When General Grant Expelled the Jews

By Jonathan D. Sarna

Shocken, 2012, 201 pp., $24.95

Reviewed by Gordon Berg

The general never mentioned the order in his Personal Memoirs. His wife, however, was not so reticent. She called it "obnoxious" and in her memoirs declared that "he had no right to make an order against any special sect."

The order was General Order 11, issued by Major General Ulysses S. Grant on Dec. 17, 1862. The "special sect" referred to by his wife, Julia Dent Grant, was the Jews living within the military department commanded by her husband. In what has been described as the most anti-Semitic government document ever issued in America, the Union's most successful field commander and future president of the United States declared that all Jews "are hereby expelled from the department within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order." The order also explained the reasoning behind Grant's edict. "The Jews, as a class," the order read, were "violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department."

Although the order was ordered quickly and quietly rescinded by President Lincoln and directly affected only a small number of Jews in Kentucky and Tennessee, its brief and tumultuous life energized the Jewish community throughout the North and came back to haunt Grant during his run for the presidency in 1868. The story is told with scholarly analysis and in a clear, concise narrative style by Jonathan D. Sarna, a professor at Brandies University and chief historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History.

Sarna recounts the first life of the order in a concise 50 pages. His retelling of Paducah, KY merchant Cesar Kaskel's odyssey to Washington, DC to inform President Lincoln of the injustice being done to a group of loyal citizens judiciously balances a few facts and a bounty of apocrypha that surrounds this impromptu White House call. What's known for sure is that Lincoln quickly ordered Henry Halleck, general-in-chief of the armies, to countermand the order. Choosing his words carefully, Halleck ordered that "if such an order has been issued, it will be immediately revoked." On Jan.6, 1863, just a few days after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, Grant revoked his ill conceived directive.

But why did Grant issue it in the first place? Unless he was a religious and cultural bigot, which he wasn't, there must have been forces beyond his control that pushed him into action. While it's hard to discern what goes on in a person's mind, Sarna investigates several possible motives, including the involvement of Grant's father, Jesse, in a speculative and possibly illegal scheme to trade in valuable contraband cotton. Grant's relationship with his father was always complicated and the fact that his father's partners were Jewish probably exacerbated the general's frustration.

But it was what the order implied rather than what it did that really caused alarm throughout the Jewish community. "Fault for many of the other evils inevitably associated with war --" Sarna explains, "smuggling, speculating, price gouging, swindling, and producing 'shoddy merchandise for the military – was similarly laid upon the doorstep of 'the Jews.'" Singling out Jews "as a class" rekindled memories of centuries of persecution and Jewish organizations throughout the North were galvanized into action as never before.

The story now shifts to 1868 when Grant became the Republican nominee for president. As an overwhelmingly favorite to win, his opponents looked for anything that could damage him. General Order 11 was resurrected and again became a hot button issue. Grant weathered this storm, too. In fact, Sarna asserts, that "Having apologized for his anti-Jewish order in 1868, he became highly sensitive, even hypersensitive, to Jewish concerns." Sarna points out that Grant "appointed more Jews to public office than any of his predecessors. He sought to bring Jews (as well as Blacks) into the mainstream of American political life. He acted to promote human rights for Jews around the world."

For a man who did so much to atone for one hasty, ill conceived, order issued under the stress of significant military and administrative responsibilities, it is probably best that he never knew that the tomb in which he and his wife rest, on Riverside Drive in New York City, was modeled after the mausoleum of the Roman emperor Hadrian, the same emperor who brutally put down the Jewish revolt against Rome and killed Jews by the thousands. Even great men can do little to escape the ironies of history.

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Gordon Berg is a past President and member of the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia (cwrtdc.org).  His reviews and articles appear in the Civil War Times and America's Civil War, among other publications.

George Henry Thomas: As True As Steel

By Brian Steel Wills

University Press of Kansas, 2012, 585 pp., $39.95

Reviewed by Gordon Berg

Historian Bruce Catton believed George Henry Thomas was "certainly one of the four or five best soldiers on either side in the whole war." Reading Brian Steel Wills' definitive biography of the blue Virginian makes it clear why Thomas is now ranked among the pantheon of Civil War generals.

