Leopold Blumenberg (b. in Prussia, 1827; d. in Baltimore, 1876) served with distinction in the Prussian-Danish war of 1848–49 and was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant. He came to the United States in 1854 and settled in Baltimore, where he engaged in a profitable business, which he abandoned at the outbreak of the war. He helped to organize the Fifth Maryland Regiment, in which he became a major. His work for the Union cause excited the animosity of local secessionists, who attempted to hang him, and he was forced to have his house barricaded and guarded for several nights. Blumenberg was acting colonel of his regiment near Hampton Roads. He was later attached to Mansfield’s corps at the Peninsular campaign, and commanded his regiment as colonel at Antietam, where he was severely wounded. When he had partly recovered he was appointed by President Lincoln provost-marshal of the third Maryland district, which position he held for two years. President Andrew Johnson (1808–75) gave him a position in the revenue department and commissioned him brigadier-general, United States Volunteers, by brevet. General Blumenberg was a member of the Har-Sinai Congregation and of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of Baltimore.
Philip J. Joachimsen (b. in Breslau, Germany, 1817; a. 1831; d. in New York, 1890) was appointed Assistant Corporation Attorney of the City of New York soon after his admission to the bar, in 1840, and fifteen years later he became Assistant United States District Attorney, being afterward appointed Substitute United States Attorney under a special provision of an act of Congress. (Markens 223.) During his term of office he secured the first capital conviction for slave trading, and also the conviction of some Nicaraguan filibusterers. He organized and commanded the 59th New York Volunteer Regiment and was injured at New Orleans. He was made brigadier-general by brevet. In 1870 he was elected a Judge of the Marine Court of the City of New York and served a full term of six years. Judge Joachimsen was active in Jewish communal affairs, and was the first president of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum (1859). Twenty years later he organized the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society.
General William Mayer rendered valuable service during the Draft Riots in New York City, for which he received an autograph letter of thanks from President Lincoln. Subsequently General Mayer devoted himself to journalism and was the editor of several German newspapers.
Marcus M. Spiegel, the son of a rabbi of Oppenheim-on-the-Rhine, enlisted in the 67th Ohio Infantry Regiment and was promoted step by step until he became lieutenant-colonel, and for bravery manifested on the battle field, was appointed Colonel of the 120th Ohio Infantry. He was wounded at Vicksburg, and after joining his regiment again, fell at Snaggy Point, on the Red River, Louisiana. But for his untimely death, Colonel Spiegel would have been promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General, to which he was recommended by his superior officers.
Max Einstein (b. in Würtemberg, 1822; a. 1844) had considerable military experience prior to the outbreak of the war. He was a silk merchant, and became First Lieutenant of the Washington Guards in 1852. In the following year he joined the Philadelphia (Flying) Artillery Company and was chosen its Captain. He became Aide-de-Camp (with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel) to Governor James Pollock of Pennsylvania in 1856. In 1860 he was elected Brigadier-General of the Second Brigade of Pennsylvania Militia. In the succeeding year he organized the 27th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, which was mustered into service May 31, 1861, for a three years’ term. This regiment, under Colonel Einstein’s command, succeeded in covering the retreat of the Union Army in the first battle of Bull Run and won credit by its conduct. Einstein was subsequently appointed by President Lincoln United States Consul at Nüremberg, Germany, and later served as United States Revenue Agent at Philadelphia.
It is worth noting as an example that this one regiment had nearly thirty Jewish officers, most of them in minor positions, and about sixty privates in the ranks. This was, of course, an exceptional case, but Jews were represented in most of the regiments, especially those of Philadelphia, almost if not quite as much as in the regiments of those states which sent a larger contingent of Jewish soldiers to the front than Pennsylvania. The first of those states was New York, with nearly two thousand, which had already at that time achieved the distinction of having the largest Jewish community in the New World. Ohio, which came second, with 1,134, and Illinois, with 1,076, clearly indicated the growing importance of the Middle West for the new immigration. Indiana contributed over five hundred—almost as many as Pennsylvania—while Michigan had more than two hundred of its Jewish inhabitants in the Union Army. New England had the smallest representation, for the number of Jews there was very small at that time.
There was still another Pennsylvania regiment, the 65th (Fifth Cavalry), known as the “Cameron Dragoons” (on account of its being recruited under the authority of an order issued by Secretary of War Simon Cameron (1799–1889) July 6, 1861), which first went to the front under the command of a Jewish colonel. His name was Max Friedman (b. in Mühlhausen, Germany, 1825), and he came to the United States in 1848, settling in Philadelphia. He served as Major of a Regiment in the State Militia prior to the Civil War. Colonel Friedman remained with his regiment in the field until a severe wound received at the battle of Vienna, Virginia, forced him to resign in the following month. He later (1869) settled in New York as the cashier of the Union Square National Bank, of which he was one of the organizers.
Abraham Hart (b. in Hesse-Darmstadt, 1832), who arrived in this country at the age of eighteen, was a captain in the 73d Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, and when Colonel Kolter, under whom he served, was elevated to the command of a brigade in General Blenker’s Division of the Army of the Potomac, Captain Hart was detailed as Adjutant-General of the brigade. Moses Isaac of New York attained the same rank, that of adjutant-general in the Third Army Corps of the Army of the Potomac, and participated in the battles of the Peninsular campaign, subsequently serving under General Banks. Another New York Jew, of whom little else is known besides a brief notice by Mr. Wolf ([p. 285]), was Lieutenant-Colonel Leopold C. Newman, of the 31st Infantry Regiment of that state, whose foot was shattered by a cannon ball in the battle of Chancellorville (May 2, 1863), and he was taken to Washington, where he died. President Lincoln visited him at his bedside, and brought along his commission promoting him to the rank of Brigadier-General.
While the number of Jewish soldiers was proportionally large, and many of them became distinguished for bravery and were promoted to responsible positions, it was in the other branch of the service, the Navy, in which a member of the Jewish community attained the highest rank up to that time. Commodore Uriah Phillips Levy (b. in Philadelphia, 1792; d. in New York, 1862) held the highest rank in the United States Navy prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, though his age prevented him from participating in that struggle. Levy sailed as a cabin boy before he was eleven years old, and at the age of fourteen he was apprenticed as a sailor, and also attended a naval school for one year, becoming a second mate four years later. He soon rose to be first mate, and was master of a schooner at twenty. While he was on a cruise on the “George Washington,” of which he was part owner as well as master, a mutiny took place, his vessel was seized and he was left penniless; but he managed to return to the United States, and after obtaining the necessary means, he secured the mutineers, brought them to the United States and had them convicted.
Levy received his commission from the United States Navy as sailing master in October, 1812, when the war with England had already begun. Until June 13 he served on the ship “Alert,” doing shore duty; then he went on the brig “Argus,” bound for France. The “Argus” captured several prizes, and Levy was placed in command of one, but the prize was recaptured by the English, and Levy and the crew were kept as prisoners for sixteen months in England. In 1816 he was assigned as sailing master to the “Franklin,” and in March, 1817, he was appointed lieutenant in the Navy, which appointment was confirmed by the Senate.