United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865

The Records of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites (1859-1878) documents the life cycle of the Board of Delegates, a Jewish civil rights organization located in New York City. The Board served in a two-fold function: acting as a central organization for American Jews and working on behalf of Jews abroad. To the latter end, the Delegates collaborated with the Committee of Deputies of British Jews and the French Alliance Israélite Universelle to provide for the relief and aid, civil, and religious rights of Jews throughout the Americas, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, particularly Romania, Ottoman Palestine including Jerusalem, and Morocco.

In the U.S., the Delegates were partially responsible for the appointment of the first Jewish Military Chaplain and surveyed member synagogues concerning the history and size of their congregation, the first organization to systematically record this type of information in the States. The Delegates merged with the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) in 1878 and dissolved in 1925. Correspondents include Adolph Crémieux, Sir Moses Montefiore, Benjamin Franklin Peixotto, Isaacs S. Myer, the Rev. Dr. Arnold Fischel, and Maj. General Benjamin Butler. Documents include correspondence, minutes, committee reports, memorials, announcements, surveys, some printed material including clippings, and a 1932 Rabbinical thesis on the Delegates by Allan Tarshish.

Contains research and original documents compiled by Milton M. Gottesman for his book "Hoopskirts and Huppas: A Chronicle of the Early Years of the Garfunkel-Trager Family in America, 1836-1920." Original documents are numbered to correspond with chapter notes. These primarily consist of correspondence between Garfunkel and Trager family members. Letters written by Louis Trager and Mark Moses are also available; as well letters between Aaron Garfunkel and his grandfather Abraham Isaac. Aaron Garfunkel pocket diaries from 1892-1940 form the second half of the collection. Research documents on Louis Trager's Civil War career include official records of the Union and Confederate Army, copies of correspondence concerning his appointment as U.S. Consul, and a copy of a recommendation letter from U.S. Grant Major General to Major General H.W. Halleck. Further research pertains to copies of Garfunkel family birth registers from Rzeskow, marriage and anniversy notices (Moses and Mashe Hennie Garfunkel; Aaron and Sarah Garfunkel; Ray and Nathan Adler), obituary clippings and articles (Abraham Isaac Trager, Moses Garfunkel, B.M. Garfunkel, Max Lubetkin, Aaron Garfunkel, and extended Garfunkel members), death certificates (Max and Rachel Lubetkin), copies of Moses Garfunkel's 1870 census records, a copy of a deed of slave to Abraham Isaac Trager, and a memoir written by Esther Garfunkel Gottesman. The Garfunkel-Trager hoopskirt business is documented through newsclipping of advertisements, a partnership contract for a new hoopskirt business in New York City, and advertisements and catalogs for the Broadway Bargain House. Information is also available regarding the founding of Beth Hamedrash Hagadol (New York, NY), Eldgridge Street Synagogue (New York, NY), and Congregation Tree of Life (Columbia, SC) as well as Montefiore Hospital (New York, NY).

The collection consists of material pertaining to a study of the court-martial of Captain Levy of the Independent Battalion, New York Volunteers, in 1863. Included is a photocopy of the proceedings of the court-martial, General Order No. 101 with the indictment, a history of the Independent Corps, Light Infantry, an item about Levy from the Palm Beach Jewish world quoting the London Jewish chronicle, a newspaper clipping and two relevant excerpts from Fredman's Jews in American wars and Wolf's the American Jew as patriot, soldier and citizen.

Contains letters and articles in manuscript to Leeser pertaining to: his work as editor of The Occident, his translation of the Bible and his other literary works; discussions concerning Jewish law, the Reform movement in the United States and in Curaçao; Reform and Orthodox Judaism in Albany, N.Y., Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson's anti-Semitic comments in the United States Congress; the founding of a synagogue in San Francisco; the condition of Jews and Jewish education in America and in England; equal rights for Jews in Massachusetts and North Carolina; the controversy over the Touro Monument; slavery and the Civil War; and converts to Judaism. Also includes information on Israel Joseph Benjamin's trip in the U.S., 1859-1862; Isaac Mayer Wise; Sabato Morais; a manuscript guidebook on Jewish ritual slaughter written by Moses Julian in Barbados in 1820; Moses Montefiore's report on his mission to Rome on behalf of the Edgardo Mortara affair; articles discussing Christian theology; the Jews in Cochin, India and in China; a Latin preface to Leeser's Hebrew Bible; a Portuguese prayer against the evil eye; and poems on topics of Jewish interest.

