Antisemitism during the Civil War — U.S. Grant and General Order No. 11,In 1862, Ulysses S. Gr

Antisemitism during the Civil War — U.S. Grant and General Order No. 11,In 1862, Ulysses S. Grant was a Major General, tasked with commanding Union forces in what was then the Department of Tennessee, a military district which included Tennessee, Kentucky, Southern Illinois, and Northern Mississippi.  One issue that constantly confounded Grant’s administration of the district was the illegal black market trade of cotton, a good which the Union heavily restricted in an effort to damage the southern economy.  Grant came to the conclusion that the cotton was primarily being operated by Jews living within the district.  In a very iron handed effort to staunch the illegal cotton trade, Grant issued General Order No. 11 on December 8th, 1862, which decreed the expulsion of all Jews living withing the Department of Tennessee.  Under the supervision of the Union Army, all Jews were to be given 24 hours to gather and pack their things, after which they were to be escorted under guard off the territory.Incredibly, little of Grant’s order was carried out and enacted, and the savior of Tennessee’s Jews would be a most unlikely person; General Nathan Bedford Forrest (pictured above, right), famed Confederate cavalry commander and infamous founder of the Ku Klux Klan.  At the same time that Grant issued General Order No. 11, Forrest conducted a daring cavalry raid in which he cut all of the telegraph lines and destroyed the railroad lines leading to Grant’s headquarters in Mississippi, inadvertently preventing the communication of General Order No.11 from spreading throughout the district.  As a result, most of the regional commanders failed to receive the message, and most of the Jews living within the Department of Tennessee were left untouched by the order.However, there were some Jews who were rounded and expelled, especially those living in Kentucky.  One Jewish man, a Kentuckian named Cesar Kaskel, gathered together a delegation of Jews who were able to arrange a direct audience with President Abraham Lincoln himself.  When Lincoln learned of the Order, he revoked it immediately. After the Civil War Grant’s General Order No. 11 became more widely known when he ran for President in 1868.  He often excused his actions, claiming that it was an assistant who drew up and enacted the order without his full knowledge.  Later he would apologize for the order, making amends by dedicating the Addas Israel Synagogue in Washington D.C.  However the order haunted Grant throughout his political career.  Regardless, Grant won the Presidency twice, securing most of the Jewish vote during both elections. -- source link

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