Ulysses Grant has never
been obvious material for a biography because he behaved too well.
Writing about his virtues can quickly turn into homilies about how
decent and inspiring a gentleman he truly was. Some care to
concentrate their energies into proving he was a butcher, a drunkard
or a racist. Let's examine the third charge, specifically that U.S.
Grant was an anti-Semite.
Those who claim he was
anti-Jewish have ready ammunition, which Grant provided with his own
hands. It is his infamous "General Orders Number 11," written in
Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862. This document essentially
excluded Jews from his department and its racist content has earned
him justifiable censure ever since. The offensive portion of the
order was in the initial paragraph: "The Jews, as a class, violating
every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department,
and also Department orders, are hereby expelled from the
Department." The actual order was signed by the General's chief of
staff, John Rawlins, and zealous supporters of Grant sometimes use
this to absolve their man from blame. Unfortunately, this doesn't
wash. Whether Grant's signature was on the order or not, he was
responsible for both the prevailing sentiment and the order
itself.
Authors favorable to
Grant have bent over backwards in placing the blame on someone
else's shoulders. Even Lloyd Lewis, one of the most capable and
talented of Grant's biographers fell into this trap. He mused, "The
order wasn't like him; (it was) utterly foreign to everything I'd
found out about him." Lewis quoted Grant's father as saying the
order was originally received by Grant from Washington and he merely
passed it along as an official order under his own name. Jesse Grant
figures prominently in the entire quagmire. He maintained at the
time that his son's orders "were issued on express instructions from
Washington," though these supposed orders have never been unearthed,
despite punctilious record keeping by both Grant's staff and
officials in the capitol. John Rawlins echoed Jesse Grant's
sentiments, though he also was vague in his protests and offered no
concrete proof that "Washington" was behind the racist
edict.
The
order is utterly unlike Grant, and he was obviously a man at
the end of his tether when he wrote it. Some of this is due to his
forced inactivity in the Western theatre for 6 months, some is due
to his power struggle with the insubordinate and crass McClernand,
but most of it was due to his father. Grant's relationship with
Jesse Grant is a fascinating psychological contradiction, and there
is little doubt the elder Grant drove his son to fits of despair.
Grant desperately wanted his father's approval, but the cantankerous
old man was so dissimilar from his son that intimacy between them
was impossible. Jesse disliked the General's wife, openly played
favorites among the four Grant children and was an indiscreet
braggart. Grant, normally an impossibly even tempered and gentle
soul, was uncharacteristically harsh to his father in his
correspondence. He frequently rebuked him, though the scoldings did
no good. His father's behavior exasperated and embarrassed him, but
it did not change.
Jesse Grant was an
exceptional businessman, something else that separated father and
son, since the younger Grant was pathetically inept in money
matters. In late 1862, Jesse formed a partnership with a firm called
Mack and Brothers, and it just so happened the Macks were Jewish.
Jesse was keen on going south, gobbling up loads of cheap cotton and
selling it for massive profits in the north. This was not an
uncommon practice and was a lucrative undertaking. In late 1862,
Grant's military control extended into West Tennessee and northern
Mississippi and he was in a position to assist his father's business
schemes. The problem was, Grant wanted no part of profiting through
cotton so long as the war raged, and regarded money making during
wartime as odious. His only concern, as he frequently stated, was
"to put down the Rebellion." When Jesse and the Macks arrived in
Mississippi in late 1862, they wanted permits to buy cotton and ship
huge cratefuls north. Physically and emotionally drained, Grant
lashed out at his father (and the Macks) and issued an unenforceable
decree. He got rid of his father and his business partners, but at
great personal cost to himself.
Even before General
Orders 11, Grant had occasionally expressed anti-Semitic sentiments
in his correspondence. In November, he had written to General
Hurlbut in Jackson, "The Israelites especially should be kept out."
The next day he wrote General Webster a dispatch which stated, "Give
orders to all the conductors on the road that no Jews are to be
permitted to travel on the railroad south from any point... they are
such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of
them." This communication is equally, if not more offensive
than General Orders No. 11.
Grant's decree earned him
official censure in Washington and in two weeks, he received orders
demanding that he revoke it. General Halleck, who was jealous of
Grant's rising fame and military acumen, wrote: "The President has
no objection to your expelling traitors and Jew peddlers, which, I
suppose, was the object of your order; but, as it is in terms
proscribed an entire religious class, some of whom are fighting in
our ranks, the President deemed it necessary to revoke it." Grant
rescinded the offensive decree the following day. Curiously,
newspapers made scant comment at the time, and the issue gained
notoriety only after Grant's death. The General himself remained
strangely mute on this embarrassing and negative event, except to
say meekly, "The order was made and sent out without any
reflection."
In
later years, Grant loyalists scurried to make excuses for the
unseemly event. Simon Wolf, in a 1918 book of reminiscences, claimed
Grant had told him he had "nothing whatever to do" with General
Orders 11, that it was issued by one of his staff officers
(presumably Rawlins) and that he had never vindicated himself
because it wasn't his style. If the incident is true, the fact that
Wolf waited 55 years to tell it cast doubts on its veracity. During
the Presidential campaign in 1868, Wolf had a two hour meeting with
Grant and specifically asked him about the charges of anti-Semitism.
"I know General Grant and his motives," he wrote at the time, "and
assert unhesitatingly that he never intended to insult any
honorable Jew, that he never thought of their religion... the
order never harmed anyone, not even in thought... He is fully aware
of the noble deeds performed by thousands of Jewish privates, and
hundreds of Jewish officers during the late war."
Jewish politicians made a
minor issue of Grant's anti-Semitism during the '68 campaign, but
all those who met and conversed with him were unanimous that he was
not anti-Semitic and they were mystified by this single lapse of
judgment. It did not reflect the inner man. Never again did Grant
make the slightest anti-Semitic remark and in fact, invited Jews to
the White House and entertained them socially. General Orders No.
11, while certainly obnoxious, does not prove anti-Semitism, but
poor judgment.
Sources used: The Papers of Ulysses S.
Grant, Volume 7, pages 50-56, (1979, edited by John Y. Simon),
American Jewry and the Civil War ( 1951, Bertram Korn),
The Papers of U.S. Grant, Volume 19, pages 18-22, (1995,
edited by John Y. Simon). See also
Jews in
the Civil War
.
Ulysses S.
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