Jewish Confederates

[Thumbcocker]

I just finished reading "Diary of a Tarheel Confederate Soldier" (available on amazon as an ebook for less than $2). the author mentions marking Jewish new year while in the Confederate Army. He also mentions that in 1864 General Lee granted furlough to Richmond to any Israelite soldiers around Petersburg on Jewish new year. Maybe there was a temple in Richmond? The author did not appear to keep kosher since he mentions eating a lot of bacon and pork.

The author was captured around the battle of the Wilderness and spent time as a pow. His parents, who lived in New York, were able to send him packages and money that was converted to sulters script. All in all it is a good read of a grunts eye view of the civil war.

Frankly I had never thought about Jewish soldiers in the Confederate army.

[jmort]

"Frankly I had never thought about Jewish soldiers in the Confederate army."

Nor had I, but assumed that statistically there had to be a few.

Reflecting their pattern of long settlement in both northern and southern cities, Jews served and supported both the Union Army (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Army) of the Northern States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_(American_Civil_War)) as well as the Confederate States Army (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_Army) of the Southern Confederate States of America (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America) during the American Civil War (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War). They had generally taken on regional loyalties according to residence. Jews were among the supporters of each side of the American Civil War (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War). Some 150,000 Jews lived in the United States at the time of the American Civil War, about 0.5 percent of the population.[12] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Jewish_Americans#cite_note-Altschiller-12) One academic estimate was that at least 8,000 Jewish soldiers fought for the Union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_(American_Civil_War)) and Confederate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America) during the Civil War.[13] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Jewish_Americans#cite_note-13) Donald Altschiller estimates that at least 10,000 Jews served, about 7,000 for the Union and 3,000 for the Confederacy, with some 600 Jewish soldiers killed in battle.[12] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Jewish_Americans#cite_note-Altschiller-12)
Jews also played leadership roles on both sides, with nine Jewish generals and 21 Jewish colonels participating in the war. Judah P. Benjamin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_P._Benjamin), a non-observant Jew, served as Secretary of State and acting Secretary of War of the Confederacy.

[nagantguy]

As far as keeping kosher, I think if park or shell.fish or whatever is the only food available it's not a sin to eat it to stay alive.....my understanding from one of the finest warriors I served with, Navy seal turned corpsman taking care of marines in the field to battle surgeon, he was Jewish and we discussed many things in far away places.

[Blackwater]

Good post. Mostly, people are just people, wherever you find them, and we're a lot more alike than we are different. The way we worship God has great personal effect on each of us, but it really doesn't have a whole lot of effect on politics, except maybe when someone running for election tries to use it to his advantage. I think that's unGodly. But in politics, God doesn't seem to be a very big consideration, maybe because He doesn't come down from on High and vote? We're ALL a lot more alike than we are different, so it's long been a source of amazement how we so often and easily try to separate and divide ourselves, or allow it to be done, rather than simply talking and seeking to understand the realities of our differences, and discerning how much imagination is involved in the things that separate us.

We all need to be separate and distinct beings, of course, but not so separate that we get so haughty as to find ourselves alone and unguarded when dangers come. And yet ..... well, just look around, and see how we not only continue to divide ourselves on the basis of all manner of factors, and parse ourselves out into smaller and smaller and lonlier and lonlier, and less and less effective small groups. That's no way to fight evil in the world, is it? Well ... is it?