"They must not forget that they are Jews": Jewish Soldiers in America's Civil War

My thesis investigates the experiences of Jewish soldiers during the U.S. Civil War. My historical method diverges significantly from how previous scholars have dealt with Jewish soldiers during the period. There has yet to be a definitive comparative study between the experiences of Jewish Union and Confederate soldiers. This thesis seeks to rectify the gap in scholarship by focusing on the religious identities and experiences of the two groups of soldiers. Using letters, diaries, autobiographies, newspaper editorials, and other writings produced by soldiers, my thesis explores the question of what it meant for a soldier to be nationally, racially, religiously or culturally Jewish (self-identifiers that have all arisen from my research) and fighting on behalf of another nation? With the work of religious studies scholar Emile Durkheim, I argue that soldiers saw themselves as a part of a Jewish "clan" or peoplehood, which is how they balanced these two competing identities. This thesis proves that soldiers were both Jewish and American; each term holds with it a weight of nationality and importance, and neither can––nor will––overshadow the other.