Southern Jews and the Confederacy

Jewish Press ^ | Jul 28 2010 | Lewis Regenstein

[SJackson]

Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell's recent proclamation of Confederate History Month provoked a firestorm of criticism, with many accusing him and those who commemorate their Southern ancestors' bravery of ignoring or even defending slavery.

But the cruel and evil institution of slavery was not the sole or even primary reason for the South's secession from the Union, nor was it a significant motivating factor for individual Confederate soldiers.

Yet many of us in the South, including those descended from old Jewish families of the Confederacy, still struggle to expose the truth about why Southern soldiers fought, the courage they showed against overwhelming odds, and the sacrifices they made.

The history of the Confederacy is full of long-forgotten tales of Jewish heroes, warriors, and leaders. This is a story little known today, absent from history books and an embarrassment to liberal Jewish historians ashamed of the prominent role played by Jews in supporting, defending and fighting for the Confederacy. It is a government about which they know little except for its association with slavery.

They find the truth about the war incompatible with their idolization of Abraham Lincoln and his administration - an administration in which anti-Jewish sentiment was rampant, at one point even becoming official government policy and resulting in the worst official act of anti-Semitism in the nation's history.

I know firsthand the ignorance one encounters on this subject because a few years ago I wrote for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution a mild mannered op-ed article discussing why so many good and decent Georgians take pride in their Confederate ancestors.

I explained that we revere our ancestors because, against overwhelming odds, they fought on, often hungry, cold, sick and wounded, to protect their homes and families - not the institution of slavery - from an often cruel invader. Put simply, the heavily outnumbered and undersupplied Confederate soldiers felt they were fighting because an invading army from the North was trying, with great success, to burn their homes, destroy their cities, and kill them.

Advertisement In response, the newspaper published two letters to the editor. One said my statements "were reminiscent of neo-Nazi apologists denying the Holocaust." The other accused me of defending slavery and "a treasonous movement" called the Confederacy.

My then-84-year-old mother asked me to "please wait until I die before you write any more articles."

Slavery was an important political issue before and during the Civil War, especially to the large plantation holders in the South and the abolitionists in the North. But while the war is often portrayed as primarily a fight over slavery, much more important were the issues of preservation of the Union for the North and the over-taxation of the South in the form of exorbitant tariffs.

In the case of Virginia, to cite one example, it is quite clear that the state did not secede over slavery; it stayed in the Union after seven Southern states seceded and formed the Confederacy. It was only after President Lincoln called for 75,000 troops from state militias to attack the South that Virginia, refusing to wage war on its "kinfolk," left the Union.

* * * * *

Let me briefly recount why I take pride in my Confederate ancestors and the brave men who fought with them. One hundred and forty-five years ago, on April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union Commander Ulysses S. Grant, marking the effective end of the South's struggle for independence.

It was a fateful day for the South, and in particular for my great-grandfather and his four elder brothers, all of whom were fighting for the Confederacy.

While Lee was surrendering at Appomattox, my then-16-year-old great-grandfather, Andrew Jackson Moses, rode out on horseback to defend his hometown of Sumter, South Carolina, along with some 157 other teenagers, invalids, old men, and the wounded from the local hospital. Approaching were 2,500 hardened soldiers from Sherman's army who had just burned nearby Columbia, and it was feared they were headed to Sumter to do the same. Sumter's defenders, outnumbered 15-to-1, managed to hold off Sherman's battle-seasoned veterans for over an hour before being overwhelmed by the vastly superior force.

That same afternoon, the eldest Moses brother, Joshua Lazarus Moses, was killed a few hours after Lee had surrendered (the news having not yet reached the front). Josh was commanding an artillery battalion that fired the last shots in defense of Mobile before being overrun by a Union force outnumbering his 13 to 1. In this battle of Fort Blakeley, one of his brothers, Horace, was captured, and another, Perry, was wounded.

Josh Moses was one of more than 3,000 Jews who fought for the South and the last Confederate Jew to fall in battle.

* * * * *

More than two-dozen members of the extended Moses family fought in the war, and at least nine gave their lives for what Southerners came to refer to as the Lost Cause. The best known of the Moses family Confederates was Major Raphael Moses, a fifth-generation South Carolinian who in 1849 moved to Columbus, Georgia, where he was a lawyer and planter. Moses, whose three sons also fought for the South, ended up attending the last meeting and carrying out the last order of the Confederate government - delivering the last of the Confederate treasury, $40,000 in gold and silver bullion, to help feed and supply defeated Confederate soldiers in the Augusta hospital or straggling home after the war.