Known as "The Rock of Chickamauga" to history and "Old Pap" to his men, Wills vividly documents the personal complexities of the man that contributed to his capabilities as a soldier. Thomas left no personal papers but Wills has diligently mined previously untapped bibliographic source material to present a nuanced, evenhanded evaluation of the soldier William T. Sherman called "true as steel."

Born into a slave-holding family in Southampton County, VA, Thomas witnessed Nat Turner's great servile uprising of 1831 as a teenager and fled with his family through fields and marsh to reach the safety of the county seat. "The event," Wills maintains, "surely presented him with a starkly drawn firsthand picture of the volatility and dangers inherent in a system of forced labor."

Thomas graduate West Point in 1840 and embarked on a military career that would last the rest of his life. He fought the Seminoles in Florida, Mexicans along the Rio Grande, and Kiowas and Comanches in Texas. He also found time to court and marry Frances Lucretia Kellogg of Troy, NY and return to West Point as an instructor.

When Virginia joined the Confederacy, many wondered what Thomas would do. For him, there was never any question. His loyalty to the uniform he wore and dedication to the nation it represented was strong, steady, and unwavering, much like the man himself. His decision cost him dearly; his sisters never spoke to him again.

Thomas' success on the battlefield is unrivaled. He gained the Union's first significant victory at Mill Springs, KY, reminded his commander that "this army doesn't retreat" at Stones River, stood steadfast on Snodgrass Hill and saved the Army of the Cumberland from destruction at Chickamauga, vowed to hold Chattanooga "'til we starve," proudly watched his men storm Missionary Ridge, and achieved the closest thing to a battle of annihilation by destroying the Army of Tennessee at Nashville.

Thomas was not given to making speeches, but when he bid farewell to his beloved army, his praise was heartfelt and eloquent. "We have not only broken down one of the most formidable rebellions that ever threatened the existence of any country," he said, "but the discipline of the Army of the Cumberland alone has civilized two hundred thousand valuable patriots and citizens."

Wills poignantly recounts Thomas' unsettled postwar years. He refused to play the political games practiced in the peacetime army nor would he become a self-promoter for post or rank. His ire was aroused, however, when his achievement at Nashville was questioned.

Thomas died at his post at the Presidio in San Francisco on March 28, 1870 while serving as commander of the Division of the Pacific. In 1879, his comrades in the Society of the Army of the Cumberland unveiled a magnificent bronze statue of Thomas in Washington, DC. He is mounted on his horse, sitting ramrod straight, hat off, surveying the country he did so much to save.

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Gordon Berg is a past President and member of the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia (cwrtdc.org).  His reviews and articles appear in the Civil War Times and America's Civil War, among other publications.

From Western Deserts to Carolina Swamps:
A Civil War Soldier's Journals and Letters Home

Edited by John P. Wilson

University of New Mexico Press, 2012, 296 pp., $40

Reviewed by Gordon Berg

John P. Wilson's skills as an archeologist served him well during a 25-year odyssey to uncover fragments of journals and letters written by Lewis Roe, a veteran of the antebellum army in the desert southwest and part of the 50th Illinois Volunteer Infantry as it marched with Sherman through Georgia and the Carolinas.

The search for Lewis Roe actually began when Wilson was a child in Knoxville, Ill. The town librarian was Roe's daughter.  She showed him some letters written by her father while in the field with the Army of the Tennessee.  Wilson was hooked and, over the years, he gathered other fragments of Roe's writings and discovered more details of his life.  

