USA > South Carolina > The Jews of South Carolina, from the earliest times to the present day > Part 6
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If it be the verdict of history that the Jew has been an important factor in the material development of every coun- try in which he has lived, it is equally true that he has every- where manifested his appreciation of the protection and freedom which have been vouchsafed to him by his willing- ness to bear the full burdens of citizenship, even to the ex- tent of ungrudgingly laying down his life in his country's defence. One needs no better illustration of Jewish patriot- ism than the story of the Jews of South Carolina. To ap- preciate the part that the Jews of this State played in the Revolution, however, one must possess an adequate knowl- edge of the history of South Carolina as well as a knowledge of the local field. Without this local knowledge, the writing of reliable local history is manifestly impossible, but this truth has not yet dawned upon the minds of many latter- day writers.
To understand the position of the Jews of South Carolina in the Revolution we must understand the position of South Carolina in the Revolution. South Carolina was a favored colony. She had none of the grievances, e. g., of Massachu- setts. Her trade with the mother country was large. Her agricultural products were sold at good prices to England, and her industries were fostered by generous bounties on
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the part of the home government. Her only grievance was the question of "home rule," and that question was of little concern to the people at large. The only aggrieved ones were the intellectual and ambitious classes, and with such, a commercial population could scarcely be expected to be in sympathy. The masses were naturally hostile to.a revolu- tion which threatened to disturb the quiet progress of a trade of which, having interests unlike those of New Eng- land, they had nothing to complain.
The population of South Carolina, too, was a very mixed one. South Carolina was an English colony, and the Eng- lish are by nature loyal. So are the Scotch, and they were numerous. The foreign settlers were opposed to the Revolu- tion, and it is only what is to be expected, therefore, that public opinion in South Carolina should have been well divided.
Not that the sentiments of the masses were always known. A merchant to-day, if he is wise, does not go out of his way to proclaim his political views to every customer who enters his store, yet one can talk freely with far more impunity to-day than he could have spoken at the beginning of the Revolution. The commercial population simply watched the course of events, awaited developments, and later on showed unmistakably where they stood.1
Jews are proverbially loyal to the ruling power. As was the case with the rest of the population, Jewish sentiment was divided. We shall see later that there were a number of Jews whose sentiments were known to be pro-British. The number of Jews who served in the field, however, and who rendered other service to the Revolutionary cause, in
1 These facts are forcibly set forth in two brilliant articles from the pen of W. Gilmore Simms in the July and October numbers of The Southern Quarterly Review for 1848-articles which ought to be read and read again by all who are interested in the history of South Carolina.
--
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proportion to their total number, was phenomenally large. Of this the records leave no doubt.
Before referring to these records, however, it would be well to glance at the militia system of South Carolina at the outbreak of and during the Revolution. We take note only of pertinent points.
Every man between the ages of sixteen and sixty who was able to bear arms was compelled to enroll himself in some militia company. Prior to 1775 he could enroll himself in any company he pleased, but subsequent to November 20, 1775, he could only enroll himself in the regiment of the district in which he lived.2
By a resolution of the Provincial Congress dated June 17, 1775, volunteer companies of not less than fifty might organize themselves into companies of foot, choosing their own officers.3
By an Act of 1778 a company consisted of sixty men.+
In the same Act it is further enacted "that there shall not be formed any volunteer company in this State after the passing of this Act." 5
The duties of a militiaman were "to appear completely armed once in every fortnight for muster, train, and exer- cise," to do patrol duty, and to be drafted for a limited time, usually thirty or sixty days, according to the season of the year, when deemed necessary by the Governor or Commander-in-chief.6
A man could furnish a substitute and thus be himself ex- empt from militia duty.7
" The South-Carolina Gazette, Nov. 28, 1775.
' Supplement to The South-Carolina Gazette, Sept. 7, 1775.
'Statutes of South Carolina, Vol. 9, p. 667.
" Ibid., p. 667.
" Ibid. See also The Gazette of the State of South-Carolina, March 10, 1779.
The South-Carolina Gazette, March 10, 1779.
