http://www.atljewishtimes.com/main.asp?SectionID=108&SubSectionID=243&ArticleID=6887 ntent Share March 10, 2011
3/4/2011 1:45:00 PM
Grant's General Order No. 11 most anti-Semitic in American history
Jason Butt
Staff Writer
On Dec. 17, 1862, then-Gen. Ulysses S. Grant issued Order No. 11, which expelled all Jews from the military district he serviced.
Jews living in areas of Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi, many of whom had previously served in the Union Army, were forced to leave their homes as a result of the order. Grant singled out Jewish people in his order in an effort to halt ongoing cotton trading between the North and the South.
Some of the participants in this trade were Jewish immigrants who had come to the United States during the war and were looking for means to make a living. President Abraham Lincoln eventually overturned the order as Jewish merchants dispatched a telegram to the White House, and later met with Lincoln himself.
This order is regarded as the most anti-Semitic act performed in American history.
This was one of a host of little-known stories told in the film Jewish Soldiers in Blue & Gray, directed by Jonathan Gruber. While historians and Civil War scholars are familiar with General Order No. 11, the story is not often told in American History textbooks in public schools or in the majority of films and documentaries on the subject.
Lew Regenstein, who participated in a discussion following the viewing of Jewish Soldiers in Blue & Gray at the 2011 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, believes ultimately Lincoln is at fault for General Order No. 11. Regenstein argues that while Jews praise Lincoln for his role in ending American slavery and for early civil rights, that he never once held Grant or any other Union officer responsible for a host of anti-Semitic acts during the war.
“I think [the film] let Lincoln off the hook too lightly,” Regenstein said. “I think he probably did know about Grant’s order long before he rescinded it. He tolerated anti-Semitism in his government and military. No officers or officials were ever admonished, fired or even criticized that I know of.”
Regenstein is a Civil War historian, having written articles and columns on the subject for a variety of publications, including the Jewish Georgian. Regenstein is a direct ancestor of Maj. Rafael Moses, a Jewish officer who carried out the last order of the Confederate army. This order was to deliver $40,000 of silver and/or gold bullion to wounded and sick Confederate soldiers.
The film tells this story, as well as delving into the life of Judah P. Benjamin, who served as Secretary of War and Secretary of State under Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The documentary also examines Jewish southerners who owned slaves, and how they dealt with the Jewish history of being slaves in Egypt. To further add to the conversation, it presents dialogue between prominent Jewish abolitionists and pro-slavery Jews in this time period.
During the Q&A session that followed, Regenstein pointed out that Confederate soldiers were fighting for each other, their families and their homelands, not for political reasons which included the ever-important issue of slavery. While slavery was the primary political prompting secession of Southern states from the Union, Bob Evans, a long-time broadcast journalist who moderated the session, likened the country’s breakup in 1861 over slavery to a divorce.
“There may be one issue particularly that leads a couple to a divorce,” Evans said. “But when you sit and talk with their adversarial attorneys there are a host of things that come up and often make their contribution to it. It’s a little bit like saying you have that many fingers on a hand but none of them are as strong as this, which really determined what was going on.”
About 10,000 Jews fought in the Civil War on both sides. Jewish Soldiers in Blue & Gray’s mission is evident: to preserve the legacy and history of the soldiers who fought in America’s bloodiest war.
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