The term "Johnny Reb" normally evokes an image of a white soldier, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant and from an agrarian background.  Many Southern soldiers, however, did not fit this mold. A number of ethnic backgrounds were represented during the conflict.

For example, many black Americans fought as Johnny Rebs.  Dr. Lewis Steiner of the U. S. Sanitary Commission observed that while the Confederate army marched through Maryland during the 1862 Sharpsburg (Antietam) campaign, "over 3,000 Negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabers, bowie knives, dirks, etc. and were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederate Army."

There were also Hispanic Confederates Col. Santos Benavides, a former Texas Ranger, city attorney and Mayor of Laredo, Texas, commanded the 33^rd Texas Calvary while Gen. Refugio Benavides protected what was known as the Confederacy of the Rio Grande.  Recent Irish Catholic immigrants also chose to fight for the South as did a few stalwart Chinese who served nobly in Louisiana.

Hispanic Confederate officers from Laredo

 (Seated Left to Right): Refugio Benavides, Atanacio Vidaurri, Cristobal Benavides, and John Z. Leyendecker

The largest ethnic group to serve the Confederacy, however, was made up of first, second, and third generation Jewish lads.  Old Jewish families had settled in the South generations before the war.  Jews had live in Charleston, S.C. since 1695.  By 1800, the largest Jewish community in America lived in Charleston, where the oldest synagogue in America was founded.  By 1861, a third of all the Jews in America lived in Louisiana.

More than 10.000 Jews fought for the Confederacy. As Rabbi Korn of Charleston related. "Nowhere else in America - certainly not in the Antebellum North - had Jews been accorded such an opportunity to be complete equals as in the old South." General Robert E. Lee allowed his Jewish soldiers to observe all holy days, while Generals U.S. Grant and Wm. T. Sherman issued anti-Jewish orders.

There are far too many heroic Jews in the service to be enumerated here, but a few names to mention include Abraham Myers, a West Point graduate and classmate of Lee's in 1832, who fought the Indians before the war and was Quartermaster General. Maj. Adolph Proskauer of Mobile was wounded several times while leading the 12^th  Alabama. Six Cohen brothers of North Carolina fought; All-Jewish companies reported from both Macon and Savannah. There were three Jewish Colonels from Louisiana.  Jewish students were with the VMI Cadets at New Market. Judah P. Benjamin was the most famous Southern Jew. He was the first Jewish U.S. Senator. He served the Confederacy in numerous ways including Attorney General.  Secretary of War, and Secretary of State. Simon Baruch. a Prussian immigrant. settled in Camden. S.C. He received his Medical Degree and entered the conflict as a physician in the 3rd S.C. Battalion. He eventually became Surgeon General of the Confederacy.  He later married and after the war lived in New York City where he had a prominent medical practice. He was always most pro-southern. and raised the children to be pro-southern. His son was Bernard Baruch, probably the most successful financier of his time and one of the best known American Jews of the 20th century.  Bernard Baruch was an adviser to presidents from W W I through W W II and was a confidant of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt.

From the above article, taken largely from a statement by Thomas C. Mandes, a physician of Vienna, Virginia, you can see that "Johnny Reb" includes "lots of us" - it is an "all inclusive'' title.

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