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Among those exempt from military services were cler- gymen and teachers.8
These militia laws do not seem to have been generally observed. We find one presentment after another of the grand juries calling attention to their neglect. It is worth remembering, too, that every man was not physically able to do military duty. Many were excused. Moultrie himself tells us this in referring to those who surrendered after the siege.9
Before proceeding with the story it would be well to indi- cate the present status of our knowledge of this most inter- esting chapter of American Jewish history. It may teach a useful lesson to those who undertake to write history. Here, then, is the latest production on the subject, printed under the auspices of the American Jewish Historical So- ciety and the author, Leon Hühner, Esq., A.M., LL.B., the Curator of the Society. It is taken from the article "Charleston" in Volume 3 of The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York, 1902) and is presented without abridgment :
"During the struggle for independence the Jews of Charleston distinguished themselves by their patriotism. Not a single case of Toryism was to be found among them,10 while many instances of devotion to the cause of indepen- dence are recorded. The majority did good service in the field, mainly as officers.11 The most prominent Jew at the
Statutes of South Carolina, Vol. 9, p. 620.
** * * " This threat brought out the aged, the timid, the disaffected, and the infirm, many of them who had never appeared during the whole siege." * * " I saw the column march out, and was surprised to see it so large, but many of them we had excused from age and infirmities."-Memoirs, Vol. 2, pp. 108-9.
" This is not true, as will be clearly shown.
" The only officer in the Revolution among the Jews of South Carolina was Captain Abraham Seixas, who fought as a lieutenant of the Con- tinental Line in Georgia.
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outbreak of the war was Francis Salvador, who resided near Charleston" and whose remains are interred in the old Charleston Cemetery.13 Salvador was a member of the Co- lonial Assembly1+ as early as 1774,15 and of the Provincial Congress as well. He was one of the leading patriots of the South.
"In 1779 a special corps of volunteer infantry was organ- ized for the defence of the city,16 and this regiment was com-
" Francis Salvador did not reside near Charles Town, but at Ninety Six, which is in the northwest of the State, almost as far from Charles Town as one could get without leaving South Carolina.
13 Francis Salvador's remains are not interred in the old Charleston Cemetery. It is Joseph Salvador who is buried here,-the uncle and father-in-law of the patriot,-and he is buried, not in the old cemetery, but in the Da Costa burial-ground in Hanover Street.
14 There never was such a body in South Carolina as the " Colonial As- sembly." There was a " Commons House of Assembly of the Province of South Carolina," but Salvador was not a member of that body. The last election held prior to the independent government established on March 26, 1776, was held during the latter part of 1772,-before Salvador came to South Carolina,-and the first election for the General Assembly, created by the Constitution of 1776, took place in October, 1776 -- after Salvador's death. (See The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine for January, 1902.)
13 Salvador was not a member of any legislative body in 1774. He was a Deputy to the Provincial Congress of 1775, and also to the second Pro- vincial Congress of 1775-6.
18 This company, referred to by all previous writers, is a myth. Abun- dant reason for this opinion will be given in the text. The reference is to Captain Richard Lushington's Company of the Charles Town Regiment of Militia, which regiment had been in existence since 1738. This com- pany, consisting of about sixty men, included possibly twenty Jews. We have several references to Lushington's Company in the literature. In The Gazette of the State of South-Carolina of Nov. 11, 1778, there are the names of twelve members of this company, of whom hat two are Jews. In the same Gazette for March 10, 1779, five more names are given and only one is a Jew. So that out of seventeen men who served in this com- pany at the time it is supposed to have been organized, there were only three
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posed almost exclusively of Israelites.17 Among its mem- bers were Daniel N. Cardozo, Jacob I. Cohen, and Isaiah Isaacs.18 The regiment subsequently fought under General Moultrie at the battle of Beaufort. Among those who served in the field may be mentioned Jacob De La Motta, Jacob De Leon, Marks Lazarus, and Mordecai Sheftail, who was Commissary-General for South Carolina and Georgia,19 but who must be considered as a resident of Savannah, rather than of Charleston.20 Major Benjamin Nones, a French Jew in Pulaski's regiment, distinguished himself during the siege of Charleston and won the praise of his commander for gallantry and daring." 21
Jews. We have the names of twenty-five of Lushington's men who were not Jews, and others will doubtless be brought to light. If further proof is needed that there was no volunteer company organized in 1779, it is sufficient to refer to the Militia Act of 1778, which expressly prohibited the organization of volunteer companies after its passage.
