Was Ulysses S. Grant The Biggest Jew Hater In American History? The Union general demanded that all Jews living in the lower Midwest pack their bags and hit the road.

Knowledge Nuts reports:

The year 1862 was a tumultuous and bloody one in American history. The Civil War was entering its second year, and already thousands of Americans had died at Shiloh, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. However, something strange occurred that year you won’t find in most history books. On December 17, Union general Ulysses S. Grant delivered General Order No. 11, one of the most anti-Semitic documents in American history.

Grant wasn’t yet the head of the Union Army (that wouldn’t happen until 1864). He wasn’t even a household name (that wouldn’t happen until 1862). However, he was in charge of the Department of the Tennessee, an area of land that encompassed everything between the Mississippi River and the Tennessee River and contained the states between northern Mississippi and southern Illinois. In other words, the Department of the Tennessee included a lot more than Tennessee. It was also full of smugglers and cotton speculators, and Grant was getting tired of both of them. Determined to rid his department of thieves and scallywags, Grant issued General Order No. 11, declaring all Jews had to get out and get out now.

According to Grant’s thinking, all those smugglers and speculators had to be Jewish, and they had to be “expelled from the department within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.” And if any of them tried to come back, Grant would make sure they’d spend time behind bars. However, the order didn’t spark the massive exodus the general had hoped for. In an ironic twist, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest destroyed all the telegraph lines surrounding Grant’s headquarters in Mississippi, preventing the missive from spreading too fast.

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