The American Jew as Patriot, Soldier and Citizen - Simon Wolf

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object the lowering and humiliation of any class of our citizens."

      Simon Wolf.

      Finding that my letter had been copied extensively, not only by the Jewish press, but by leading newspapers in the country, and favorably commented on generally, I determined to give to the world, as complete as I might find possible, a list of American citizens of Jewish faith who had "stood shoulder to shoulder" on the field of battle, and to add thereto the record of some typical instances of exceptional energy and public spirit in the civil walks of life.

      What I had anticipated and supposed would be an easy task, requiring probably no more than six months at the utmost, has taken more than four years of continuous work, notwithstanding the assistance I received from many quarters, and I am even now compelled to give this work to the public in an inadequate form, with the feeling that it is incomplete and that much more should have been made of it.

      The difficulties in the way of completing fully and accurately such a compilation as I have here attempted will scarcely be realized by those who have not undertaken a similar task. The work was begun nearly thirty years after the close of the war, when many of those whose names were to be gathered were dead, and many others dispersed throughout our vast domain and beyond our borders. In response to three successive calls made through the leading newspapers of the country, I received, indeed, a large number of replies, but after all, the great majority even of the survivors failed to respond, and of the data that reached me much could not be classified. Nearly a thousand names are accordingly placed in the unclassified list.

      By far the majority of the names herein included were furnished by the soldiers themselves or their relatives, but a large number of them were sent to me by army comrades of the men referred to. Some of these may be incorrectly quoted both as to their names and the commands with which they were connected, but these errors may scarcely be considered as affecting the general result, so far at least as numbers are concerned. It was naturally impossible to verify all the notices sent to me, and this compilation must therefore, in the very nature of the case, be more or less imperfect and incomplete, but I may say without hesitation that the work is free from all errors which could be eliminated through a patient and cautious scrutiny. Several hundred names of soldiers from Indiana alone were finally excluded from my present lists, notwithstanding their pronounced Jewish character, such as Marks, Abrahams, Isaacs and others of a similar strain, whose owners were ascertained by my correspondents to be non-Jews, while on the other hand many soldiers bearing names of decidedly non-Jewish derivation were authenticated as Jews. If many whose names should be included fail to see them on this "roll of honor" the fault is at all events not mine, and the earnest effort which I have given to this work, wholly a "labor of love" on my part, leaves me free from the necessity of offering apology for whatever errors of omission or of commission may remain in it. The public records could not be utilized, because our army lists, unlike those of foreign powers, make no registry of the religious faith of the enrolled soldiers. I should, in this connection, urge upon my readers to aid me with such corrections of these army lists as they may be able to furnish, with the view to the record being perfected as far as may be, in a future edition of this book.

      Unsatisfactory and at times discouraging as has been my task and its outcome, I have yet had at times the pleasure of obtaining and recording data of a most gratifying character. One of the most pleasing results of my labors is the fact that I am able to present a list of fourteen Jewish families that contributed to the Union and Confederate armies no less than fifty-one soldiers. Three, four, five brothers; a father and three sons, a father and four sons, volunteers in a deadly strife, leaving their homes and kindred, breaking their family ties to face privation, disease, wounds and death, sacrificing all to fight with their compatriots for the cause which they deemed right.

      My primary purpose has been to show that the Jewish people throughout the land not only took a share in the struggle which has ended so beneficently as to have brought prosperity to both antagonists and dispelled the cause of discord, but that they took their full share, and it is now conclusively shown that the enlistment of Jewish soldiers, north and south, reached proportions considerably in excess of their ratio to the general population. This fact had become apparent before my present work had been systematically begun, as I indicated in my letter to the Washington Post, quoted above, but the lists obtained by me, incomplete as they must inevitably be, make up a number that leaves no reasonable doubt on this subject. This fact, in view of statements minimizing the numbers of Jewish soldiers of the late war, or denying the existence of any at all, cannot be too strongly emphasized. To complete, however, my ultimate purpose of presenting a consideration of the Jew as citizen and philanthropist as well as patriot and soldier, I have herein collated a symposium of expressions on this comprehensive subject from sources at once authoritative and unbiased. I have included in this collection of views and reviews, the carefully considered statements of many of the foremost men of modern times, statesmen and soldiers, philosophers, divines, writers and other leaders of public opinion, as widely divergent in locality as they are unanimous in sentiment. Among these I have included only such as are entirely non-Jewish in their origin, men whose thoughts are the expressions of well-disciplined minds, and whose opinions are the deliverances of an impartial judgment.

      

      I gladly record my obligations to the Grand Army of the Republic for the aid afforded me in obtaining information through the machinery of its organization, and to General J. B. Gordon, of the Confederate Memorial Association, for a like co-operation. To the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, to the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith, and to the Jewish Publication Society of America, I am indebted for contributions to the cost of publication and for other aid in the prosecution of my work.

      I owe my thanks to Captain Eugene H. Levy, Mr. George Alexander Kohut and Mr. Max J. Kohler, of New York, to Messrs. Lewis Abraham and L. Lichtenstein, of Washington, for their assistance, and especially to Colonel F. C. Ainsworth, of the War Department, for the loan of Records. To Mr. Henry S. Morais' recent historical work on "The Jews of Philadelphia," I am much indebted for valuable data, and other important materials have been gleaned from Mr. Isaac Markens' compendious work on "The Hebrews in America." To the Jewish press I owe acknowledgement for many welcome items of information and for repeated expressions of encouragement.

      Finally, among my obligations to numerous correspondents in different parts of the country are those which I owe to many soldiers of Christian faith, some of them officers of distinguished rank, who afforded me much valuable information and who added, in almost every case, some warm expression of their sympathy and good-will.

       Washington, D. C., June, 1895.

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