"" The transition from a "corps" (sic) to a regiment, in two lines, is really too violent even for historical romance. A regiment, composed al- most exclusively of Jews, and the majority officers! 18 By Daniel N. Cardozo is probably meant David N. Cardozo. We have no record of Jacob I. Cohen as a member of Lushington's Company, and who Isaiah Isaacs is we cannot imagine.
19 " Sheftail" should be Sheftall. Mordecai Sheftall was not Commis- sary-General for South Carolina and Georgia. He was "Deputy Com- missary-General of Issues for the Southern Department," i.e., to the Continental army assigned to the Southern Department. The Commis- sary-General of South Carolina was a State officer of militia and this office was held by Thomas Farr, Jr. 20 He was a resident of Savannah and cannot be considered as anything else.
" The author has dealt at length with the article " Charleston" in The Jewish Encyclopedia in a review of that article published in The [ Charles- ton] Sunday News of Dec. 14, 1902. which has been reprinted in pam- phlet form. The article "Charleston" is a historical curiosity. Con- sisting of less than a thousand words. it contains more mistakes than one would ordinarily find in a volume of a thousand pages, and such mistakes
F
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Such is history as "made to order" to-day. The day is past, however, when such writing can be allowed to pass un- challenged.
Let us now look at the records and see what they have to tell. These records are by no means as incomplete as we have hitherto been led to imagine. We have so many side sources of information that we may claim that it is possible to present a picture of the part that the Jews of South Caro- lina played in the Revolution with almost absolute fidelity. We must, however, dismiss completely the fictions of the early writers.
What are these side sources of information? We have first of all the Record and Pension Office and the Bureau of
as could not have been made had the article been entrusted to anyone in the slightest degree familiar with the subject. There is scarcely a state- ment that is correct. The writing of this review was anything but a pleasant task, but it was a public duty. The time is fast approaching when the complete story of the Jews in America will have to be written. The Jewish Encyclopedia is going to furnish much of the material for the future historian. This work has been widely heralded as the acme of accuracy, In the department of American Jewish History, however, it is far from perfection. The best that can be said of it is that it is not worse than some other encyclopædias, and some of them are bad enough.
It should be noted here that the author's review has given rise to an interesting controversy with the writer of the article. This gentleman's reply, together with the author's rejoinder, appeared in The [Charleston] Sunday News of Feb. 8, 1903. This rejoinder was suppressed in The American Israelite and The American Hebrew, both of which published Mr. Hühner's communication. In marked contrast to the unfairness of these papers was the attitude of the Jewish Comment, which published the rejoinder in full abstract. That such an original contribution to the his- tory of South Carolina might not be hidden away in two obscure religious weekly papers and thus perhaps be lost to posterity, the author has re- printed both Mr. Hühner's reply and his own rejoinder in his Pamphlet Reprints. These can be consulted in many of the large public libraries and in the libraries of the leading historical societies of this country.
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Pensions at Washington. We have a vast number of Revo- lutionary records in this State. There is that wonderful Emmet Collection in the New York Public Library. There are a number of contemporary diaries available to us. There are the tombstones in our cemeteries and the files of the newspapers, which rarely fail to mention military ser- vices in the obituary notices of deceased patriots. We have, finally, a list that is fairly complete of the Jews who lived in South Carolina during the Revolutionary period, and we can account for the vast majority of them. We can now pro- ceed to deal with the records intelligently.
The first real fighting in which the Charles Town militia were called into service was the battle of Fort Moultrie, in June, 1776. There were only a few militia in service on Sullivan's Island, Fort Moultrie being garrisoned princi- pally by South Carolina regulars. There were quite a num- ber of Jews in the Charles Town militia. Who they were we shall see later. Several of them saw service at Fort Moultrie.
