New York Riots, 1863--Pursuit of Lee's Army to the Rappahannock--
Action of Wapping Heights, and Skirmishes--Western Troops Sent to
New York to Enforce the Draft--Their Return--Incidents, etc.
During the Gettysburg campaign the organized militia of New York
City and the volunteer and regular troops stationed there were sent
to Pennsylvania to aid in repelling the invading army, thus leaving
that city without its usual protection.
Horatio Seymour, Governor of the State of New York in 1863, was
not, at all times, in harmony with President Lincoln and the War
Department with respect to the conduct of the war, the necessity
for raising troops, and the means by which they were obtained.
His opposition to the draft was well understood, and gave encouragement
to a turbulent population in New York City who were opposed to the
war, and, consequently, to all radical measures to fill the city's
quota. The poor believed they had a just ground of complaint. A
clause in the Enrollment Act of Congress allowed a drafted man to
be discharged upon the payment of three hundred dollars commutation.
This gave the wealthier people a right the poor were not able to
avail themselves of.
The city of New York had responded loyally with men and money in
support of the Union at the breaking out of the war, but as the
struggle progressed and the burdens of the city increased and many
calls for men came, there occurred some reaction in public sentiment,
especially among the masses, who imagined they were the greatest
sufferers. Her Mayor, Fernando Wood, prior to the war (January 6,
1861), in a Message to her Common Council, denominated the Union
as only a "confederacy" of which New York was the "Empire City";
and said further that dissolution of the Union was inevitable; that
it was absolutely impossible to keep the States "together longer
than they deemed themselves fairly treated"; that the Union could
"not be preserved by coercion or held together by force"; that with
the "aggrieved brethren of the slave States" the city had preserved
"friendly relations and a common sympathy," and had not "participated
in a warfare upon their constitutional rights or their domestic
institutions," and, "therefore, New York has a right to expect,
and should endeavor to preserve, a continuance of uninterrupted
intercourse with every section." He denounced other parts of New
York state as a "foreign power" seeking to legislate for the city's
government; claimed that "much, no doubt," could "be said in favor
of the justice and policy of a separation," and that the Pacific
States and Western States as well as the Southern States would each
soon set up an independent Republic. But Mayor Wood, not content
with all this disunion nonsense, said further:
"Why should not New York City, instead of supporting by her
contributions in revenue two thirds of the expenses of the United
States, become also equally independent? As a _free city_, with
but nominal duty on imports, her local government could be supported
without taxation upon her people. Thus we could live free from
taxes, and have cheap goods nearly duty free. In this she would
have the whole and united support of the Southern states, as well
as all the other States to whose interests and rights under the
Constitution she has always been true; and when disunion has become
a fixed and certain fact, why may not New York disrupt the bonds
which bind her to a venal and corrupt master--to a people and party
that have plundered her revenues, taken away the power of self-
government and destroyed the Confederacy of which she was the proud
Empire City? Amid the gloom which the present and prospective
condition of things must cast over the country, New York, as a Free
City, may shed the only light and hope of a future reconstruction
of our once blessed Confederacy."( 1)
This most audacious communication ante-dated all Ordinances of
Secession save that of South Carolina, and preceded President
Lincoln's inauguration by about two months. The proposed secession
of New York City involved disrupting the bonds which bound her to
the State as well as the nation, and could not therefore possess
even the shadow of excuse of separate sovereignty, such as was
claimed for a State.
The dangerous doctrine of this Message and the suggestions for
making New York a _free city_, and other like political teaching,
bore fruit, and had much to do with building up a public sentiment
which culminated in resistance to the draft and the monstrous,
bloody, and destructive riots that ensued in New York City.
The significance of the defeat of the Confederate Army at Gettysburg
and the capture of Vicksburg on the 4th of July, 1863, were not
well understood in New York when, on Saturday, July 11, 1863,
pursuant to instructions, Provost-Marshal Jenkins commenced the
initial work on the corner of 46th Street and Third Avenue, by
drawing from the wheel the names of those who must respond to the
call of the Government or pay the commutation money.
