Answers regarding the lives of Jewish soldiers on the ground.

More books have been written about the Civil War than any other topic in American history. It is the subject of an estimated 100,000 volumes. Biographies and other treatments of Abraham Lincoln alone account for about 15,000 books. So, why should we welcome another work on the Civil War? Hasn’t the subject already been exhausted with tomes about battles, generals, soldiers, the home front and battlefield technology, or about the politics and foreign relations of the era? In addition, there are numerous detailed accounts of the minutia that Civil War buffs adore: tracts about belt buckles, uniforms, firearms, swords and the like. The list is expansive, to say the least.

Only a handful of these books, however, focus upon Jewish soldiers, whether from the Union or Confederate armies. This gap in the literature of the Civil War left many questions regarding life for Jewish soldiers with overwhelmingly Protestant and Catholic comrades-in-arms and within an Army campaign that did not stop to consider holidays, let alone Jewish holidays and Shabbat. But now, we have some answers regarding the lives of Jewish soldiers.

The recently published Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War: The Union Army by Adam D. Mendelsohn (New York University Press: New York, 2022), is an outstanding addition to the literature of Jews in the Civil War. Mendelson, associate professor of historical studies at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, is no stranger to the study of American Jewish history. He is co-editor of the journal, American Jewish History, and has published many contributions related to Jewish history, including Jews and the Civil War: A Reader with Jonathan D. Sarna, a prominent American historian (2010).

Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War may be Mendelsohn’s masterpiece on Jewish soldiers in the War Between the States, or perhaps, one might say “to date” — the author is still writing. But this finely detailed, handsomely illustrated work will be a hard history to beat.

The narrative has two underlying general theses. On one hand, Jewish soldiers were just like other soldiers, regardless of ethnicity, race or creed. On the other hand, however, they faced historic antisemitism or just a plain lack of understanding and tolerance for the Jewish religion.

Jewish soldiers were like their Protestant and Catholic comrades in many ways. Most of them fought bravely; some did not. All of them dealt with the same conditions facing any Union soldier: poor quality, decidedly non-kosher food, often in short supply; rampant disease while in encampments with poor sanitary conditions; the horrors of surgery and recovery if wounded in action; and, of course, the sheer terror of battle (or as Civil War soldiers called it, “Seeing the Elephant”) in a war fought with modern weapons but outdated 19th-century Napoleonic tactics. The loss of life was immense: more soldiers killed-in-action than all American wars combined until the Vietnam War in the 20th century. That soldiers from both sides were willing to charge into a mass of rifle and cannon fire is still nearly unbelievable group and individual bravery.

But Jewish Civil War soldiers faced antisemitic tropes, or as the author bluntly states: “ignorant, baseless stereotypes” that other soldiers did not encounter. Such antisemitic sentiments were stronger amongst Americans on the home front, manifesting in such conclusions that Jews would not fight or that Jews were profiting from the war while not enlisting. While in camp, there were incidents of antisemitic remarks and sometimes abusive acts against Jewish soldiers. It was also hard to celebrate Jewish holidays and Shabbat; Jewish chaplains were rare, indeed.

Jews who did join the Union Army rarely served alongside other Jews. A regiment, the basic organizational unit of armies of the era, rarely had more than one or two Jews in the ranks, or even rarer, a larger group of Jewish soldiers.

In some ways, whether a soldier was Jewish or not was not an issue. When a battle began, all that mattered was one’s conduct under fire, not one’s heritage.

Well-researched

Mendelsohn does a superb job of discussing the various nuances of soldiering in the Union Army as Jews. He does so through extensive empirical research, especially into the resources of the Shapell Manuscript Foundation. Indeed, Mendelsohn is one of the first to explore the Shapell Roster, a massive collection of thousands of letters, diaries and other documents specifically from Jewish Civil War soldiers. This research allows the author to present numerous stories of individual Jewish soldiers. He also includes some letters and illustrations in the book, which makes the work a cut above the usual scholarly treatment. These sidebars, so to speak, ranging from stories about Mark Twain to Rabbi Morris J. Raphall, are not only pertinent, but also provide great insight into the main narrative.

Most of all, Mendelsohn writes about people, Jews who were soldiers, along with their families and communities. If a reader is looking for a Civil War battlefield tactical narrative, then this book will fall short. It is not about the battles of the war. It is focused on the lives of Jewish soldiers themselves in the Civil War — as Jews and Americans.

I highly recommend this outstanding work of history: It is insightful and well-written. General readers of history will find it informative and readable. Civil War history buffs will love it.