The resistance to the military draft of 1863 by the City of New York,
the result of which was the killing of several thousand persons,
was illustrated on August 29th, 1863, by “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated
Newspaper,” over the title of “The Naughty Boy, Gotham, Who Would Not
Take the Draft.” Beneath was also the text:
MAMMY LINCOLN: “There now, you bad boy, acting that way, when your
little sister Penn (State of Pennsylvania) takes hers like a lady!”
Horatio Seymour was then Governor of New York, and a prominent “the War
is a failure” advocate. He was in Albany, the State capital, when the
riots broke out in the City of New York, July 13th, and after the mob
had burned the Colored Orphan Asylum and killed several hundred negroes,
came to the city. He had only soft words for the rioters, promising them
that the draft should be suspended. Then the Government sent several
regiments of veterans, fresh from the field of Gettysburg, where they
had assisted in defeating Lee. These troops made short work of the
brutal ruffians, shooting down three thousand or so of them, and the
rioting was subdued. The “Naughty Boy Gotham” had to take his medicine,
after all, but as the spirit of opposition to the War was still rampant,
the President issued a proclamation suspending the writ of habeas corpus
in all the States of the Union where the Government had control. This
had a quieting effect upon those who were doing what they could in
obstructing the Government.