Major Moses named one of his sons Albert Luria because he wanted to preserve the family name of an ancestor who reputedly was the court physician to Spain's Queen Isabella. Luria was called to duty in Columbus, five miles from home, on Saturday, April 20, 1861. After marching from the armory to the depot, Albert writes, "we were met by an immense concourse of citizens - assembled to bid us 'God Speed.' "

Among the crowd were several members of his family whom Albert was surprised to see. Being observant Jews, they would not ride or work their horses on the Sabbath, and so they had walked several miles into town to say farewell.

Luria, Josh Moses's first cousin, was the first Confederate Jew to be killed, mortally wounded at age 19 during the Battle of Seven Pines (Fair Oaks) in Virginia on May 31, 1862. He died after courageously throwing a live Union artillery shell out of his fortification before it exploded, thereby saving the lives of many of his men.

Luria's brother Israel Moses Nunez, a veteran of many battles, was named after his ancestor Dr. Samuel Nunez (sometimes written Nunes), who arrived in Savannah, Georgia, in July 1733, in a boat from England with 42 Portuguese Jews fleeing persecution. Dr. Nunez is credited with saving the newly established mosquito-infested colony from being wiped out by what was thought to be yellow fever but which was probably malaria.

Another leading Jewish figure of the war was the Moses brothers' mother - my great-great-grandmother - Octavia, a legend within the family and in Sumter.

She was from one of the country's most prominent Jewish families, her father being the well-known Jewish author and playwright Isaac Harby, one of the leading Jewish figures in 19th century America. There was a tradition among members of the family that their name came from a courageous Jewish soldier who fought in defense of Jerusalem against the Romans and who took the name of Hereb (sword), or more likely Ish Hereb (swordsman).

Isaac Harby was proud of the role played in the American Revolution by his father-in-law, Samuel Mordecai, "a brave grenadier in the regular American Army, who fought and bled for the liberty he lived to enjoy and to hand down to his children."

Harby was a leading member of the Kahal Kadosh Beth Elo[k]im synagogue, first organized in Charleston in 1749 and thought to be the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the United States. A Jewish Tourist's Guide to the U.S. notes that "So many Charleston Jews enlisted in the service of the Confederacy that from 1862 to 1866, Beth Elo[k]im found it impossible to obtain a quorum of trustees and could hold no regular meetings."

Octavia Harby and her husband, Andrew Jackson Moses, had 17 children (three died in infancy), the five eldest males of whom fought for the South. Octavia was very active on the home front in support of the Confederacy. As she put it,

When the War broke out like every other Southern woman, I immediately began work for the soldiers: I organized a sewing society, to cut and make garments for them. I made it a point to try and meet every train that brought soldiers through our town, and, with others, frequently walked from my home, sometimes at two o'clock in the morning, to take food to our men as they passed through. We always greeted them with the wildest enthusiasm, and no thought of defeat ever entered our minds . Whenever the boys were fortunate enough to get home on short furloughs, they were the guests of the town - everybody feted them and nothing was too much to do in their honor.

When hospitals were established in Sumter, Octavia writes, "Our ladies, of course, took immediate charge, and the soldiers were fed and nursed with all the means of our command, and all the tenderness of Southern women."

She also showed compassion for the Union troops who had been taken prisoner: "When I heard that the Northern prisoners would be brought through our town and that they were nearly in a starving condition, I immediately exerted myself to obtain a large quantity of provisions to give to them."

Throughout the South, Jews assumed prominent roles in the Confederate government and armed forces; as Robert Rosen puts it in his authoritative book The Jewish Confederates, they "were used to being treated as equals" (an acceptance they had enjoyed for a century and a half).

The Confederacy's secretary of war and later state was Judah P. Benjamin - the so-called brains of the Confederacy - and the top Confederate commander, General Robert E. Lee, was known for showing great respect to his Jewish soldiers.

Charleston in the early 1800s had more Jews than any other city in North America, and many were respected citizens, office holders, and successful entrepreneurs. The city was commonly referred to as "our Jerusalem," and Myer Moses, my maternal family patriarch, in 1806 called his hometown " this land of milk and honey."