The first day passed without any open violence, and with even some
good-humored pleasantry on the part of the great crowd assembled.
The draft was conducted openly and fairly, and the names of the
conscripts were publicly announced and published by the press of
Sunday morning. It appeared that the names of many men, too poor
to pay the commutation, had been drawn from the wheel, and these
would therefore have to go to the army in person regardless of
inclination or ability to provide for their families in their
absence. Others not drawn were apprehensive that their fate would
be the same. On Sunday, therefore, in secret places, inhabitants
of the district where the draft had commenced, met, and resolved
to resist it even to bloodshed. The absence of the organized
militia and other regular and volunteer soldiers was, by the leaders
of the movement, widely proclaimed, to encourage the belief that
resistance would be successful. The police, though efficient, were
not much feared, as they would have to be widely scattered over
the city to protect persons and property. In the promotion of the
scheme of resistance to Federal authority, organized parties went
early Monday morning to yard, factory, and shop, and compelled men
to abandon their labor and join the procession wending its way to
the corner of Third Avenue and 46th Street.
Captain Jenkins and his assistants, not apprehending any danger,
recommenced the draft in the presence of a great multitude, many
of whom had crowded into his office, and a few names had been called
and registered when a paving-stone was hurled through a window,
shivering the glass into a thousand pieces, knocking over some
quiet observers in the room and startling the officials. This was
the initial act of the celebrated New York riots. A second and a
third stone now crashed through the broken window at the fated
officers and reporters, and with frantic yells the crowd developed
into a mob, and, breaking down the doors, rushed into the room,
smashed the desks, tables, furniture, and destroyed whatever could
be found. The wheel alone was carried upstairs and eventually
saved. The Marshal escaped alive, but his deputy, Lieutenant
Vanderpoel, was horribly beaten and taken home for dead. The
building wherein the office was located was fired, and the hydrants
were taken possession of by the mob to prevent the Fire Department
from extinguishing the flames, and in two hours an entire block
was burned down. Police Superintendent Kennedy was assailed by
the rioters and left for dead. The most exaggerated rumors of the
success of the mob spread through the city, and other anti-conscript
bands were rapidly formed, especially in its southern parts.
While General Sanford of the State Militia, Mayor Opdyke of the
city, and General John E. Wool were hastily consulting, and, in
the absence of any military force adequate to suppress the already
formidable riot, were trying to devise means for its suppression,
the mob, joined by numerous gangs of thieves and thugs, grew to
the size of a great army, and feeling possessed of an irresistible
power, moved rapidly about the apparently doomed city, engaging in
murder, pillage, and arson. Neither person nor property was
regarded. Peaceful citizens were openly seized, maltreated, and
robbed wherever found. Those who tried to resist were often dragged
mercilessly about the streets, stamped upon, and left for dead.
A brown-stone block on Lexington Avenue was destroyed. An armed
detachment of marines, some fifty strong, was sent to quell the
riot. At the corner of 43d Street these marines attempted to
disperse the mob by firing on it with blank cartridges, but they
were rushed upon with such fierce fury that they were broken and
overpowered, their guns were taken from then, several of them
killed, and all terribly beaten. A squad of the police attempted
to arrest some of the leaders at this point, but it was defeated,
badly beaten, and one of its number killed. Elated with these
triumphs, and excited by the blood already spilled, the passion of
the mob knew no bounds, and it proposed an immediate onslaught upon
the principal streets, hotels, and public buildings. The city was
filled with consternation; all business ceased, public conveyances
stopped running, and terror seized the public authorities as well
as the peaceful citizens.
The negroes seemed to be the first object of the mob's animosity;
public places where they were employed were seized, and the colored
servants there employed were maltreated, and in some instances
killed. The Colored Half-Orphan Asylum, on Fifth Avenue, near 43d
Street, the home for about 800 colored children, was visited, its
attendants and inmates maltreated, the interior of the building
sacked, and in spite of the personal efforts of Chief Decker, it
was fired and burned. Robbery was freely indulged in, and many
women who were of the rioters carried off booty.
