LOOKING BACK Take Heart..... 31 Ways To Make Your Valentine Feel Special! • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Baby & Me Beach Bound Bleu Moon Caddy Shack Stroll through our Complaisant/Stadium courtyards and view Continental Exclusives the Creations by Pollak's Beautiful Ice Designer Lady Sculptures Designer Shoe Outlet by Nice Ice Executive Cleaners beginning Feb. 9th F&M Distributors ilona & gallery Kappy's Kitty Wagner Facial Salon Leona's Let's Entertain Loehmann's Mario Max Max & Erma's Miss Barbara's Dance Center Ms. Threads Nusrala's Pages & Pages Powerhouse Gym Rare Coin Gallery Rena Travel & Tour Seventh Heaven Sherri's Silver Fox Furs Winkelman's Xandru's • • • • • • • • • • • sp HUNTERS SQUARE Orchard Lake at 14 Mile Rd. Farmington Hills 855-8940 '`4,),411k4rap4ce IDUFF `Ns STUFF lUAILLIDCNS Balloon Decorating • Bat/Bar Mitzvah • Weddings • Anniversaries Off • Sweet Sixteens Balloon Decorating Exp 4/6/90 w/coupon • Bridal Showers Visit our Shoppe, or • Birthdays we'll visit you! • Offices • Invitations 25% Off! • Centerpieces • Grand Openings • Party Planners • Flowers 50% -*** •• • 88 Eric & Sandy Wasserman Master Designers 548-4949 •:*: 411-Y-W.*-: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1990 2658 Coolidge Berkley, MI 48077 How President Lincoln Saved American Jews ARLENE EHRLICH Special to The Jewish News T he provost marshal's orders had come straight from his com- manding general: clear the city immediately of all Jews. So the marshal rounded up every Jewish man, woman, and child and forced them at gunpoint onto a dilapidated river barge. Only two sick old women were temporarily spared. When a soldier ashore discovered a newborn infant, he flung it across the river- bank, into the arms of its ter- rified mother, just as the boat slipped upstream. By morn- ing, not a Jewish soul remained in Paducah, Ken- tucky. On December 17, 1862, General Ulysses S. Grant ordered the forced expulsion of every Jewish citizen from the territories under his mil- itary control. He nearly suc- ceeded. From Paducah, Ken- tucky, to the Mississippi towns of Oxford and Holly Springs, post commanders de- ported every Jew they could find. Elsewhere, local military authorities executed Grant's order on a selective basis. Only the personal in- tervention of Abraham Lin- coln ended the worst incident of official anti-Semitism in American history. Throughout the summer of 1862, there had been warning signs. By June, Grant's army controlled the entire depart- ment of the Tennessee, which comprised most of Kentucky, Tennessee, and northern Mis- sissippi. Only Vicksburg held out, and Grant prepared to lay seige. Unfortunately, another army — this one a ragtag col- lection of merchants and speculators — followed behind the Union lines and threaten- ed to sabotage Grant's military gains. With northern manufacturers desperate for southern cotton, the U.S. Treasury Department licens- ed a few businessmen to trade with the Confederacy. Profits were immense; cotton that had sold for 10 cents a pound in 1860 brought 68 cents less than two years later. With prospects like those, it wasn't long before the few legitimate traders were overwhelmed by hordes of unlicensed smug- glers and profiteers who sup- plied the Confederacy with gold and contraband medical and military supplies in ex- change for cotton. The situation had gotten entirely out of hand. As Gen- eral William T. Sherman com- plained in July 1862, "We cannot carry on war and trade with a people at the same time." The Treasury Department began to pres- sure Grant and his subordi- nates to quash the illicit traffic. The speculators themselves were a mixed lot from all ranks of society. Their mem- bership included vast num- bers of Union officers and enlisted men, some trading directly with the enemy and others accepting bribes to look the other way. But some ' Abraham Lincoln Union generals, notably William T. Sherman, insisted — entirely without evidence or justification — that it was Jews who controlled and prof- ited most from the sordid commerce. Again and again in July and August 1862, Sherman wrote to Grant and the War Department about "swarms of Jews" following the Union Army and smuggling contra- band to the enemy. On Aug- ust 11, 1862, Sherman com- plained to the Secretary of the Treasury that "the flock of Jews has disappeared but will overrun us again." rIb the Adjutant General in Wash- ington he wrote, "The coun- try will swarm with dishonest Jews, who will smuggle pow- der, pistols and (other contra- band) in spite of all the guards and precautions we can give." Pressured by the Treasury and War Departments to sup- press the illegal traffic, rank- led by the widespread partici- pation of his own men, and swayed by the anti-Semitic fulminations of men like Sherman, Grant took decisive action. On November 9, 1862, he ordered his subordinates to "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the pres- ent. The Israelites especially should be kept out." The next day, Grant ampli- fied his instructions. "Give orders to all conductors on the road," he wrote, "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 in- tolerable nuisance that the department* must be purged of them." *When Grant wrote the word "department" with a capital "D," he was referring to the Treasury Department. When he wrote with a lower-case "d," he was referring to the region under his military control, the Department of the Tennessee. A month later, Grant issued his final decree, the infamous Order No. 11 of December 17, 1862: The Jews, as a class vio- lating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Depart- ment and also depart- ment orders, are hereby expelled from the department within twenty-four hours from receipt of this order. Post commanders will see that all of this class of people be furnished passes and required to leave, and anyone retur- ning after such notifica- tion will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity oc- curs of sending them out as prisoners .. . Years later, during his pres- idential campaign, when Order No. 11 became an elec- tion issue, Grant tried to claim that his subordinates had tricked him into issuing the order. It was a feeble ex- cuse. Hours after issuing Order No. 11, Grant ex- plained to the Assistant Secretary of War that "the Jews seem to be a privileged class that can travel any- where." Order No. 11 was an episode of blatant anti-Sem- itism, and neither Grant nor his apologists ever managed to rationalize it. No other motive adequate- ly explains Grant's actions. Even if the speculators had been predominantly Jewish — and the evidence is over- whelming that Jews corn- prised at most a minuscule fraction of the illegal traders — that still fails to explain why Grant deported women, children, and old people who could not possibly have been trading with the enemy.