rabbi Mosche of Abenheim, a lieutenant colonel.’ ”
The traditional game of Jewish geography aside, Spiegel was an honored guest at Levy’s table as a Jew, regardless of being in the enemy’s army. Seemingly regardless of politics, his commission as a colonel was a source of pride.
From Tennessee to Virginia and well into the Deep South, Jews bonded together based on their shared heritage. Myer Levy, a Union soldier from Philadelphia, captured a town in Virginia with his regiment around Passover. While on patrol, he noticed a boy eating a piece of matzoh.
Levy asked the boy for a piece. “The child fled indoors, shouting at the top of his lungs, ‘Mother, there’s a damn Yankee Jew outside!’ ” wrote the late American Jewish historian Bertram W. Korn. The mother immediately ran outside and invited Levy to celebrate the seder with their family, regardless of the fact that he was a “damn Yankee.”
“One wonders how the Virginian family and the Yankee soldier each interpreted the hagadah [sic.] portions describing the evils of bondage,” Korn wrote.
Dinner tables and synagogue pews turned into neutral territory during the war, where a staunch Confederate Jew living in Virginia accepted a Union Jew from Pennsylvania.
The unifying bonds were true in both the North and the South. Simon Brucker, a lieutenant of the 39th Illinois Volunteer Regiment, attended services in Suffolk, Va., during the High Holidays and felt “at home among friends.” A Dr. Mayer, a Virginia regimental surgeon, received goods and medicine from two prominent Northern rabbis, Isaac Mayer Wise and Max Lillienthal.
The overt fealty that Jews showed their co-religionists even in war zones did not preclude — and likely was in spite of — their patriotism and ideological commitment to the Union or the Confederacy. Jews fought valiantly for the causes they supported. Seven Jews in the Union received Medals of Honor for their bravery during the war. Jews across the Confederacy were recognized for their dedication and courage as well.
Judah P. Benjamin, perhaps the most prominent Jew associated with the war, served as the secretary of war and state for the Confederate States of America. As a sign of the South’s appreciation, Benjamin (known as the “Brains of the Confederacy”) was the first and only Jew to appear on American currency — on Confederate bank notes. Though often identified as the most prominent Jew of the Civil War, he is not emblematic of Civil War-era Jewry, having been both married in a church and buried in a Catholic cemetery next to his wife.
Nonetheless, there were many strongly identified Jews who served the Confederacy bravely. Max Frankenthal, a Mississippi private, was reported by his colonel, A.T. Watts, as “a little Jew … [with] the heart of a lion,” adding that he never saw Frankenthal flinch under fire. Admittedly, Col. Watts had a problem pronouncing Frankenthal’s name, referring to him as “Max Fronthall.” Nevertheless, at the turn of the 20th century, the chief rabbi of Galveston, Tex., reported that brave individuals in the community there were called “regular Fronthalls,” in reference to the valorous soldier.
Confederate Gen. Thomas Waul, celebrating the heroism of Jews, once remarked, “I neither saw nor heard of any Jew shrinking or failing to answer to any call of duty. … I jot down these recollections … to attest to the courage, endurance and patriotism of the Jew as soldier.”
Catapulted Into The Spotlight
Jewish soldiers took their Jewish identity and faith with them into the field. An anonymous Union soldier noted in a letter, “It is quite common for Jewish soldiers belonging to the same company, to meet together for worship on Sabbath.” Many carried with them prayer books and prayers for their country, which combined Jewish prayers with pleas for victory and safety in the war.
Far from home, they sought chaplains who could minister to them in a way consistent with their faith and traditions. That desire gave rise to a national controversy that ultimately catapulted the question of Jewish identity and rights to a national political debate.
The controversy traced back to a seemingly innocuous clause added to the 1861 Volunteer Bill stating that a chaplain must be “a regularly ordained minister of some Christian denomination.” In late 1861, two Union soldiers, Michael Allen, who was not an ordained minister, and Rabbi Arnold Fischel were denied the right to serve as chaplains for their regiment, the 65th of the 5th Pennsylvania Cavalry.
When Rabbi Fischel was denied, Jewish leaders began to publicize the issue to galvanize support among the Jewish community. Loyal to the Union, Jews across the North mobilized for their rights. Rabbis preached on the topic. Individuals collected petitions, wrote letters and even lobbied their elected representatives.