The armory on Second Avenue, in which some arms and munitions were
stored, although guarded by a squad of men, was soon taken possession
of, its contents seized, and the building burned. This was not
accomplished until at least five of the mob were killed and many
more wounded by the police. In the lower part of the city the
assaults of the rioters were mainly upon unoffending colored men.
At least one dozen were brutally murdered, while many more were
beaten, and others driven into hiding or from the city. One colored
man was caught, kicked, and mauled until life seemed extinct, and
then his body was suspended from a tree and a fire kindled beneath
it, the heat of which restored him to consciousness.
A demonstration was made against the _Tribune_ newspaper office.
The great mob from the vicinity of 46th Street reached the park
near this office about five o'clock in the evening, and some of
its leaders, breaking down the doors, rushed into the building and
commenced destroying its contents, and preparing to burn it. A
determined charge of the police, however, drove them out, and the
building was saved.
The police, though heroic in their efforts to protect the city,
were only partially successful. The draft was suspended. The
building on Broadway near 28th Street, in part occupied as an office
by Provost-Marshal Marriere, was fired, and the entire block burned.
The Bull's Head Hotel on 44th Street was likewise burned to the
ground because its proprietor declined to furnish liquor to the
mob. The residences of Provost-Marshal Jenkins and Postmaster
Wakeman and two brown-stone dwellings on Lexington Avenue were also
destroyed by fire, and several members of the police and marines
were stoned to death, and others fatally injured.
The Board of Aldermen met and adopted a resolution instructing a
committee to report a plan whereby an appropriation could be made
to pay the commutation ($300) of such of the poorest citizens as
might be conscripted. General Wool, who commanded the Department,
issued a call to the discharged returned soldiers to tender their
services to the Mayor for the defence of the city. This call met
with some response on the following morning, and General Harvey
Brown assumed command of the troops in the city. The second day
(14th) the riot was even more malignant than on the first. The
mob had complete control of the city and spread terror wherever it
moved.
Governor Horatio Seymour now reached the city, and promptly issued
a proclamation, commanding the rioters to disperse to their homes
under penalty of his using all power necessary to restore peace
and order. The riot continuing, he, on the same day, issued another
proclamation, declaring the city in a state of insurrection, and
giving notice that all persons resisting any force called out to
quell the insurrection would be liable to the penalties prescribed
by law. These proclamations, however, had little effect. The
second day was attended with still further atrocities upon negroes.
The mob in its brutality regarded neither age, infirmity, nor sex.
Whenever and wherever a colored population was found, death was
their inexorable fate. Whole neighborhoods inhabited by them were
burned out.
On several occasions the small military force collected on the
second day met and turned back the rioters by firing ball cartridges.
Lieutenant Wood, in command of 150 regular troops from Fort Lafayette,
in dispersing about 2000 men assembled in the vicinity of Grand
and Pitt Streets, was obliged to fire bullets into them, killing
about a score, and wounding many, two children among the number.
This mob was dispersed. Citizens organized to defend themselves
and the city.
Governor Seymour spoke to an immense gathering from the City Hall
steps, and counselled obedience to the law and the constituted
authorities. He read a letter to show that he was trying to have
the draft suspended, and announced that he had information that it
was postponed in the city of New York. This announcement did
something to allay the excitement and to prevent a spread of the
riot.
Colonel O'Brien, with a detachment of troops, was ordered to disperse
a mob in Third Avenue. He was successful in turning it back, but
sprained his ankle during the excitement, and stopped in a drug
store on 32d Street, while his command passed on. A body of rioters
discovering him, surrounded the store and threatened its destruction.
He stepped out, and was at once struck senseless, and the crowd
fell upon his prostrate form, beating, stamping, and mutilating
it. For hours his body was dragged up and down the pavement in
the most inhuman manner, after which it was carried to the front
of his residence, where, with shouts and jeers, the same treatment
was repeated.
The absent militia were hurried home from Pennsylvania, and by the
15th the riot had so far spent itself that many of its leaders had
fallen or were taken prisoners, and the mob was broken into fragments
and more easily coped with. Mayor Opdyke, in announcing that the
riot was substantially at an end, advised voluntary associations
to be maintained to assure good order, and thereafter business was
cautiously resumed.
