McClellan was Anti-semi...

[5fish]

A letter he wrote... two pages... http://www.shapell.org/manuscript/anti-semetic-civil-war-union-general-george-mcclellan

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR UNION GENERAL GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN: AN ANTI-SEMITIC LETTER
AMERICAN CIVIL WAR UNION GENERAL GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN: AN ANTI-SEMITIC LETTER
To the litany of disagreeable adjectives used to describe General George Brinton McClellan – vain, arrogant, demanding, intrusive, self-serving, paranoid, messianic, insecure, contentious, petty, unreliable and inept – may be added, as evidenced here, anti-Semitic. Traveling back from Germany to the United States, he describes his shipmates thusly:

We have lots of Germans and Jews on board - but fortunately there are enough Christian gentiles to make it pleasant for us. The Stribleys, a family from Baltimore.... a son of Chas Francis Adams, a Col. Fredenberg... & a few others enable us to be quite independent of the sons of Jacob.

 

[Andy Cardinal]

Anti-Semitism seems to have been prevalent. Grant issued an order expelling Jews from his department in 1862.

 

[Bruce Vail]

That seem pretty mild as far as anti-semitic remarks go. Are there other examples from his letters?

 

[jackt62]

Probably not surprising that McClellan and other officers of the time expressed those sentiments against minority groups of any kind. After all, McClellan was not an advocate of ending slavery.

 

[major bill]

America as a rule was anti-sematic at the time of the Civil War and in general was anti-sematic until after World War Two and beyond. This does not mean every person in the United States was as anti-sematic as others. So before and during the Civil War one can expect to find slurs against Jews in private writings and newspapers. At the time anti-sematic views were so common that bias against Jews was not seen as bad. At the time of the Civil War I would think bias against Jews was found in the North, South, East, and West.

 

[thomas aagaard]

Similar you can find plenty of slur and "racism" in the north against Catholics from southern "Germany" and Ireland...

 

[major bill]

I think slurs against the Irish and anti-Chatholic views could be found North, South, East , and West in the 1860s. This continued for another 100 years and is still found.