What was it like to be a Jew in Lincoln’s armies? The Union army was as diverse as the embattled nation it sought to preserve, a unique mixture of ethnicities, religions, and identities. Almost one Union soldier in four was born abroad, and natives and newcomers fought side-by-side, sometimes uneasily. Yet though scholars have parsed the trials and triumphs of Irish, Germans, African Americans, and others in the Union ranks, they have remained largely silent on the everyday experiences of the largest non-Christian minority to have served.
In ways visible and invisible to their fellow recruits and conscripts, the experience of Jews was distinct from that of other soldiers who served in Lincoln’s armies. Adam D. Mendelsohn draws for the first time upon the vast database of verified listings of Jewish soldiers serving in the Civil War collected by The Shapell Roster, as well as letters, diaries, and newspapers, to examine the collective experience of Jewish soldiers and to recover their voices and stories. The volume examines when and why they decided to enlist, explores their encounters with fellow soldiers, and describes their efforts to create community within the ranks. This monumental undertaking rewrites much of what we think we know about Jewish soldiers during the Civil War.
Nonfiction
Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War: The Union Army
January 4, 2022
Discussion Questions
Adam D. Mendelsohn’s Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War represents one of the most ambitious treatments to date of Jewish life during the Civil War. Utilizing materials from the Shapell Manuscript Foundation, Mendelsohn makes a compelling argument that the Union wartime experience (fighting and observing) had a transformative impact on Jewish life. Fighting alongside immigrants and other faith groups, Jews grappled with their own religious and cultural identities, sometimes feeling emboldened to place their Jewishness above other social markers and on other occasions trying to “Americanize” it, softening their differences to better fit in with their fellow soldiers.
Mendelsohn’s painstaking research fills in scholarly gaps on the emergence of the Jewish chaplaincy during the Civil War and the dynamics of religious observance on the battlefields. In addition, whereas earlier historians argued that the Civil War engendered a short-lived spirit of tolerance between Jews and non-Jews, Mendelsohn shows that the Civil War created social instability and did much to enable anti-Jewish hate in the ensuing decades. Mendelsohn’s writing shines throughout this handsome volume, with many color images, sidebar profiles, and a series of appendices to provide readers with a fuller appreciation of the Foundation’s Shapell Roster.
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