Wilson uncovered six fragments with which to work.  A small notebook describing Roe's  service in the southwest between June 1860-June 1861 with the 7thU.S. Infantry; original installments of a daily war journal Roe kept between October 1864 and March 1865; nine 1864-65 letters addressed to his wife; two post-war notebooks reviewing his regular army life and transcribing installments of his war journal; and a 1910 National Tribune article, a rare first-hand description of the battle of Valverde, NM on Feb. 21, 1862.  “We went into battle that morning Sixty men strong,” Roe recalled.  “We came out only 14 able to march.  21 were shot dead, the remainder wounded, but one man in our Co. escaped without a bullet mark.  I rec a slight wound in my let.  My coat was shot through the breast; it was a close call.”

To create a coherent story, Wilson had a lot of gaps to fill-in.  His search for sources and  corroborating evidence along with correcting misstatements and faulty memory could serve as a primer for dissertation writing graduate students.  During the background research for the chapter on the Atlanta campaign, in which Roe served with the 50th Illinois infantry, Wilson discovered “that Lewis Roe's journal entry for May 15 gave details about the Battle of Lay's Ferry that went beyond anything included in the primary sources...”  

Roe also participated in the occupation of Rome, GA, the battle of Allatoona, and marched to the sea with Sherman's bummers.  Roe's journal entry from Savannah on Christmas Day 1864  lamented “No pies or Chicken-fixins for dinner but only a little mush & sugar.  Our rations are not very regular yet.”  

Roe's regiment marched through Columbia, SC on Feb. 17, 1865.  In his journal, Roe described it as “a nice, pretty place.”  But he also confirmed that “The town is on fire & I am afraid it will all burn down.  The boys can hardly be controlled.”  Wilson discovered that Roe often did what many veterans did; projected themselves into events “giving the reader or listener the impression that the narrator took part in the event” when they  were only repeating what they had been told.

After the war, Roe's regiment participated in the Grand Review in Washington, DC, and was sent to Louisville, KY to await mustering out.  In a June 20, 1865 letter to has wife, Roe expressed his opinion of his commander.  “I do not know what may be thought of Sherman at the north, but no General that ever lived was ever thought more of than Billy Sherman is by this Army.”

By organizing Roe's writings and adding his own thoroughly researched commentary,  Wilson brings to light an infantry man's perspective, producing a valuable document and a lively read.

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Gordon Berg is a past President and member of the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia (cwrtdc.org).  His reviews and articles appear in the Civil War Times and America's Civil War, among other publications.

Hood's Texas Brigade in the Civil War

By Edward B. Williams

McFarland, 2012, 350 pp., $45.00

Reviewed by Gordon Berg

The last men in the ragged gray line to emerge from the chilly morning mists and stack arms one last time were from Texas.  They were all that was left of the once proud Texas Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia, men whom Robert E. Lee said he had come to rely on “in all tight places.”  Made up of the 1st, 4th, and 5th Texas Infantry and augmented first by the 18th Georgia and later by the 3rd Arkansas, they fought in every major engagement in the east from The Peninsula to Petersburg, missing only Chancellorsville.  They also went west with James Longstreet's Corps and fought at Chickamauga and Knoxville.  Now, only 617 were left to surrender on April 12, 1865.

Edward B. Williams, an independent military historian, has chronicled the exploits of this valiant fighting unit from its formation to its surrender and beyond in almost mind-numbing detail.  Indeed, information about the brigade abounds, primarily manuscripts, diaries, personal papers, and letters collected at Hill College's Confederate Research Center in Hillsboro, TX and Williams seems to have read them all. 

While the monograph is clearly a labor of love, writing in the active voice and some judicious editing of anecdotes and quotations would have made the narrative flow more harmoniously.  The book could easily have done without some of the author's breathless hyperbole, too; i.e. “At least they were on their way somewhere even though they all know that that somewhere might mark the site of their extinction.”  Please!

But for those interested in detailed descriptions of the battles and camp life of this renowned   Civil War unit, this book can be a worthy companion to the four volumes Colonel Harold Simpson wrote more than a quarter century ago.  By taking a chronologically approach, Williams allows the reader to reference specific chapters in order to examine events in the brigade's history.  

