Today I would like to introduce you to one of my four great-grandfathers, Solomon Aarons, my mother's maternal grandfather. In this post I will be sharing information gleaned from two articles I found at philly.com, the online archives website of The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper.
The first article, "The Legacy Of 9 Jews In Civil War", was written by Andrew Hussie and appeared in the Inquirer on April 2, 1987. I will quote only those parts that pertain to my great-grandfather.
The Legacy Of 9 Jews In Civil War
In 1865 there were about 200,000 Jews in the United States.
About 6,000 of them fought for the North and 1,200 for the South.
From that small number of combatants, the legacy of nine Jewish men was born, a legacy that is told in an exhibit that opened last week at the Temple Judea Museum of Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park.
The exhibit, Keneseth Israel and the Civil War: Nine Vignettes in Blue and Gray, tells the stories of the nine through Civil War artifacts, documents, and other research materials.
The exhibit is especially moving for several of the synagogue's congregants who are among the direct descendants of the nine....
The exhibit was organized by Barbara J. Forman, the exhibit's curator and a museum docent. She spent the last year researching and organizing the project for the synagogue, which was founded in Philadelphia in 1847. She said she got the idea after discovering the military discharge papers of a 15-year-old drummer boy, Solomon Aarons, in the museum's archives.
Aarons, an early member of the synagogue, was born in England in 1846, and came to the United States shortly before the war. On Oct. 31, 1861, he enlisted in Company B, 69th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, part of the famous "Philadelphia Brigade." He saw action in every major battle of the Army of the Potomac, except Manassas. After the war, he returned to Philadelphia, where he had two sons....
(end of excerpts from the first article)
Nine years after the first article appeared, the following article by Connie Langland also appeared in the Inquirer on February 26, 1996:
Banging The Drums For One Who Did More:
Reenactors Honored A Jewish Civil War Hero
Muskets fired once, twice, three times.
A drum and fife corps played "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."
A rabbi prayed for the dead.
A bugler rendered Taps.
Yesterday, 131 years after he put down his drum and 94 years after he died, Solomon Aarons of Philadelphia ws remembered as a heroic drummer boy of the Civil War.
The memorial service was organized by the 69th Pennsylvania Volunteers Infantry Unit, a Civil War reenactment group, and took place at Aarons' weathered grave site at Adath Jeshurun Cemetery in the city's Frankford section.
The event was solemn but a spectacle just the same. Dozens of men in Union Army uniforms marched past rowhouses and into the cemetery. Behind them walked women in calico or widow's black, their long hoop skirts pushed this way and that by sharp gusts of wind.
"Aarons was a member of the regiment that we portray," said George Levens of Roslyn, Montgomery County. "What we are trying to do is bring to people's attention today the sacrifices these men made for their country."
The 69th Pennsylvania was a volunteer infantry unit made up mostly of poor, uneducated, working-class, Irish volunteers who fought in more than 40 battles -- and faced the brunt of Confederate Gen. George Pickett's charge on the stone wall at Gettysburg.
In that 1863 battle, 143 of 258 officers and men from the 69th were killed, wounded or captured.
"We want to honor not just the generals, but the drummer boy, too," Levens said.
In an effort to be authentic, the reenactors researched the lives of some of the soldiers. Aarons drew attention because of his religion. An estimated 8,500 Jewish soldiers fought in the Civil War, most of them for the Union.
Research by the Warminster-based 69th Pennsylvania reenactors showed that Aarons was born in London, immigrated here in his early teens, and joined the 69th at age 15. His job was to alert the troops to the commander's order through the beat -- the coded signal -- of his drum.
He served for three years and was with the 69th just four miles from Appomattox Courthouse, Va., in 1865 when Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.
After the war, Aarons settled in Philadelphia. His trade remains unknown, but it is known that he married, had two sons, and died in 1902 at age 55.
Yesterday, the drummer boy was honored by members of the Jewish War Veterans, as well as by the reenactors. His grave was decorated with wreaths and a small metal marker engraved GAR, for the Grand Army of the Republic.
Rabbi Eliott Perlstein of Roxboro told the gathering of about 200 people, some of them there out of curiosity, that there was value in remembering Aarons' life and the lofty principles for which he fought -- "the ideals of unity, freedom and equality for all people."
(end of article)
I am proud of my great-grandfather's service during the Civil War, but my Dad would probably say that that and two bits (25 cents) would buy you a cup of coffee. How long ago he said it is indicated by the cost of coffee nowadays.
There's a spoilsport in every crowd.
My great-grandparents Solomon Aarons and Rachel (DeWolf) Aarons had nine children in all -- five boys and four girls -- and their sixth child was my maternal grandmother, Rosetta (Aarons) Silberman. The writers of the Philadelphia Inquirer articles probably based their statements that Solomon Aarons had two sons on the fact that two of them are buried in the same plot as their parents in Adath Jeshurun Cemetery. I wrote about the nine offspring in this post.
Here is a photograph of Solomon Aarons' grave in Philadelphia:
