The Jewish Confederates

by Robert N. Rosen

Overview

Details Jewish participation on the Civil War battlefield and throughout the Southern home front

In The Jewish Confederates, Robert N. Rosen introduces readers to the community of Southern Jews of the 1860s, revealing the remarkable breadth of Southern Jewry's participation in the war and their commitment to the Confederacy. Intrigued by the apparent irony of their story, Rosen weaves a complex chronicle that outlines how Southern Jews—many of them recently arrived immigrants from Bavaria, Prussia, Hungary, and Russia who had fled European revolutions and anti-Semitic governments—attempted to navigate the fraught landscape of the American Civil War.

This chronicle relates the experiences of officers, enlisted men, businessmen, politicians, nurses, rabbis, and doctors. Rosen recounts the careers of important Jewish Confederates; namely, Judah P. Benjamin, a member of Jefferson Davis's cabinet; Col. Abraham C. Myers, quartermaster general of the Confederacy; Maj. Adolph Proskauer of the 125th Alabama; Maj. Alexander Hart of the Louisiana 5th; and Phoebe Levy Pember, the matron of Richmond's Chimborazo Hospital. He narrates the adventures and careers of Jewish officers and profiles the many Jewish soldiers who fought in infantry, cavalry, and artillery units in every major campaign.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643362472
Publisher:	University of South Carolina Press
Publication date:	09/17/2021
Pages:	544
Sales rank:	652,011
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.90(h) x 1.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Robert N. Rosen was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. Three of his grandparents were emigrants from the "Pale of Settlement"—Russia, Poland, and Belorus. The other grandparent was born in this country just after her parents arrived from Austria in the 1890s. Rosen attended public schools in Charleston, where his high school history teacher was the Charleston historian Solomon Breibart. He studied at the University of Virginia and at Harvard University, where he received an M.A. in history, as well as at the University of South Carolina Law School. The author of A Short History of Charleston and Confederate Charleston: An Illustrated History of the Place and the People During the Civil War, he practices law in Charleston and is listed in The Best Lawyers in America. Rosen has served on the boards of the South Carolina Historical Society and Historic Charleston Foundation, and has chaired the Arts and History Commission of the City of Charleston.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xv

List of Illustrations xix

List of Abbreviations xxv

Prologue Our Sons Will Defend This Land 1

Part 1 This Happy Land, Our Palestine

Freedom and Equality in the Old South 7

Chapter 1 The Free Air of Dixie 9

Chapter 2 Two Sephardic Senators 55

Part 2 Be Strong and of a Good Courage

The Soldiers 87

Chapter 3 Hebrew Officers and Israelite Gentlemen 89

Chapter 4 Jewish Johnny Rebs 161

Part 3 Sympathetic Soul and Busy Hands

The Jewish Confederate Home Front 217

Chapter 5 This Most Suffering Land 219

Chapter 6 Two Jewish Confederate Sisters 280

Part 4 In Our Unhappy Land

The End of an Era 305

Chapter 7 Lead Out the Pageant: Sad and Slow 307

Chapter 8 We Are Passing through Another Captivity 332

Epilogue It Seems like a Dream As We Look Back 355

Notes 379

Glossary 447

Bibliographical Note 451

Bibliography 465

Index 483

What People are Saying About This

Mark I. Greenberg

Robert Rosen's exceptional coverage of southern Jewry during the Civil War and Reconstruction eras stand as a testament to depth, breadth, and length. Jews are actors in the drama unfolding before them as well as the victims of forces beyond their control. Rosen weaves a captivating tale of allegiance, sacrifice, and Jews' ethnic identity and minority status in the South

Emory M. Thomas

The Jewish Confederates is the story of a people defining themselves. Robert Rosen has a wonderful capacity to describe people and their character in capsule. He's given us an important book on a very significant topic—felicitously written and festooned with photographs.

Willaim C. Davis

Perhaps no identifiable group of Southerners represented a greater paradox than the Jewish community spread all the way from Richmond to New Orleans. In The Jewish Confederates Robert N. Rosen opens a window on the unlikely story of a people apart, with their own religion and cultural customs, functioning within a Southern community that regarded itself as separate and distinct from other Americans. Through the lives of people as diverse as the Confederate statesman Judah Benjamin and the Louisiana teenager Clara Solomon, Rosen reveals the surprising tolerance in the South for this one minority, and the sacrifices they made to prove themselves full citizens of the supposedly xenophobic Southern republic

William C. Davis

Perhaps no identifiable group of Southerners represented a greater paradox than the Jewish community spread all the way from Richmond to New Orleans. In The Jewish Confederates Robert N. Rosen opens a window on the unlikely story of a people apart, with their own religion and cultural customs, functioning within a Southern community that regarded itself as separate and distinct from other Americans. Through the lives of people as diverse as the Confederate statesman Judah Benjamin and the Louisiana teenager Clara Solomon, Rosen reveals the surprising tolerance in the South for this one minority, and the sacrifices they made to prove themselves full citizens of the supposedly xenophobic Southern republic.

Alan M. Dershowitz

An eye-opening, myth-shattering, stereotype-breaking work of originality, elegance, and wisdom. A must-read for Civil War buffs, Jewish history fans, and all Americans interested in learning—and you will learn much—about Jewish southerners who placed loyalty to their adopted states above the moral teachings of their tradition (at least as we now interpret them). You may not agree with these Jewish Confederates, but you will surely understand them better.