Jacques Judah Lyons, hazzan, rabbi and community leader, was born in Surinam and emigrated to Philadelphia in the early 1800s. Minister of the New York Congregation Shearith Israel for 38 years, he gathered extensive materials on early Jewish history in the United States, Canada and the West Indies. His papers include manuscripts, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, notebooks, photographs, and a Sansom ship's log book. Contains material relating to Jews in North and South America generally and more specifically to Congregation Shearith Israel and the Jews in New York, the Touro Synagogue and cemetery and the Jews in Newport, Rhode Island, Philadelphia and the West Indies. Also contains material relating to Jews in the wars of the United States, correspondence of the Jews with George Washington and items relating to Haym Salomon. Collection consists of manuscript material and five notebooks and three scrapbooks of Lyons. Contains material not listed in calendar consisting of sermons by Lyons, a manuscript prayer book used in Surinam and a guide for religious ceremonies at Congregation Shearith Israel, as well as letters written during the Civil War period and correspondence relating to the personal life and career of Lyons.

Judah P. Benjamin, called the "brains of the Confederacy", was a statesman and jurist in the United States, the Confederate States, and Great Britain. Benjamin achieved high-ranking titles wherever he served, and left an indelible mark in the South where he held more official positions than any other man during the Civil War. After the fall of the Confederacy, Benjamin fled to England, where he was admitted to the English bar, and later assumed a judgeship. In 1872, he was appointed the highest ranking of Queen's counselor.

This collection contains correspondence; letters; newspaper clippings; Confederate bank notes and bonds; Civil War memorabilia; pamphlets; and a bound copy of Benjamin's diary, kept from 1862-1864. These materials are of particular interest to researchers studying the activities and experiences of Jews in the antebellum South and under the brief reign of the Confederate States of America. Additionally, through the material relating to memorials and preservation endeavors for Benjamin, the collection also provides a look at the continued glorification of Confederate heroes in the South long into the twentieth century. The collection also contains pre-Civil War correspondence between Benjamin and Peter A. Hargous regarding the creation of a railroad line on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico and the Tehuantepec Railroad Company of New Orleans.

Collection consists of memoirs, obituaries, photographs and other records of members of the Menken family, primarily Percival Solomon Menken (1865-1908), but also Nathan Davis Menken (1837-1878), Jules A. Menken (1836-1890) and Jules A. Menken II (1899-1957).

A letter to William Sanders, describing the impoverished conditions in Columbia, S.C., at the end of the Civil War.

Contains 2 letters from the officers of the DeKalb Regiment in New York City and the New York Medical Association, dated May 10, 1861 and June 27, 1861, requesting help and supplies provided by the "Ladies Connected with the Jewish Orphan Asylum."

This collection contains research, catalog cards, a theater program and an autograph book autograph book with signatures of members of the Executive and Legislative branches of the United States government, 1864.

This collection contains one colored lithograph portraying a bird's eye view of the army hospital. Israel I. Hayes is listed as the Commanding Surgeon. The lithograph was published by James D. Gay.

Collection includes: Simon G. Moses' handwritten diary, kept during his medical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and containing his observations of daily life, Jewish life on the frontier, his family, and insights into the practice of medicine in the early and mid-nineteenth century; loose letters written by a family member (undated), and Simon G. Gratz in Savannah, GA (1864); and a newspaper clipping of his obituary and funeral hymn.

Collection consists of programs, clippings and photographs pertaining to Civil War military service and subsequent leadership of the New York Department of the Grand Army of the Republic.

This collection contains research Sylvan Dubow accumulated for an article on Otto Mears. In addition to articles and an obituary on Mears, Mears' military service and pension record from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is available. Copies of archival documents also include annual reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1873, 1879-1882), an annual reportof the Secretary of War (1880), documents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (1882-1883), an official compilation of the Navajo Campaign in New Mexico (1889), and the incorporation papers for the Chesapeake Railway Company. Additional material consists of Dubow's correspondence and notes concerning his research, his article "Simon Wolf: Champion of the American Jewish Fighting Men," and articles regarding a California War Paper (1861), the general and Jewish history of Colorado and New Mexico, and the Civil War in the Southwest.