Many Jewish Confederates carried with them to the front the famous soldiers' prayer (which began with the sacred Shema) written by Richmond Rabbi Max Michelbacher, who after secession had issued a widely published benediction comparing Southerners to "the Children of Israel crossing the Red Sea."

* * * * *

In contrast to the South, the North was a hotbed of anti-Jewish bigotry. Much of the political and military leadership of the Union government was composed of men - including such leading figures as generals Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman and Benjamin ("Beast") Butler - who disliked Jews, openly expressed their feelings, and persecuted Jews when they had the occasion to do so. The prevailing anti-Jewish attitude resulted in the Union army's committing the worst official act of anti-Semitism in American history - about which I wrote in greater detail for The Jewish Press in "Shame of the Yankees - America's Worst Anti-Jewish Action" (front-page essay, Nov. 17, 2006).

On December 17, 1862, Grant issued his soon-to-be infamous "General Order #11," expelling all Jews "as a class" from his conquered territories within 24 hours.

As a result of Grant's expulsion order, Jewish families were forced out of their homes in Paducah, Kentucky and Holly Springs and Oxford, Mississippi, and several were sent to prison.

On January 4, 1863, President Lincoln had Grant's order rescinded, but by then Jewish families in the area had been expelled, humiliated, terrified, jailed, and in some cases stripped of their possessions.

Bertram W. Korn, in his classic work American Jewry and the Civil War, describes the hardships and persecution suffered by Jewish families subject to the expulsion order:

They still tell stories of the expulsion in Paducah of the hurried departure by riverboat up the Ohio to Cincinnati; of a baby almost left behind in the haste and confusion and tossed bodily into the boat; of two dying women permitted to remain behind in neighbors' care. Thirty men and their families were expelled from Paducah, and according to affidavits by some of "the most respectable Union citizens of the city," the deportees "had at no time been engaged in trade within the active lines of General Grant " Two had already served brief enlistments in the Union army.

There are numerous other documented examples of widespread anti-Semitism in the North (recounted in my aforementioned "Shame of the Yankees" article, which can be accessed on The Jewish Press website). But you will find nary a mention of this persecution in history books, only adulatory praise for the Union and Lincoln.

The Union army that killed my family members was hardly the forerunner of the Civil Rights movement. Indeed, the treatment of Jews by Union forces pales in comparison to other atrocities they regularly committed against civilians, including the destruction of agricultural areas and other non-military targets; the routine burning and looting of cities, homes, libraries and courthouses; and, worst of all, the mass murder of Native Americans in the so-called Indian Wars.

This was the Union Army that descended upon the South and that my ancestors fought heroically in defense of their lives, their families, and their nation. It was a Lost Cause but an honorable one, and it should not be forgotten.

[Vigilanteman]

One more thing: do you really think the wanton destruction of livestock and lives, homes and harvests, families and flocks helped the Union War effort enough to have made any great impact on the length of the war?

Or did it just set the stage for the revenge of reconstruction?

When southern raiders went north and burned the steel mills owned by Thaddeus Stevens (one of the Radical Republicans who advocated and engineered the harsh postbellum treatment which Lincoln opposed), they were careful not to destroy the hovels where his workers lived near the mills.

[frithguild]

And I though we were talking about the involvement of Jewish soldiers in the Confederate Army.

[x]

Lee's Army spent almost a month in south central Pennsylvania before the fateful approach to Gettysburg from the north and west. The only atrocities recorded against the civilian population was one incident of the southern army near York capturing a group of 40 African American men whom they thought to be runaway slaves (but were mostly free men) and sending them south to slavery. There was another incident of Southern soldiers snatching headgear off the heads of townspeople in exchange for their battered headgear. Lee promptly issued an order that all such exchanges going forward were to be voluntary or paid in cash. While the presence of a large hostile army was obviously intimidation, compare and contrast Lee's Army comparative gentle treatment of the Pennsylvania population to Sherman's treatment of the Georgia population one year later. Sherman's army paid the civilians for nothing, took everything which they deemed useful and wantonly burned and destroyed everything else, including civilian homes with the inhabitants still inside.