Simms, in his History of South Carolina, has preserved a most interesting reminiscence of the battle of Fort Moul- trie in a letter from Joseph Johnson, the author of the well- known Traditions and Reminiscences, to Colonel Wade Hampton, dated 27th June, 1842. Here is an extract from the letter :
" When the fire from Fort Moultrie first began to slacken for want of powder, it was proposed to Colonel Moultrie by the commissary, De Lion," that some refreshment should be served out to the men, who had been on duty ever since daylight. This being approved, a rum cask
" It would be interesting to know who this "De Lion" was. The only man of this name of whom the records make mention is Isaac De Lyon, but he was a Tory and he appears to have settled in Charles Town in 1779. Nor can the name be a misprint for De Leon, Jacob De Leon was only twelve years old at the time.
-
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sawed into two parts was brought out on the platform and filled with rum and water, the usual drink of the inhabitants and the rations of the troops." 33
The result of the battle of Fort Moultrie was to insure undisturbed peace to South Carolina from June, 1776, to February, 1779. Trade went on pretty much as usual. The people married and gave in marriage, and beyond internal dissensions on account of the Loyalists there is nothing to be noted of interest.
Between 1776 and 1778 Richard Lushington was promoted to be captain in the Charles Town Regiment of Militia. His company included nearly all of the Jews of Charles Town who fought in the Revolution, and that for reasons we have already seen: Soldiers had to enroll themselves in the dis- trict in which they lived. Richard Lushington's district ex- tended on King Street, from Broad Street to Charles Town Neck, above the modern Calhoun Street. King Street was then, as now, a principal business street, and most of the Jews had their stores there. It would be an easy matter to compile a list of Jews who lived in King Street, but this would serve no useful purpose. The newspapers show that quite a number of Jews lived in other streets. Of the names of men in Lushington's Company that have come down to us the Jewish names are in a decided minority.
Lushington's Company took part in several engagements. It fought in the battle of Beaufort in February, 1779. Here Joseph Solomon was killed.2: The Charles Town militia likewise took part in the attempt to recapture Savannah in the same year. Here David Nunez Cardozo distinguished himself.25
23 Simms: History of South Carolina, 2d edition, Charleston, 1842, p. 342.
26 Gazette of the State of South-Carolina, March 10, 1779.
25 " The deceased served as a Subaltern Officer in the militia of South Carolina during a great part of the Revolution, until made a prisoner
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That the Jews both of Charles Town and Savannah had done their full duty to the patriot cause is attested by a splendid piece of uncontradicted contemporary testimony. It occurs in a letter in The South-Carolina and American General Gazette of December 3, 1778. Mrs. Crouch's paper containing the libel is no longer in existence, and while the attack has come down to us by reason of the reply, we have in this instance, at least, no cause to regret it. The style of the letter is quaint, but its contents are telling :
" MR. WELLS,
" On perusing Mrs Crouch and Co's paper of the 1st instant, I was extremely surprised to find, in a piece signed An American, a signature sufficient to lead every honest and judicious man to imagine, that whatever was said in so publiek a manner, should be ingenuous and true, assertions directly contrary. Here are his words:
"" Yesterday being by my business posted in a much frequented corner of this town, I observed, in a small space of time, a number of chairs and loaded horses belonging to those who journeyed, come into town .-- Upon inspection of their faces and enquiry, I found them to be of the Tribe of Israel-who, after taking every advantage in trade the times admitted of in the State of Georgia, as soon as it was attacked by an enemy, fled here for an asylum, with their ill-got wealth-dastardly turning their backs upon the country when in danger, which gave them bread and pro- tection-Thus it will be in this State if it should ever be assailed by our enemies-Let judgment take place.'
" I am apt to think, Mr. Printer, that the gentleman is either very blind, or he is willing to make himself so; for I am well convinced, had he taken the trouble of going closer to the chairs, he would have found that what he has thus publickly asserted was erroneous and a palpable mistake,
of war in 1730. He was also attached to the Forlorn Hope when the lines of Savannah were attacked by the combined forces of Gen. Lincoln and Count de Estaing."-From inscription on his tombstone, Jewish Cemetery, Coming Street.