William J. Cooper

In this fascinating book Robert N. Rosen illuminates a long-neglected dimension of Confederate history, and, in so doing, makes an important contribution to the debate over the depth of southern white unity and Confederate loyalty. Meticulously researched, The Jewish Confederates makes clear that across the social and economic spectrum Jewish southerners overwhelmingly supported the Confederacy. With fascinating detail about well-known and little-known men and women, Rosen demonstrates that on both the battlefield and the homefront Jewish Confederates proved their loyalty, a loyalty they maintained after 1865 in their embrace of the Lost Cause. All who want to understand the nineteenth-century South should read this book.

Gary W. Gallagher

Apart from a few prominent individuals such as Judah P. Benjamin and Phoebe Yates Pember, Jewish Confederates have been virtually invisible in the massive body of published work on the Civil War. Robert N. Rosen's impressive study illuminates the world of southern Jews and their role in the Confederacy's bid for independence. It is a major contribution to Confederate studies, and to the broader literature on the Civil War.

Elliott Ashkenazi

Robert N. Rosen has continued in an admirable way his work on assembling information that is necessary to developing a realistic view of the lives of Jews in the South. Thanks to him, we can now take another step in answering the basic questions of why did Jews feel comfortable in the nineteenth-century South, and why was the South so accepting of Jews?

Editorial Reviews

This exhaustive study sheds light on a little-remarked curiosity of the Civil War's history: The Lost Cause claimed a great many Jewish partisans, and a regime dedicated to the defense of human slavery proved remarkably resistant to antisemitism.

The Washington Post

Robert N. Rosen has provided a comprehensive look at the Southern Jewish experience in the Confederacy... His work fills a major gap in the historiography of the Confederacy and should inspire others to look at similar ethnic experiences of the Civil War.

Louisiana History

While prominent, largely forgotten Jewish leaders such as Confederate Secretary of State Judah Benjamin and Q.M. Gen. Abraham C. Myers are re-examined in Rosen's account of the Jewish confederacy, the real contribution of this book to Civil War scholarship is its thorough look at the contradictions and ironies implied by the title, and the capsule biographical sketches of quite a few of the 2,000 Jewish men who served in the Confederate army and navy. Looking at the total Southern Jewish population of less than 25,000--based mainly in the cities of Memphis, Nashville, Mobile and Shreveport--Rosen concludes that, contrary to the commonly held idea of "old" Jewish families being the mainstay of the contingent, the typical Jewish soldier was a recent immigrant who "enlisted to prove he was a man and a worthy citizen"--albeit a citizen sometimes subject to prejudices just as virulent as anti-black racism. In addition to tracking the exploits of many soldiers, Rosen also chronicles the trials and tribulations of Jewish civilians behind the lines and the growth of anti-Semitism as the war progressed. This groundbreaking study is liberally illustrated with photographs and maps, and is written clearly and energetically as a trade book, despite its academic stamp and thoroughness. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A native of Charleston, SC, Rosen (Confederate Charleston: An Illustrated History of the Place and the People During the Civil War) uses his own background and experience to recount the lives of Southern Jews from the 1700s until well after the Civil War. Loyal Southerners, the Jews accepted living in a slaveholding society, and their young men flocked to enlist when war came. The author delves into the lives of a number of prominent individuals and families, among them two U.S. senators, Judah Philip Benjamin of Louisiana and David Levy Yulee of Florida. The experiences of many other enlisted men, officers, nurses, politicians, rabbis, doctors, and businessmen are also chronicled. Rosen also explains why so many Jews chose the South as their home and why they remained loyal to it, arguing that Southern society and the Confederate army and navy may have been more tolerant of Jews than the North. The glossary provides definitions of Judaic terms. Larger public and academic libraries should consider this readable book, as should all libraries with strong Judaic or military collections.--David Alperstein, Queens Borough P.L., Jamaica, NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Library Journal

Comprehensive and readerly . . . Rosen has done yeoman's work in gathering together the stories . . . [it] works best as a kind of living diorama.
—New York Times Book Review

Roy Hoffman

first-class... thorough, deeply researched, and engaging... anyone doing research on any aspect of southern Jewry would be foolhardy to ignore.

Journal of Southern History

The Jewish Confederates indeed makes a significant contribution to the literature of the Civil War South and American Jewish history... essential reading in the field.

The Florida Historical Quarterly

The Jewish Confederates is a fascinating, comprehensive look at a great number and variety of soldiers and non-combatants, replete with excerpts from letters and diaries that will give the reader insights into the spirit of the time. For the Civil War scholar looking for something different on the period, this book is highly recommended.

Civil War Times Illustrated

The Jewish Confederates is a thoughtful and readable narrative packed with information and insights... a fine piece of scholarship and a fascinating read.

South Carolina Historical Magazine

Robert Rosen's emendation to the American Jewish record is must reading not only for his co-religionists but for those who study the Civil War. In revealing the patriotism of Southern Jewry, Rosen has dealt a blow against bigotry.

American Enterprise

Comprehensive and readerly

New York Times Book Review