It must have really s*cked to be one of those 40 guys. But even assuming you're right about the scale of the damage. Lee's army was in Pennsylvania for less than two weeks. Northern armies had been in the South for periods of that length without doing any serious damage. If Lee had been in Pennsylvania longer, if there had been more fighting over a longer period of time, who knows whether Southern troops would have been able to maintain discipline.

They went out of their way to slaughter, pillage and destroy everything in their path from Atlanta to the sea, a scale of destruction unmatched since the Thirty Year's War, some two centuries earlier.

Sure, if you want to overlook the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon. The Spanish and Russian campaigns and the war of Frenchman against Frenchman were quite destructive. Even our Indian wars were disastrous for those involved.

[AnalogReigns]

If the North was not trying to end slavery why would the south need to secede to preserve it?

Lincoln indeed was an abolitionist, and had spoken in the strongest terms against slavery. The South was logically afraid his presidency would push for it, even though he had not promised he would, and on more than one occasion even promised to keep slavery for the sake of the union. Therefore thinking Lincoln MIGHT push for abolition, the powers that be in the South seceded, seeding their own nightmare.

Lincoln and the North initially went to war for UNION not abolition, even though they ended the war with the abolition of slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 fundamentally changed the purpose of the war--from the North's perspective.

[frithguild]

One more thing: do you really think the wanton destruction of livestock and lives, homes and harvests, families and flocks helped the Union War effort enough to have made any great impact on the length of the war?

From the post:

When the War broke out like every other Southern woman, I immediately began work for the soldiers: I organized a sewing society, to cut and make garments for them. I made it a point to try and meet every train that brought soldiers through our town, and, with others, frequently walked from my home, sometimes at two o'clock in the morning, to take food to our men as they passed through. We always greeted them with the wildest enthusiasm, and no thought of defeat ever entered our minds . Whenever the boys were fortunate enough to get home on short furloughs, they were the guests of the town - everybody feted them and nothing was too much to do in their honor.

So the short answer to your question is a resounding, "Yes." The enemy soldiers and their means of support, in this case the spirit of the citizens, must be crushed as effectively and quickly as possible to acheive the most effective resolution of a war - lasting peace. "There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited." - Sun Tzu

Reconstruction, sir, is a different topic.

[rockrr]

The south received far better treatment post war than the losers of any other insurrection in history. Take a look at losing side of the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and rebellions in Britain, Italy, Spain, and China for example.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

... while most of the tariff revenue was spent in the North.

Uh huh. Here's The Annual report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the state of the finances for 1860. It has a complete breakdown of federal expenditures. Perhaps you can point out where over 50% of the money is going to benefit the north.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

My guess is that a third of the world's population, given the opportunity, would trade their current existence for that of a slave at Monticello.

You do know what happened to the slaves at Monticello, right? Nine of them were freed--the Hemmings family mainly. The remaining 130 were auctioned off to the highest bidder on the Monticello lawn.

[huldah1776]

Any hope of a return? Would it be possible?

[SJackson]

I don't get the idea that the author of the posted piece is accusing Lincoln of being an antisemite....he accuses Sherman of antisemitism, which is the first I've ever heard of. He does not give any specific facts to show it, however. I can understand someone of his background calling Sherman a lot of names.

I knew where this thread would go when I posted it, which is a shame, the author was simply explaining why he honors his ancestors. You're correct, he's not accuing Lincoln of being antisemitic, he is implying the north was, an arguement he bases largely on the Grant incident. Which Sherman was thought to have instigated, in a letter either to Grant or the Adjutant General. Of course Grant claims the order was issued with an aide, without his knowledge. And some historians suggest that a major factor was Grant's father (in law?) who was earning beaucoup dollars trading cotton in partnership with a practitioner of you know what religion. If you want to shut down pops trading, barring Jews would have been a good way to do it.

In any event, in the context of their time neither Sherman nor Grant nor Lincoln demonstrated any animosity toward Jews, and they had ample opportunity, so it's silly to fret about northern antisemitism a decade and a half before Marr invented the term, in Germany.

Since this is so much fun, I'm posting his earlier article, Shame of the Yankees - America's Worst Anti-Jewish Action .

[central_va]

The coming Civil War 2, will be the slaves of the social welfare programs fighting for their masters against the freedom fighters and there will be no north or south but probably city limit lines. Actually, with the administration in power, the whole nation will be shut down. I just wonder if he wants our soldiers out of the wars and at home to do his bidding.

