Michael Feldberg
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
SOME American Jews have left an indelible, if now nearly
forgotten, mark on the nation's history. Alfred Mordecai
was one such individual. He introduced scientific methods
into the development of pre-Civil War American military
munitions. The outbreak of the Civil War placed Mordecai,
a native Southerner, in an untenable moral and emotional
dilemma. In 1861, when the U. S. government was in dire
need of his expertise, rather than take either side
Mordecai retired from the Army and - in effect -dropped
out of subsequent US military history.
Alfred Mordecai was raised by Orthodox parents in
Warrenton, North Carolina. His father, Jacob, a merchant
of middling success, built a reputation as a Biblical
scholar. The Mordecai family kept a kosher home and
observed the holy days. When a bad investment in the
tobacco wiped out the tobacco business, Jacob and his
wife Rebecca opened a nonsectarian girl's boarding
school that established a reputation as one of the best in
the South.
Young Alfred received his education in the liberal arts as
the only boy at his parents' boarding school and at home,
where he learned Hebrew language and Jewish subjects.
Mordecai was particularly brilliant at mathematics and, at
age 15, entered the United Sates Military Academy at
West Point, the one public institution in the US where a
young man could receive a scientific education.
As the only Jew then at West Point, Mordecai found it
difficult to maintain his religious practice. With the other
cadets, Mordecai was forced to attend Presbyterian
chapel each Sunday. Kosher food was unavailable.
Despite the stresses, Mordecai graduated in 1823, at age
19, at the top of the class. He continued at West Point
as an instructor, then supervised construction of
fortifications along the Atlantic Coast and was eventually
stationed in Washington, DC, as assistant to the Army
Chief of Engineers. In 1836, Mordecai was appointed
commander of the Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia. That
year, he married Sarah Ann Hays of that city, a niece of
Rebecca Gratz.
Mordecai rose to the rank of major and, during the
Mexican War, assumed command of the army's most
significant arsenal, in Washington, DC. Mordecai became
an assistant to the Secretary of War and to the Chief of
Ordnance, wrote an excellent Digest of Military Laws and
served on the Board of Visitors to West Point.
"It was as a member of the Ordnance Board," historian
Stanley L. Falk observes, "which passed on and
developed all new weapons, ammunition and ordnance
equipment for the Army, that [Mordecai] made his
greatest contributions." Mordecai instituted scientific
testing of munitions and new weapons systems. In 1841,
he authored the first-ever ordnance manual for the US
military that standardized the manufacture of weapons
with interchangeable parts, a step in the evolution of
American mass manufacturing. According to Falk,
Mordecai also "performed important experiments with
artillery and gunpowder, the results of . . . which were
published in 1845 . . . and later translated into French
and German." The year 1857 marked the peak of
Mordecai's career. He traveled to Europe to observe the
use of weaponry in the Crimean War. His report, written
on his return, is considered a classic of American military
science.
Falk asserts that Mordecai's work "was valued for its
accuracy, its precise and systematic nature, and its
immediate usefulness. It was an example and an
inspiration for every other worker in the same field, and
Mordecai was respected by all of them for his technical
contributions no less than he was loved for his fineness
of character, integrity, warmth and gentle humor."
Mordecai's military career seemed made, at least until
April, 1861, when South Carolina troops fired on the
Federal military garrison at Ft. Sumter in Charleston
Harbor and Civil War erupted. Mordecai had spent his
career -his entire adult life -in the United States Army.
In 1861, his son Alfred, Jr., graduated from West Point
and accepted a commission in the Army. At the same
time, all of Mordecai's siblings lived in the South and
sided with the Confederacy. Fighting against them, or
even helping to make arms to be used against them, was
anathema to Mordecai. He sought a U. S. Army post in
California, away from battle. His request denied, Mordecai
had no choice and resigned his commission. The
Confederacy offered him a post, but he declined. A proud
career military man, Mordecai watched the war from the
sidelines, teaching mathematics at a private school and
living, in effect, on his daughter's income.
At war's end, Mordecai declined to return to the military
and worked as an engineer for the Imperial Mexican
Railroad. In 1866, he moved to Philadelphia, where he
lived modestly for another 20 years as treasurer and
secretary for a canal company until his death in 1887.
Today, the United States military possesses the world's
most sophisticated weaponry: laser guided "smart"
bombs, shoulder-launched nuclear weapons and bullets
that penetrate tank armor. American ordnance is the
envy of the world and a source of its military hegemony.
The little remembered Alfred Mordecai laid the
groundwork for scientific development of ordnance that
undergirds America's current world
Michael Feldberg is the director of the American Jewish Historical Society. Comment on this article by clicking here.
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