Other meanings of General Order No. 11
American Civil War
General Order No. 11 (1862) was a Union Army directive issued by Major General Ulysses S. Grant on December 17, 1862, expelling Jews as a group from the military district under his command. It emerged from wartime efforts to suppress illicit cotton trading but imposed collective punishment on Jewish civilians and merchants. President Abraham Lincoln ordered the directive rescinded several weeks later, making it one of the most prominent examples of antisemitism in United States military history.
The order expelled Jewish people as a class from the Union military district commanded by Grant. Issued from Grant's headquarters at Holly Springs, Mississippi, it covered parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi during the early stages of the Vicksburg campaign. Its first paragraph declared that Jews, “as a class,” were being expelled from the department within 24 hours. Local military commanders were instructed to enforce the measure and to refuse permits to Jewish residents who did not comply.
The directive associated Jews collectively with illicit trade in cotton, which the Union had restricted in occupied territory. Grant had become frustrated by unauthorized commerce, bribery, and the difficulty of regulating traders following the Union occupation of the lower Mississippi Valley. The order nevertheless targeted religious identity rather than demonstrated individual conduct, and it included Jewish soldiers and civilians within its language.
General Order No. 11 reflected the Union Army's attempt to control cotton commerce in occupied Confederate territory. Cotton was both a valuable export and a potential source of revenue for the Confederate States, while military authorities feared that traders and intermediaries could use it to obtain contraband or aid the Confederate war effort.1 Grant's department issued permits, seized goods, and imposed other restrictions, but enforcement was uneven and corruption was a persistent concern.
The order was not uniformly or permanently enforced. Some commanders applied it aggressively, while others delayed or limited its operation; in practice, local conditions and military priorities shaped who was expelled. Jewish merchants in places such as Paducah, Kentucky, and several Mississippi communities faced expulsion or detention, while Jewish soldiers serving in the Union Army challenged the order's compatibility with their military status. The episode demonstrates how military emergency powers could transform a commercial regulation into a religiously discriminatory policy.
Abraham Lincoln revoked the order after protests showed that it punished loyal citizens who had not committed the alleged offenses. Jewish leaders and merchants petitioned government officials, and Cesar J. Kaskel of Paducah helped organize an appeal to the president. A delegation from Cincinnati also pressed the administration to intervene, arguing that the order violated equal treatment and harmed Jewish residents who supported the Union.2
Lincoln directed General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck to countermand the directive in January 1863. Halleck transmitted the revocation to Grant, and the order ceased to have legal force as a general expulsion measure. Lincoln's action did not end wartime suspicion of traders or eliminate discriminatory local practices, but it prevented the order from becoming a general federal policy against Jews. Grant later accepted the reversal while continuing to pursue restrictions on unauthorized cotton commerce.
The order's unusual feature was its explicit use of religious identity as the category for exclusion. It did not merely ban named smugglers, unlicensed traders, or people proven to have aided the Confederacy; it treated Jewishness itself as evidence of collective culpability. That wording made the directive distinct from many other Civil War regulations directed at commerce, loyalty, or military jurisdiction.
Its practical reach also extended beyond the best-known story of cotton merchants. Jewish civilians could be forced to seek military permission to remain, and the directive threatened the stability of Jewish congregations and family businesses in occupied towns. The controversy became part of the emerging political organization of Jewish Americans, who used petitions, newspapers, and personal appeals to contest discriminatory treatment. In later life, Grant's record included Jewish appointments and public associations that contrasted sharply with the policy he had issued as a wartime commander, although the 1862 order remained a lasting stain on his military reputation.
This entry concerns the Civil War directive issued by Ulysses S. Grant on December 17, 1862, not other military or administrative documents also known as General Order No. 11.
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