JEWISH SOLDIERS IN BLUE & GRAY a first-of-its-kind film that reveals the little-known struggles facing American Jews both in battle and on the home front during the nation’s deadliest war, Recently unearthed personal narratives shed new light on this fascinating chapter in American history and powerfully illustrate the unique role Jews played on the battlefields and the home front.

Chronicles Major General Ulysses S. Grant’s infamous 1862 mandate to expel Jewish residents from Union-controlled land and shares the story of President Lincoln’s doctor-turned-Union spy.

General Order No. 11 was the title of an order issued by Major-General Ulysses S. Grant on December 17, 1862, during the Civil War. It ordered the expulsion of all Jews in his military district, comprising areas of Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky.. The order was issued as part of a Union campaign against a black market in Southern cotton, which Grant thought was being run “mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders.”

Following protests from Jewish community leaders and an outcry by members of Congress and the press, President Lincoln ordered this revoked a few weeks later. During his campaign for the presidency in 1868, Grant repudiated the order, saying that it had been drafted by a subordinate and that he had signed it without reading it during warfare.

John Y Simon (1979). The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 7: December 9, 1862 - March 31, 1863. SIU Press. p. 56.

From: The Civil War Parlor

A nun cares for a wounded soldier in this detail from a larger Civil War-era print featuring the field ministry of Holy Cross Father P.P. Cooney. In Civil War battles, at least 300 Daughters of Charity ministered to soldiers on both sides of the war. (CNS photo/courtesy University Archives, The Catholic University of America)

By Carol Zimmermann

EMMITSBURG, Md. (CNS) -- In the final days of June 1863, the Civil War came perilously close to home for the Daughters of Charity in Emmitsburg.
Days before the Battle of Gettysburg, the acres of their farmland property at the foothills of the Catoctin Mountains were used as a camp for tens of thousands of Union soldiers while their generals stayed in the former home of the order's founder, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, and planned battle strategies.

The troops moved on to fight one of the bloodiest Civil War battles just 15 miles away from the sisters, and when the fighting ended, leaving tens of thousands dead and wounded, the Daughters of Charity were among the first civilians to arrive and care for Union and Confederate soldiers.
The sisters provided food, water, bandages and basic medical care. They also gave spiritual solace to soldiers who requested it: praying with them, distributing religious medals, baptizing the dying and writing letters home to soldiers' families.

 

By Ken Camp, Managing Editor   
The Baptist Standard

Published: October 06, 2011

WACO—Americans in 1860s viewed the Civil War through the lens of God at work in human affairs—a lens left shattered by that bloody conflict, according to historian George Rable.

Rable, the Charles Summersell Chair in southern history at the University of Alabama and author of God's Almost Chosen Peoples, spoke at a symposium on the Civil War and religion sponsored by Baylor University's Institute for the Studies of Religion.

"As Abraham Lincoln stated in his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, both sides prayed to the same God and read the same Bible. Indeed, religious language, imagery and ideas were pervasive during the Civil War era," Rable said.

Author’s grandson preserves history, releases 110-year-old book

I felt his story should not remain untold.

Chattanooga, Tenn. (PRWEB) October 03, 2011

A 110-year-old memoir is now revealing the life, courage and faith of one man during the Civil War.

Edited by his grandson, THM: A Memoir (published by WestBow Press) follows the captivating time period embedded in the life of influential Chattanooga pastor Thomas Hooke McCallie. Touching on what he knew of his ancestral immigration and his education, the detailed memoir provides insight into McCallie’s life in Chattanooga during the Civil War and his prominent role in the church, which was during the war years was the city’s only church and served as a temporary hospital after the Battle of Chickamauga.

“I felt his story should not remain untold,” says editor and grandson David McCallie.