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54 6 Exile and Other Edicts from the Battlefield As General Ulysses S. Grant marched his army south through Kentucky, he complained bitterly that camp followers and cotton merchants were putting their interests ahead of victory on the battlefield. Faced with a persistent enemy in occupied territory, Grant desperately tried to restrict commercial traffic across state lines. While there is little to suggest in his writings or his actions after the war that Grant harbored deep-­seated prejudices, he did issue orders in 1862 specifically targeted at Jews. On July 26, 1862, Grant told subordinates at Columbus, Kentucky, to search the baggage of cotton merchants for gold or ammunition, adding,“Jews should receive special attention.”1 On November 9, 1862, Grant sent a dispatch from La Grange, Tennessee, to Major General Stephen A. Hurlbut instructing him to “refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out.”2 One newspaper correspondent following Grant’s army south called that order a“good step . . . excluding all Jews from the lines of the army.” In a tone that was typical of the prevailing anti-­ Semitism, he also reported that the area still had plenty of camp followers and traders“as rapacious and unprincipled as the worst Jew that ever lived.”3 A day later,on November 10,Grant told JosephWebster,his superintendent of military railroads, that to prevent illegal cotton deals, he should“give orders to all the conductors on the road that no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it.” Anticipating his expulsion order, Grant described Jews as “an intolerable nuisance” and ended the communiqué with the opinion that the “Department must be purged of them.”4 On December 5, 1862, Grant told William Tecumseh Sherman that he would soon expel Jews from the region under his command “so far as practicable.”5 Exile and Other Edicts from the Battlefield 55 General Grant’s Expulsion Order The expulsion of Jewish families from General Grant’s military district in December 1862, known as General Orders 11, reminded many Jews of the experiences that brought them to the United States from Central Europe.6 The origin, intent, and circumstances of General Orders 11 are characterized by confusion. Because of the minor political storm it created both at Grant’s Oxford, Mississippi , headquarters and in Washington, those connected with the expulsion order quickly distanced themselves from it and in some cases laid the blame on others. Regardless of the often contradictory accounts, it is clear that Grant was reacting to the chaotic trade in cotton through Union lines. In one account, Grant was approached at Oxford by his father, Jesse Root Grant,who had established a partnership with Cincinnati clothing manufacturer Henry Mack. With substantial government contracts to produce uniforms, the Mack brothers needed cotton—­ lots of it. Mack wanted to move five hundred bales from occupied Union territory to his warehouses in Cincinnati and enlisted Jesse Grant to obtain a permit from his son. In return, Jesse would get 25 percent of the profits.When Jesse arrived at Oxford with his request, Ulysses was enraged and threw the Mack brothers out of his camp. Then, on December 17, 1862, Grant issued his order:7 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 of the Tennessee] within twenty-­ four hours from the receipt of this order. Post commanders will see that all of this class of people be furnished passes and required to leave,and anyone returning after such notification will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners, unless furnished with permit from headquarters. No passes will be given these people to visit headquarters for the purpose of making personal applications for trade permits.8 Whether Jesse Grant’s application for a permit from his son was the spark that set off the expulsion is not entirely clear, but there is no doubt that Jesse Grant and Henry Mack were involved in a short-­ lived partnership to move cotton north, and it is likely that they looked for help in securing a permit and rail transport from the most powerful military commander in the region, Ulysses Grant.9 Civil War historian Bruce Catton characterized the senior Grant as “a shrewd little leather merchant . . . who possessed...

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