" He marched with the Grenadier corps from Charleston to the Lines before Savannah, and as first non-commissioned officer of Capt Boquet's company, volunteered and led the Forlorn Hope in the assault on the British lines." -- Obituary notice in The Charleston Courier, July 10, 1835.
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as he might have been convinced they were of the female kind, with their dear babes, who had happily arrived at an asylum, where a tyrannical enemy was not at theirs or their dear offsprings heels. I do, therefore, in vindication of many a worthy Israelite now in Georgia, assert, that there is not, at this present hour, a single Georgia Israelite in Charles Town; and that so far to the contrary of that gentleman's assertion, I do declare to the Publick, that many merchants of that State were here on the 22d ult, and on being informed of the enemy landing, they instantly left this, as many a worthy Gentile knows, and proceeded post haste to Georgia, leaving all their concerns unsettled, and are now with their brother citi- zens in the field, doing that which every honest American should do.
" The truth of this assertion will, in the course of a few days, be known to gentlemen of veracity, who are entitled to the appellation of Ameri- cans. The Charlestown Israelites, I bless Heaven, hitherto have behaved as staunch as any other citizens of this State, and I hope their further conduct will be such as will invalidate the malicious and designing fallacy of the author of the piece alluded to.
" I am, Sir, Yours, etc, " A real AMERICAN, and True hearted ISRAELITE. " Charlestown, Wednesday, December 2, 1778."
We next meet with Lushington's Company at the siege of Charles Town in 1780. Here our information concerning the Jews who fought in the militia is most complete. The original papers of General Lincoln, who was in command of the American army in South Carolina in 1780, are still in existence and are to be seen in the "Emmet Collection" in the New York Public Library.26
The defence of Charles Town is unique in the history of
" The documents in this collection relating to the siege of Charles Town have been incorporated into the Year Book, City of Charleston, for 1897. To Ex-Mayor Courtenay and to Ex-Mayor Smyth the people of South Carolina are under lasting obligations for the making available to stu- dents of this vast mass of priceless material. The accompanying cuts, in reduced fac-simile, are reproduced through the courtesy of Ex-Mayor Smyth.
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beleaguered cities. That it withstood a siege of two months against such overwhelming odds must excite the admiration of all who read the story. Its doom was sealed from the first, but not until provisions had given out and all the am- munition was practically spent; not until the British were within twenty yards of the American lines, and every hope of assistance was cut off, was there ever a thought of sur- render. But the inevitable came at last. All hope being gone, and further resistance being impossible, to avoid a useless slaughter the principal inhabitants of Charles Town and a number of the country militia petitioned General Lin- coln to surrender. These petitions have come down to us, and on them are many Jewish names, There are three lists, one of civilians. containing three hundred names appended, including a number of Jews; another of country militia, with one hundred and eleven names, but no Jews, and a third, of country militia, with three hundred and forty-six names appended, including a number of Jews. The two peti- tions that contain the names of Jews, with their fac-simile signatures, are here reproduced. One of these signers, Joseph Myers, it will be seen, tried to make "his mark" in script Hebrew. From his Hebrew signature "Joseph" he appears to be almost as illiterate in that language as he was in English.
I.
" To the Honorable Major General Lincoln --
" The Humble petition of divers Inhabitants of Charlestown in behalf of themselves and others, their fellow citizens --
" Sheweth
" That your petitioners being inform'd the difficulties that arose in the Negotiation yesterday, and the day preceding, related wholly to the Citizens, to whom the British Commanders offer'd their estates, and to admit them to their parole as Prisoners of War; and your petitioners understanding it as an indisputable proposition, that they can derive no advantage by a perseverance in resistance; with every thing that is dear to them at stake, they think it their Indispensable duty, in this perilous
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IGRETURES OF JEWS DURING THE SIEGE OF CHARLES TOWN IN 1-30
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