History of the Jews in America / From the Period of the Discovery of the New World to the Present Time

by Peter Wiernik

CHAPTER XXVI.

DISTINGUISHED SERVICES OF JEWS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE STRUGGLE.

More “brothers in arms” and a larger proportion of officers in the Confederate Army than in that of the North, because most Southern Jews were natives of the country—Some distinguished officers—A gallant private who later became a rabbi—Paucity of Southern records—Generals Knefler, Solomon, Blumenberg, Joachimsen and other officers of high rank in the Union Army—New York ranks first, Ohio second and Illinois third in the number of Jews who went to the front—Two Pennsylvania regiments which started with Jewish colonels—Commodore Uriah P. Levy, the ranking officer of the United States navy at the time of the outbreak of the war, is prevented by age from taking part in it.

The disproportionately large number of Jews who served in the Confederate army was already alluded to in the former chapter. Another proof of it is the preponderance among the Jews in that army of instances of “brothers in arms” (as Mr. Wolf calls them), i. e., of groups of several brothers who went to the front with their neighbors to fight the battles of the state and the section of the country in which they lived. Six brothers Cohen—Aaron, Jacob H., Julius, Edward, Gustavus A. and Henry M.—came from North Carolina. South Carolina contributed the five brothers Moses—Percy, Joshua L., Horace, J. Harby and A. Jackson. The four brothers Jonas have been mentioned in a former chapter, but they also had a fifth brother who, like their father, embraced the Union cause. Raphael Moses and his three sons were four Southern soldiers from Georgia, while Alabama sent also three Moses brothers: Mordecai, Henry C. and Alfred. Three brothers Cohen came from Arkansas. Virginia and Louisiana each sent three brothers surnamed Levy, while of the three brothers Goldsmith two came from Georgia and one from South Carolina. The reason for the presence of so many brothers in arms in the Confederate army is given by the above named authority as due to the fact that the Jews of the Southern States were, in a much larger proportion than those of the North, natives of the soil or residents of long standing. While the Jews of the North were much more numerous, they were, for the most part, immigrants of a comparatively recent date, and therefore less intensely imbued with the spirit of the conflict.

Hon. Simon Wolf.

Photo by Harris & Ewing, Wash., D. C.

There were about twenty-three Jewish staff officers in the Confederate army, which is likewise a larger number than those who held similar positions in the Union army, and probably for the same reason given above. The most distinguished of them were: Surgeon-General David de Leon, who participated in the Mexican war (see [page 162]); Assistant Adjutant-General J. Randolph Mordecai, and Colonel Raphael J. Moses, who served on the staff of General Longstreet and was chief commissary for the State of Georgia. Adolph Meyer (b. in New Orleans, 1842; d. there 1908), who later served nine terms as a member of the House of Representatives in Washington from the First District of Louisiana (52d to 60th Congresses, inclusive), entered the Confederate army in 1862, and served until the close of the war on the staff of Brigadier-General John S. Williams of Kentucky. There were also about a dozen Jewish officers in the Confederate navy, one of whom, Captain Levy Myers Harby (b. in Georgetown, S. C., 1793; d. in Galveston, Tex., 1870), who had previously served in the war of 1812, in the Mexican war and in the Bolivian war, and, after resigning from the service of the United States and joining the Confederacy, distinguished himself in the defence of Galveston, and was in command of its harbor at the close of the Civil War.

Lionel Levy, a nephew of Judah P. Benjamin, served as Judge-Advocate of the Military Court of the Confederate Army. Among those who served as privates in the ranks who deserve to be mentioned was Samuel Ullman of the 16th Infantry Regiment of Mississippi, who served gallantly through the war, being twice wounded, and later (1891–94) was rabbi of Emanuel Congregation of Birmingham, Ala. There have also been preserved the names of twenty-five Jews among the Confederate prisoners who died in Elmira, N. Y., during the time which they were detained there. A list of seventeen soldiers interred at the Jewish burying ground of Richmond, Va., contains the names of one captain, three lieutenants, and one corporal, which is an exceptionally large ratio of officers for the Civil War on either side. Even in the South the Jews could at that time be numbered by tens of thousands, with a much larger proportion of poor men, or immigrants, than in former times, and the relative number of officers was perforce much smaller than at the time of the Revolution or of the War of 1812. Still the Jews of the South were then, as it was stated above, much more assimilated or Americanized than those of the North, and the records of the Confederate army were less carefully kept or preserved. Thus it happens that, while judging from inference and some general statements, it may appear that the number of Jews in the armies of the Confederacy was almost as large as, if not larger than, their number in the Union Army, the actual records compiled by Mr. Wolf tell an entirely different story. His lists contain about six thousand names of Jews who supported the Union cause, while among those who defended secession and slavery there were only about a fifth of that number whose names and identity he ascertained.

It is also to the Union army that we have to go to find Jewish officers who commanded regiments on the battlefields. Brevet Major General Frederick Knefler, a native of Hungary, who rose to the colonelcy of the 79th Indiana Regiment and subsequently became a Brigadier-General, and was made Brevet Major-General for meritorious conduct at Chickamauga, is classed as a Jew. Edward S. Solomon (known also as Salomon; b. in Sleswick-Holstein, 1826; d. 1909) emigrated to the United States after receiving a high school education in his native town, and settled in Chicago, where he was elected alderman in 1860. At the outbreak of the war he joined the 24th Illinois Infantry as second-lieutenant, participating in the battles of Frederickton and Mainfordsville, Kentucky, and was promoted to the rank of major in 1862. He then resigned and assisted in the organization of the Eighty-second Illinois Infantry, in which regiment he became lieutenant-colonel, and afterwards became its colonel. He took part, under General Howe, in the battles of Chancellorville, Gettysburg, Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. In 1865 he was brevetted brigadier-general. When peace was restored he returned to Chicago and became clerk of Cook County, Ill. In 1870 he was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant (1822–85) governor of Washington Territory, and held the position about four years. After resigning, in 1874, he settled in San Francisco, where he was twice elected to the Legislature of California, and also held the office of District Attorney of San Francisco.