Even though the brigade had eight different commanders, it came to be known by it's most colorful leader, John Bell Hood.  He led the unit in its first significant action at Gaines' Mill on June 27, 1862.  In crediting the 4th Texas with breaking the Union line, General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson concluded “The men who carried this position were soldiers, indeed.”  The Brigade suffered 611 casualties at Gaines' Mill.

But the bloodletting on The Peninsula was only a preview of what was to come.  The 5th Texas alone lost 214 men at Second Manassas, earning it the sobriquet “The Bloody 5th.”  The Brigade fought in Miller's corn field at Antietam where, Williams relates, “the 1st Texas suffered the most horrendous losses of all in the Army of Northern Virginia...”  By the time the unit reached The Wilderness in May 1864, it was down to about 800 effectives.  Less than half emerged from from that blood drenched tangle of underbrush to man the Richmond/Petersburg defense lines until the last days of the war. 

The chapter describing the Texan's homeward trek after the surrender is one of Williams' best.  The Hood's Texas Brigade Association was formed in 1872 and met  “with great fanfare” almost every year until 1933.   Since 1966, the memory of the Texas Brigade has been carried forward by the biennial meetings of Hood's Texas Brigade Association, Reorganized.

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Gordon Berg is a past President and member of the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia (cwrtdc.org).  His reviews and articles appear in the Civil War Times and America's Civil War, among other publications.

War Upon the Land:

Military Strategy and the Transformation
of Southern Landscapes During

the American Civil War

By Lisa M. Brady

University of Georgia Press, 2012, 188 pp., $24.95 (paper)

Reviewed by Gordon Berg

A postwar observer of the desolate South after the Civil War commented on the condition of the land over which General William T. Sherman's army had traveled.  “Truly might it have been said,” wrote Englishman John A. Kennaway, using the Bible as his text, “'The land is as the garden of Eden before him, and behind him a desolate wilderness.'  The spirit of the South fairly broke down under the infliction, and her soldiers in many cases refused any longer to fight for a Government which had proved itself powerless to protect their families and their homes.”

Lisa Brady examines four important Union campaigns from Kennaway's point of view.  She argues, eloquently and persuasively, that the ecology of the Southern landscape and the way 19^th century Americans interacted with it, were crucial to the military successes achieved by the Federal armies along the lower Mississippi River, at Vicksburg, in the Shenandoah Valley, and through Georgia and the Carolinas. 

Dr. Brady creatively combines the disciplines of archeology, environmental studies, sociology, and military history to show how the strategies and tactics of Generals Grant, Sheridan, and Sherman made war not only on Confederate soldiers and civilians, but on the very land itself.  “Union forces,” she argues, “attacked the Confederacy's resources, its physical and imagined landscapes, and its relationship with nature.”

The bottom lands bordering the lower Mississippi River often proved to be a greater obstacle to the invading Union armies than the Rebel soldiers defending it.  Indeed, General Grant's initial failures to capture Vicksburg were in large measure due to unfriendly natural environments and diseases which they spawned.  These failures, Dr. Brady concludes,  “led him to more innovative tactics that targeted not just the military defenses around the city, but also the city's supporting landscape.”   It was a tactic the southern population would, to their dismay, come to know very well. 

A noted historian of the campaigns waged in the Shenandoah Valley has written that it was “the lynchpin of the Southern Cause and a primary target of the Northern war machine.”  In 1864, Grant ordered Sheridan to bring “hard war” tactics to Virginia's verdant fields.  Sheridan, according to Dr. Brady, waged a war “against the Valley, one that attacked the agricultural and industrial improvements that previously had sustained its citizens and supplied the Confederate army.”  Dr. Brady interprets that Sheridan's orders “were to destroy the means by which Shenandoah Valley residents managed the natural environment, transforming it from a civilized, improved landscape into a virtual wilderness.”

Dr. Brady's pioneering work shows that many new insights into the Civil War can be gained by employing a combination of new disciplines to examine long accepted facts.  The trail she and other young historians are blazing should be followed by many others.

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Gordon Berg is a past President and member of the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia (cwrtdc.org).  His reviews and articles appear in the Civil War Times and America's Civil War, among other publications.