Vicksburg had one of the most significant Jewish communities in Mississippi by the 1850s — merchants, cotton factors, civic leaders. They stayed through the siege. Then in December 1862, Ulysses S. Grant issued General Order No. 11, expelling all Jews from the entire military district of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky. It was the most sweeping act of official anti-Semitism in American history. Cesar Kaskel, a Paducah merchant, took a delegation to Washington. Lincoln revoked the order within weeks. The Jewish families of Vicksburg endured the siege, the expulsion order, and Reconstruction. Congregation Anshe Chesed, founded in 1849, still marks their presence. Their cemetery holds the graves of families who chose to stay when their country told them to leave.