Some of the strongest support came from Maryland. F. Friedenreich of Baltimore collected a petition with more than 700 signatures, many of which came from Christians. Amazingly, 38 members of the Maryland legislature signed a letter of protest to Washington. Throughout the Union, the Jewish community was enraged and engaged with their Christian neighbors to change the law.
Armed with letters and petitions from Jewish laity and leadership, Rabbi Fischel was sent to Washington by the Jewish community to argue for the right of Jews to serve as chaplains. On Dec. 13, 1861, Rabbi Fischel met with President Lincoln and received his full support. One week later, the resolution to change the chaplaincy law was proposed in the House of Representatives. By July 1862, changes removing the requirement for chaplains to be Christians had become law, allowing Jews (and eventually other religious minorities) to serve as chaplains in the military.
Of course, the chaplaincy debate was not the most heated argument to arise from Jews’ involvement in the war. The most infamous was certainly Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s General Order No. 11, which ordered all Jews out of the war department of Tennessee (which included current-day Tennessee and some of Kentucky). Yet this order, brought on by Grant’s paranoia regarding corruption surrounding the cotton trade in the department, was quickly rescinded by President Lincoln a month later in January 1863 when it was brought to his attention by Jewish leaders.
(It should be noted that Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on the fifth day of Passover, April 14, 1865. Bertram W. Korn wrote that synagogue altars were draped in black and congregations chanted Yom Kippur hymns at shuls the following day.)
The General Order No. 11 directive was the only official order in U.S. history that prejudicially targeted Jews and is a harrowing reminder of the effects one individual or one act can cause. Nonetheless, as a geographically isolated instance of institutionalized prejudice during the war, it was not representative of Jews’ experience during the war.
Truth Is Marching On
In the North and the South, Jews on and off the battlefield expressed their patriotism. For those who did not enlist, they voluntarily donated and
organized to help their national cause.
In August 1862, the Chicago Journal reported that about 1,000 Jews in the Windy City came out “for the purpose of making a united effort in support of a vigorous prosecution of the war.”
They resolved to raise $10,000 for the cause and also attempt to recruit a company of soldiers. This was the first time that Chicago Jewry organized for a purely secular purpose since its founding. Jewish philanthropic groups that had existed for decades switched their focus to the war and new organizations cropped up.
One such organization was the Ladies Hebrew Association for the Relief of Sick and Wounded Soldiers in Philadelphia, with the expressed purpose to help ensure victory for the Union in the war.
One of the most symbolic changes surrounded the naming of the Jews’ Hospital of New York. Founded in 1852, the hospital served only Jewish patients except for those emergency patients who did not have time to get to another medical center. With the outbreak of war, the hospital’s board of directors, aware of the lack of adequate medical facilities for soldiers, opened the hospital up to all casualties of war regardless of religion. In 1866, the hospital’s name was changed to Mount Sinai Hospital to officially signal that it was a hospital dedicated to its Jewish roots yet open to all Americans.
Southern Jews were equally invested in aiding their soldiers in the field. Small knitting and fundraising groups spread throughout Southern Jewish communities. In an anonymous letter from 1862, it was reported that “The ‘Jewess ladies’ of the town [Charlotte, N.C.] raised $150 to assist the volunteers [soldiers].” Similar efforts were made across the South. In Richmond, the women of Congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Shalome and Beth Ahabah met daily to make clothes for the soldiers.
For Jews in America today, the sesquicentennial of the Civil War is a time to remember the vibrant history of Jewish Americans that is interwoven with the formative moments in our nation’s history. Through their participation in all aspects of the war, proud Jewish Americans began to make the Jewish American community what it is today — a patriotic and active minority strongly embedded in greater American society.
For those Jews who lived through the Civil War, the experience was life-changing. The community they forged because of the Civil War sparked the growth and solidified the strength and identity of Jewish Americans still enjoyed today.
Next Friday, April 20, at 6 p.m., Beth Shalom Congregation in Columbia will host a “Civil War Shabbat.” The synagogue, located at 8070 Harriet Tubman Drive, will be transformed into a Civil War-period atmosphere, with appropriate themed activities. At the service, Yonatan Grossman-Boder, the author of this article, will speak.
For information, call 410-531-5115.
For a listing of Jewish-themed books on the Civil War, please visit this article on jewishtimes.comjewishtimes.com .
Comments are closed.
