The US Civil War And Jews
Jewish Americans fought for the Union in the north and the Confederacy in the south. By most accounts, 6,000 Jewish soldiers served the north, while upwards of 3,000 joined the ranks of the south, according to Jews and the Civil War: A Reader (New York University Press), an illuminating book of essays edited by Jonathan Sarna and Adam Mendelsohn.
Comprehensive in scope, it covers a full range of topics: the Jewish foot soldiers and officers who sacrificed their lives for their respective causes, the Jewish communities in the north and the south that sent warriors into the battlefields, the Jews whose businesses were bound up with slavery, and the antisemitism that emerged in and out of the military.
With a population of 31 million, the United States was home to about 150,000 Jews when the war started. During this era, the majority of Jews in America were new immigrants, mostly from the Germanic states.
Jews attained a measure of prominence in the Confederacy.
Judah Benjamin, the first acknowledged Jew in the US Senate, was its attorney general, secretary of war and secretary of state. Evans claims that Benjamin “achieved greater political power than perhaps any other Jewish American in history.” He is probably correct.
Henry Hyams was the lieutenant governor of Louisiana and Dr. Edwin Moise was the Speaker of that state’s legislature. David Lopez, an architect, designed a boat that, in 1863, took part in the first successful torpedo attack in naval history. Colonel Abraham Charles Myers, a West Point graduate and the great grandson of a rabbi, was the quartermaster general of the Confederate army.
The issue of slavery, one of the causes of the war, is explored by Seymour Drescher. His conclusion is that Jews were marginal participants in the slave trade, but that the Christian descendants of Jews played a greater role in it.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-us-civil-war-and-jews/