If an entire state secedes then the cities inside that state secede also. They may not like but they will have to do their duty. If they riot (ala NY 1863) then that riot will be crushed. Lincoln showed us how to do that.

[central_va]

But eventually I realized that the government bequeathed to us by Jefferson, Madison and the boys doesn't really exist anymore. So I went looking to find out how it ended; and it didn't take long to zero in on Saint Lincoln.

You are releasing your inner rebel. Real torment begins when you actually become secesh, for that mental condition has but one cure. Welcome.

[central_va]

Lee's army was in Pennsylvania for less than two weeks.

You want to back that whopper up? CS Cavalry was patrolling PA in May of 1863, 2 months before the first day.

[Louis Foxwell]

Begs the question. An industrialized North was imposing suffocating tariffs on an agrarian South. The South had no choice but to secede or be destroyed by the imposition of strangling taxation. Slavery was in the mix but it was never motivational on either side.

[Nowhere Man]

For the Southerners to have aligned themselves on the side of the Rothschilds and English mercantilists against Lincoln was entirely similar to somebody aligning with the English in the revolutionary war. You can't really expect a whole lot of mercy or sympathy when you do stuff like that.

I can't blame the South for doing that, when you're at war and when your back is against the wall, you try looking for allies to support you. Of course your allies or potential allies might have motives or reasons of their own to help you. I know during the American Revolution, France and Spain helped us, they were beaten by the British and wanted their pound of flesh, helping us achieved that goal.

Finland did the same thing in World War II against the Soviets. I have a friend in Sweden, born in Finland and migrated to Sweden, whose grandfather fought alongside the Nazis against the Soviets. Finland did a good job of handling the Soviets but needed some help and Germany extended her hand in assistance. I know when your back is against the wall, many times you would accept help first and asked questions later. Still, getting back to the subject of this article, Finland did tell the Germans to not harm any of their Jews and many Finnish Jews fought well against the Soviets.

The South was in the same boat, they needed to be able to stave off the North as well as they can, if they were more successful, perhaps they would have had more allies. Word has it that if the south won Gettysburg, the British were likely to step in and either give aid to the South or at least help broker a deal between the two countries to stop the war and let each go its own way. If I may wargame a bit, if I was the South, I'd look for allies anywhere I can, if it meant survival, had Red China and the USSR existed then, I would probably seek their aid since those were the rival powers. The bad thing is they they might want something in return that I would not want to do or give up.

[Nowhere Man]

Ahhh, no. You see, now we have all the guns. While the north was busy disarming themselves we were busy arming ourselves. And the north is probably outnumbered because they have aborted all their babies. And of course gay men are probably too busy worrying about decorating and fashion to fight a war.

With the exception of the gang bangers, the North will not have as much of an army as the South of today.

[wendy1946]

I can't blame the South for doing that, when you're at war and when your back is against the wall, you try looking for allies to support you.

You have the time sequence in that one backwards. The wrong allies came first and then the civil war.

[Louis Foxwell]

You are releasing your inner rebel. Real torment begins when you actually become secesh, for that mental condition has but one cure. Welcome.

And a ribald welcome from my quarter.

What a delightful thread: cornering trolls, slandering statists, unfrocking revisionists, bringing light to dark minds.

These are the joys of freeperhood.

[justiceseeker93]

And some historians suggest that a major factor was Grant's father (in law?) who was earning beaucoup dollars trading in cotton in partnership with a practitioner of you know what religion. If you want to shut down pops trading, barring Jews would have been a good way to do it.

Yes, I had heard about that before. If that were the case, Grant had a dysfunctional relationship with his father.

There is a duplicity in the author's overstating antisemitism among the Union generals and neglecting to mention that Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest later founded the Ku Klux Klan. Plus, while he talks about Union savagery in comparison with the gentlemanly Confederate soldier, he doesn't mention the decadent conditions in the notorious prisoner of war camps, such as Andersonville.

[central_va]

It's amazing what they teach pointed headed little Yankees up there as fact. The doctrine they teach, "the South was a bunch of racists and duped rednecks fighting for slavery. They deserved everything we gave 'em."

Does anyone doubt the without the South, the North would be a full fledged Marxist country by now? Somebody give me an amen.