Reviewing a recent biography of Issachar Zacharie, who treated President Lincoln’s foot ailments during the Civil War and won his trust, Harold Brackman writes:
A non-observant English Jew who sometimes claimed to be American-born, Zacharie worked for a time as a mohel in Gold Rush California. He won renown as a self-promoting medical healer and patent-medicine dispenser, who rose by force of personality and skill to become the country’s premier foot doctor—or chiropodist.
Zacharie’s great moment of fame came during the Civil War, when President Lincoln relied on him not only to treat his bunions, but to keep him abreast about Jewish and other political matters. In 1862, Lincoln sent him to New Orleans, recently occupied by Union troops, to consult with General Nathaniel P. Banks about how best to win over Southern Jews to the Union cause. Zacharie recruited a network of Jewish peddlers, whom he used to gather political and military intelligence. He urged Lincoln to rescind General Grant’s notorious . . . General Order No. 11, [expelling the Jews from Tennessee].
Returning to Washington in 1863, Zacharie—at the suggestion of General Banks—persuaded Lincoln to allow him to visit Richmond, where he met with the Jewish Confederate Judah P. Benjamin and broached . . . peace terms with other prominent Southern leaders. Confederate President Jefferson Davis was not interested.
But, as Brackman goes on to explain, Zacharie’s career ended in ignominy and he eventually returned to England.
Read more on Algemeiner: https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/01/06/lincolns-jewish-chiropodist-and-spy-issachar-zacharie/