The Jewish Confederates

Columbia, SC: University of SC Press, 2000. Second Printing. good, good. 517, illus., notes, glossary, bibliographical note, bibliography, index, some highlighting & marginal notes in early part of text. In his latest study of the Civil War, Robert N. Rosen introduces readers to the community of Southern Jews of the 1860's, heretofore lost to historians and the general public. Rosen reveals the remarkable breadth of Southern Jewry's participation in the war and strength of Jewish commitment to the Confederate cause. Rosen finds that although many members of the established, prominent Jewish communities of Charleston, Richmond, and Savannah volunteered for battle, the majority of Jewish Confederates were recent immigrants. He describes the communities they established throughout the South and explains their reasons for supporting the cause of Southern independence. This chronicle relates the experiences of officers, enlisted men, businessmen, politicians, nurses, rabbis, and doctors. He recounts the careers of such important Jewish Confederates as Judah P. Benjamin, a member of Jefferson Davis's cabinet; Col. Abraham C. Myers, quartermaster general of the Confederacy; Maj. Adolph Proskauer of the 125th Alabama; Maj. Alexander Hart of the Louisiana 5th; and Phoebe Levy Pember, the matron of Richmond's Chimborazo Hospital.