Archbishop John Hughes caused to be posted about the city, on the
16th, a card inviting men "called in many of the papers rioters"
to assemble the next day to hear a speech from him. At the appointed
hour about 5000 persons met in front of his residence, when the
Archbishop, clad in his purple robes and other insignia of his high
sacerdotal function, spoke to them from his balcony. He appealed
to their patriotism, and counselled obedience to the law as a tenet
of their Catholic faith. He told them "no government can stand or
protect itself unless it protects its citizens." He appealed to
them to go to their homes and thereafter do no unlawful act of
violence. This assembly dispersed peaceably, and the great riot
was ended.
But the draft had been suspended for the time, and Governor Seymour
had given some assurance it would not again be resumed in the city.
The municipal authorities had passed a bill to pay the $300
commutation, or substitute money, to drafted men of the poorer
classes.
The total killed and wounded during the riots is unknown. Governor
Seymour, in a Message, said the "number of killed and wounded is
estimated by the police to be at least one thousand." The rioters,
as usual, suffered the most. Claims against the city for damages
to property destroyed were presented, aggregating $2,500,000, and
the city paid claimants about $1,500,000.
This brief summary of the great New York riot is given to explain
movements of troops soon to be mentioned. But in order to afford
the reader a fuller conception of the opposition encountered by
Federal officers in the enforcement of the conscript laws, it should
be said in this connection that draft riots, on a small scale, took
place in Boston, Mass.; Troy, N. Y.; Portsmouth, N. H., and in
Holmes County, Ohio, and at other places.
We left the Army of the Potomac in Maryland, at the close of the
arduous Gettysburg campaign, watching the Army of the Northern
Virginia, just escaped across the Potomac.
Harper's Ferry had been reoccupied by Union troops as early as July
6, 1863. Meade moved his army to that place, and promptly crossing
the Potomac and the Shenandoah River near its mouth, took possession
of the gaps of the Blue Ridge, and marched southward along its
eastern slope. Passing through Upperville and Piedmont towards
Manassas Gap and Front Royal, he threatened Lee's line of retreat
to his old position behind the Rapidan, and thus compelled the
Confederate Army to evacuate the Shenandoah Valley somewhat
precipitately.
At Wapping Heights, near Manassas Gap, on the 23d of July, a somewhat
lively action took place between portions of the two armies in
which my troops were engaged and suffered a small loss. The enemy
were driven back, and one corps of Lee's army was forced to retreat
_via_ routes higher up the valley. There were lively skirmishes
between the 14th of July and August 1st, at Halltown, Shepherdstown,
Snicker's Gap, Berry's Ferry, Ashby's Gap, Chester Gap, Battle
Mountain, Kelly's Ford, and Brandy Station, but each and all of
these were without material results. By the 26th of July the Army
of the Potomac arrived in the vicinity of Warrenton, Virginia, and
occupied the north bank of the Rappahannock, while the Army of
Northern Virginia took position behind the Rapidan, covering its
fords. Both of these great armies were now allowed by their
commanders to remain quiet to recuperate. Occasional collisions
occurred between picket posts and scouting detachments, but none
worthy of special notice.
It having been determined by the War Department to enforce the
draft in New York and Brooklyn, and a recurrence of the riots being
again imminent, orders were issued to send veteran troops to New
York harbor for such disposition and service as the exigencies
might require. Western troops were mainly selected, and, with a
view to sending me upon this service, I was ordered on the 14th of
August to Alexandria with the 110th and 122d Ohio, the former in
command of Lieutenant-Colonel Foster and the latter in that of
Colonel Wm. H. Ball. On the 16th I embarked these regiments and
the 3d Michigan on a transport ship at Alexandria, with instructions
from Halleck to report on my arrival in New York Harbor to General
E. R. S. Canby.( 2) On reaching our destination, my troops, with
others from the Army of the Potomac, were distributed throughout
both cities. My own headquarters were for a short time on Governor's
Island, then more permanently at Carroll Park, Brooklyn.
