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N ORTHERN J EWS, TOO , were exposed to the overheated passions of wartime. Earlier in the century, bigots occasionally singled out individual Jews, but it was uncommon to attack all Jews for the wider difficulties and shortcomings of American life. The Civil War radically altered this pattern. In the Union Army, Jewish soldiers often suffered intolerable harassment and abuse. Newspapers and journals vilified Jews as enemies of the Union. Harper's Weekly described Jews as “Copperheads” (Confederate sympathizers and agents). James Gordon Bennett's New York Tribune characterized them as “speculators in gold ... engaged in destroying the national credit ... speculating in disasters.” Jews were accused of smuggling, of trading illicitly with the Confederacy, of spiriting away ill-gotten wealth. “The descendants of that accursed race who crucified the Savior,” editorialized the Newburgh (New York) Journal , “are always opposed to the best interests of the government in every land in which they roam.”
Well before the war, folkloristic accounts circulated of Jewish wealth, particularly of Rothschild wealth. Transformed now from awe into suspicion, the preoccupation with Jewish financial acumen tended to focus on August Belmont, self-declared representative of the House of Rothschild in the United States. A collateral cousin of the great banking family, August Schönberg arrived from Germany a decade before the war and within that span manipulated the rather indeterminate Rothschild connection into a personal arbitrage fortune. Social eminence was achieved by translating his name to Belmont, converting to Episcopalianism, marrying the daughter of Commander (later Commodore) Matthew Perry, acquiring a palatial New York mansion, founding and naming after himself a racetrack for “people of breeding,” and functioning in time as the notoriously snobbish doyen of New York society. It is possible that the tenuous Rothschild relationship by itself would have transformed Belmont's image in wartime from tycoon to Shylock, but the man courted further obloquy in 1860 by seeking and winning appointment as treasurer of the Democratic National Committee. Once war began, then, Republican patriots discerned in Belmont's Democratic preeminence sure evidence of his Copperhead disloyalty. In 1863 the Chicago Tribune attacked “Belmont, the Rothschilds, and the whole tribe of Jews, who have been buying up Confederate bonds.” In fact, Jewish bankers in Europe, as in the North, overwhelmingly favored the Union and purchased Union bonds in substantial quantities. But the libel gained momentum.
With their foreign accents, meanwhile, immigrant Jewish peddlers evoked as much distrust in the Union as in the Confederacy. A flagrant example occurred as early as 1862, in the shifting line of battle through Tennessee and Mississippi. Memphis was the hub of the black-market trade in cotton, a traffic that was carried on throughout the entire area penetrated by the Union Army. Bribery seeped into every branch of the service. General Grant's family also was involved. Even so, virtually every official report on the black market made special mention of large numbers of Jewish traders. Doubtless there were many. Although they constituted a distinct minority among the glut of speculators, their foreign accents and appearance often set them apart. In a letter to General John Rawlins in July 1862, General William Tecumseh Sherman complained of “swarms of Jews.” Writing to Assistant Secretary of War C. P. Walcott, General Grant complained about “Jews and other unprincipled traders.” Grant then telegraphed his deputy in Columbus, Kentucky, General J. T. Quimby, to deny permits to all Jews seeking to travel south. Several days later, Grant again wired Quimby, directing him to examine the baggage of all speculators. “Jews should receive especial attention,” he added. In instructions to other officers, Grant repeated that “Israelites especially should be kept out.”
By December 1862, Grant's impatience with the crush of Northern traders boiled over. From his command post at Holly Springs, Mississippi, his adjutant gave orders that “on account of the scarcity of provisions, all cotton speculators, Jews, and other vagrants having no honest means of support ... will leave in twenty-four hours or will be put to duty in the entrenchments.” And finally, on December 17, Grant issued his penultimate decree, Order No. 11. It made no reference to “cotton speculators” or “other vagrants.” “The Jews as a class,” it declared, “violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department, and also [military] department orders, are hereby expelled from the [military] department [of Tennessee] within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.” The directive was not limited to itinerant Jewish traders. It applied indiscriminately to all Jews, to men, women, and children, to veteran settlers and outsiders alike. Within the day, entire families were obliged to pack and depart the military government of Tennessee (encompassing also Mississippi and much of Kentucky), leaving behind homes, businesses, chattels. Until the internment of Japanese-Americans in 1942, no comparable treatment would be meted out to any ethnic bloc of United States citizens.
Twenty-four hours was hardly enough time to evacuate the approximately twenty-five hundred Jews living within the affected region. Transport was in short supply. Even as escorting troops confronted this problem, a group of Jewish merchants from Paducah was urgently seeking help. By telegram and letter, the men alerted newspapers and Jewish communal leaders throughout the North. Jewish solidarity, they knew, transcended momentary political affiliations or battle lines. Jewish soldiers in the occupying Union Army had always been warmly received in Southern Jewish homes and synagogues. Northern Jewish communities raised funds for impoverished Southern congregations. Counting instinctively upon that ancestral tradition, Cesar Kaskel, spokesman for the Paducah Jews, departed forthwith for Washington. There he consulted with Adolphus S. Solomon, a prominent local Jew, and with Congressman Gurley of Ohio, a friend of Isaac M. Wise. Gurley in turn secured an appointment for Kaskel with President Lincoln, then personally escorted Kaskel to the White House. Lincoln received the two men cordially. Kaskel's account of the unfolding Jewish ordeal in the South shocked and embarrassed the president. Without hesitation, he instructed General in Chief Henry Halleck to cancel Order No. 11. The telegram to Grant was duly sent.
By January 1863, accounts and editorials on the expulsion were appearing in the Northern press. The majority of newspapers condemned Grant for lack of judgment, even for bigotry. But others refused to criticize a man who had emerged as the Union's most respected military leader. And several journals, including the Washington Chronicle , preferred to attack the accusers, denouncing Jews as Copperheads for impugning the integrity of “brave General Grant.” Indeed, public reaction to the episode was nearly as mortifying for Jews as the original order. Nor was their pain alleviated by Grant's refusal, then or later, to express regret. Worse yet, the issue was revived for them in the presidential election of 1868, when Grant became the Republican candidate. Could even loyal Jewish Republicans bring themselves now to vote for Grant? The question was raised elsewhere. Newspapers from Natchez, Mississippi, to Davenport, Iowa, published facsimiles of Order No. 11, offered commentaries and printed letters on it, even reproduced editorials verbatim from the American-Jewish press. New York newspapers quoted Isaac M. Wise's American Israelite of Cincinnati. Chicago newspapers quoted the Jewish Messenger of New York. Not surprisingly, Democratic newspapers urged Jews to vote against Grant, the “traducer of Jewish character.” Republican newspapers appealed to Jews—the majority of whom lived in the North—to maintain their traditional Republican loyalties. In the end, most did.
The aftermath of the episode was ironic. As president, Grant emerged as a model of solicitude in behalf of Jews living both in the United States and abroad (see this page ). The man had not been transformed into an instant humanitarian. Rather, belatedly, he had managed to grasp the political usefulness of accommodating Jewish sensibilities. In their turn, finally, Jews had been mobilized by the trauma of wartime prejudice and humiliation. The time was past due for a little minority people to seek functional unity in America, for the sake of common defense.