Why did Grant expel the jews from Kentucky in 1862?

Answer 1

He not only expelled all Jews from the Department of the Tennessee, he also authorized the transportation of all blacks behind his frontline in Colombus, Kentucky to Ohio. Some historians call it a "misjudgement", others think he was frustrated and hitting the bottle. Lincoln immediately ordered the War Department to rescind the order, fortunately.

"The exact reason for Grant's decree remains uncertain. As author and military historian Mel Young points out in his book "Where They Lie," Grant's own family was involved in cotton speculation (as well as owning slaves !), so he perhaps considered Jewish traders as competition. Bertram Korn asserts that many "suspected that the expulsion of the Jews had been foisted upon Grant and Sherman by influential cotton buyers and their [Union Army] officer-partners, to pave the way for higher profits for themselves." "

"And the language spoken by the many Dutch and German-speaking peddlers and merchants in the area was probably confused with Yiddish and many were mistakenly taken to be Jewish."

"But the underlying reason for this Order was doubtlessly the prejudice against and hatred of Jews so widely felt among the Union forces. As Korn observes, "

" "But only Jews, and not all traders were banished; cotton traders as a group were never expelled. The question therefore….was… "who stood to profit most from the departure of Jews?"…And the answer, "The other traders and speculators, civilian and military," was in itself the only possible explanation of The Order….The Jews were the natural scapegoat…because they had already been the scapegoat for almost two millennia." "

"Rosen writes at length about the blatant and widespread anti-Semitism throughout the North, with even The New York Times castigating the anti-war Democratic Party for having a chairman who was "the agent of foreign jew bankers." "

"New Englanders were especially hateful, and one leading abolitionist minister, Theodore Parker, called Jews "lecherous," and said that their intellects were "sadly pinched in those narrow foreheads" and that they "did sometimes kill a Christian baby at the Passover." "

"America's Worst Anti-Jewish Action", Lewis Regenstein, The Jewish Magazine, January 2007 : http://www.jewishmag.com/110mag/civilwar/civilwar.htm

"The order was issued as part of a campaign led by Grant against a black market in Southern cotton. Eventually he became convinced that it was being run, "Mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders." "

"[I]t has been suggested by some Civil War historians that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "[T]his was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed ... he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." [Korn, B., "American Jewry and the Civil War" (1951), at p. 143.] The source goes on to cite other orders issued by Grant:"

"La Grange, Tenn., November 9, 1862
"Major-General Hurlbut, Jackson, Tenn.:
"Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out."
"U.S. Grant
"Major-General

"La Grange, November 10, 1862
"General Webster, Jackson, Tenn.:
"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; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
"U.S. Grant
"Major-General

"There were also at least two other cases before General Order No. 11:"

"- On 1862-04-10, Grant issued an order "to all the conductors on the road, that no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the road southward." "

"- On 1862-12-08, an aide of Grant, Colonel John V. DuBois, ordered "all cotton speculators, Jews, and all vagabonds with no honest means of support", to leave the district." "

"General Order № 11 (1862)" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Order_No._11_(1862)

Answer 2

General Orders #11: 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 within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/grant.html