The threatened riots and the incipient movements to again prevent
the draft were easily averted, as it was evident that no unlawful
assemblage of persons would be tolerated by the authorities when
backed by veteran soldiers. This service proved to be a great
picnic for the men. Officers and soldiers were received warmly
everywhere in the cities, and socially feasted and flattered. It
was evident, however, that the good people had not yet recovered
from the terrors of the recent riots, and they manifested a painful
apprehension that a recurrence of these would take place. The
draft, however, went on peacefully, and when all danger seemed past
the troops were ordered to return to their proper corps in the Army
of the Potomac.
At a public breakfast given to the soldiers of the 110th Ohio in
Carroll Park, Brooklyn, a very aged man appeared with a morning
paper, and asked and was granted permission to read President
Lincoln's memorable and characteristic letter of August 26, 1863,
addressed to Hon. James C. Conkling, of Illinois, in response to
an invitation to attend a mass-meeting at Springfield, "of
unconditional Union men." The letter answered many objections
urged against the President on account of the conduct of the war,
his Emancipation Proclamation, and his purpose to enlist colored
men as soldiers. For perspicuity, terseness, plainness, and
conclusiveness of argument this letter stands among the best of
all President Lincoln's writings. It came at an opportune time,
and it did much to silence the caviler, to satisfy the doubter,
and to reconcile honest people who sincerely desired the complete
restoration of the Union. Its effect was especially salutary and
satisfying to the soldiers in the field, who, somehow, felt that
the burden of maintaining the Union rested unequally upon them.
Addressing those who were dissatisfied with him, and desired _peace_,
he said:
"You desire peace, and you blame me that we do not have it. But
how can we attain it? There are but three conceivable ways. First,
to suppress the rebellion by force of arms. This I am trying to
do. Are you for it? If you are, so far we are agreed. If you
are not for it, a second way is to give up the Union. I am against
this, Are you for it? If you are, you should say so plainly. If
you are not for force, nor yet for _dissolution_, there only remains
some imaginable _compromise_. I do not believe that any compromise
embracing a maintenance of the Union is now possible."
To those who opposed the Emancipation Proclamation, and desired
its revocation, he said:
"You say it is unconstitutional. I think differently. I think
the Constitution invests its Commander-in-Chief with the law of
war in the time of war. The most that can be said, if so much,
is, that slaves are property. Is there, has there ever been, any
question that by the laws of war, property, both of enemies and
friends, may be taken when needed?"
And further:
"But the Proclamation, as law, either is valid or is not valid.
If it is not valid it needs no retraction. If it is valid it cannot
be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life."
And still further:
"You say that you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them
seem willing to fight for you; but no matter. Fight you, then,
exclusively to save the Union. I issued the Proclamation on purpose
to aid you in saving the Union. . . . I thought that whatever
negroes can be got to do as soldiers leaves just so much less for
white soldiers to do in saving the Union.
"The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed
to the sea. Thanks to the great Northwest for it; nor yet wholly
to them. Three hundred miles up they met New England, Empire,
Keystone, and Jersey, hewing their way right and left. The sunny
South, too, in more colors than one, also lent a helping hand. On
the spot, their part of the history was jotted down in black and
white. The job was a great national one, and let none be slighted
who bore an honorable part in it. And while those who have cleared
the great river may well be proud, even that is not all. It is
hard to say that anything has been more bravely and well done than
at Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and on fields of less note.
Nor must Uncle Sam's web feet be forgotten. At all the watery
margins they have been present, not only on the deep sea, the broad
bay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy bayou, and
wherever the ground was a little damp they have been and made their
tracks. Thanks to all."
During my stay in New York my wife visited me, and accompanied me
with the troops to Alexandria.
On the 6th of September the Ohio troops of my command took ship,
and when landed at Alexandria, Virginia, marched to Fox's Ford on
the Rappahannock, and on the 14th rejoined the Third Corps, having
been absent one month.
The next day the whole army moved across the river and encamped
around Culpeper Court-House.
( 1) _Hist. of Rebellion_ (McPherson), p. 42.
( 2) _War Records_, vol. xxix., Part II., pp. 46, 54.