"_Will the future come? It seems that we may almost ask
this question, when we see such terrible shadow._"
VICTOR HUGO
Here it will be necessary to consider some facts which, while they are
rather in the domain of the grave recorder of historical events, than in
that of the narrator of personal experiences, are yet essential to the
comprehension of the scenes in which Surrey and Francesca took such
tragic parts.
Following the proclamation for a draft in the city of New York, there
had been heard on all sides from the newspaper press which sympathized
with and aided the rebellion, premonitions of the coming storm;
denunciations of the war, the government, the soldiers, of the harmless
and inoffensive negroes; angry incitings of the poor man to hatred
against the rich, since the rich man could save himself from the
necessity of serving in the ranks by the payment of three hundred
dollars of commutation money; incendiary appeals to the worst passions
of the most ignorant portion of the community; and open calls to
insurrection and arms to resist the peaceable enforcement of a law
enacted in furtherance of the defence of the nation's life.
Doubtless this outbreak had been intended at the time of the darkest and
most disastrous days of the Republic; when the often-defeated and sorely
dispirited Army of the Potomac was marching northward to cover
Washington and Baltimore, and the victorious legions of traitors under
Lee were swelling across the border, into a loyal State; when Grant
stood in seemingly hopeless waiting before Vicksburg, and Banks before
Port Hudson; and the whole people of the North, depressed and
disheartened by the continued series of defeats to our arms, were
beginning to look each at his neighbor, and whisper with white lips,
"Perhaps, after all, this struggle is to be in vain."
Had it been attempted at this precise time, it would, without question,
have been, not a riot, but an insurrection,--would have been a portion
of the army of rebellion, organized and effective for the prosecution of
the war, and not a mob, hideous and devilish in its work of destruction,
yet still a mob; and as such to be beaten down and dispersed in a
comparatively short space of time.
On the morning of Monday, the thirteenth of July, began this outbreak,
unparalleled in atrocities by anything in American history, and
equalled only by the horrors of the worst days of the French Revolution.
Gangs of men and boys, composed of railroad _employées_, workers in
machine-shops, and a vast crowd of those who lived by preying upon
others, thieves, pimps, professional ruffians,--the scum of the
city,--jail-birds, or those who were running with swift feet to enter
the prison-doors, began to gather on the corners, and in streets and
alleys where they lived; from thence issuing forth they visited the
great establishments on the line of their advance, commanding their
instant close and the companionship of the workmen,--many of them
peaceful and orderly men,--on pain of the destruction of one and a
murderous assault upon the other, did not their orders meet with instant
compliance.
A body of these, five or six hundred strong, gathered about one of the
enrolling-offices in the upper part of the city, where the draft was
quietly proceeding, and opened the assault upon it by a shower of clubs,
bricks, and paving-stones torn from the streets, following it up by a
furious rush into the office. Lists, records, books, the drafting-wheel,
every article of furniture or work in the room was rent in pieces, and
strewn about the floor or flung into the street; while the law officers,
the newspaper reporters,--who are expected to be everywhere,--and the
few peaceable spectators, were compelled to make a hasty retreat through
an opportune rear exit, accelerated by the curses and blows of the
assailants.
A safe in the room, which contained some of the hated records, was
fallen upon by the men, who strove to wrench open its impregnable lock
with their naked hands, and, baffled, beat them on its iron doors and
sides till they were stained with blood, in a mad frenzy of senseless
hate and fury. And then, finding every portable article
destroyed,--their thirst for ruin growing by the little drink it had
had,--and believing, or rather hoping, that the officers had taken
refuge in the upper rooms, set fire to the house, and stood watching the
slow and steady lift of the flames, filling the air with demoniac
shrieks and yells, while they waited for the prey to escape from some
door or window, from the merciless fire to their merciless hands. One of
these, who was on the other side of the street, courageously stepped
forward, and, telling them that they had utterly demolished all they
came to seek, informed them that helpless women and little children were
in the house, and besought them to extinguish the flames and leave the
ruined premises; to disperse, or at least to seek some other scene.
By his dress recognizing in him a government official, so far from
hearing or heeding his humane appeal, they set upon him with sticks and
clubs, and beat him till his eyes were blind with blood, and he--bruised
and mangled--succeeded in escaping to the handful of police who stood
helpless before this howling crew, now increased to thousands. With
difficulty and pain the inoffensive tenants escaped from the rapidly
spreading fire, which, having devoured the house originally lighted,
swept across the neighboring buildings till the whole block stood a mass
of burning flames. The firemen came up tardily and reluctantly, many of
them of the same class as the miscreants who surrounded them, and who
cheered at their approach, but either made no attempt to perform their
duty, or so feeble and farcical a one, as to bring disgrace upon a
service they so generally honor and ennoble.
At last, when there was here nothing more to accomplish, the mob,
swollen to a frightful size, including myriads of wretched, drunken
women, and the half-grown, vagabond boys of the pavements, rushed
through the intervening streets, stopping cars and insulting peaceable
citizens on their way, to an armory where were manufactured and stored
carbines and guns for the government. In anticipation of the attack,
this, earlier in the day, had been fortified by a police squad capable
of coping with an ordinary crowd of ruffians, but as chaff before fire
in the presence of these murderous thousands. Here, as before, the
attack was begun by a rain of missiles gathered from the streets; less
fatal, doubtless, than more civilized arms, but frightful in the ghastly
wounds and injuries they inflicted. Of this no notice was taken by those
who were stationed within; it was repeated. At last, finding they were
treated with contemptuous silence, and that no sign of surrender was
offered, the crowd swayed back,--then forward,--in a combined attempt to
force the wide entrance-doors. Heavy hammers and sledges, which had been
brought from forges and workshops, caught up hastily as they gathered
the mechanics into their ranks, were used with frightful violence to
beat them in,--at last successfully. The foremost assailants began to
climb the stairs, but were checked, and for the moment driven back by
the fire of the officers, who at last had been commanded to resort to
their revolvers. A half-score fell wounded; and one, who had been acting
in some sort as their leader,--a big, brutal, Irish ruffian,--dropped
dead.
The pause was but for an instant. As the smoke cleared away there was a
general and ferocious onslaught upon the armory; curses, oaths,
revilings, hideous and obscene blasphemy, with terrible yells and cries,
filled the air in every accent of the English tongue save that spoken by
a native American. Such were there mingled with the sea of sound, but
they were so few and weak as to be unnoticeable in the roar of voices.
The paving stones flew like hail, until the street was torn into gaps
and ruts, and every window-pane, and sash, and doorway, was smashed or
broken. Meanwhile, divers attempts were made to fire the building, but
failed through haste or ineffectual materials, or the vigilant
watchfulness of the besieged. In the midst of this gallant defence, word
was brought to the defenders from head-quarters that nothing could be
done for their support; and that, if they would save their lives, they
must make a quick and orderly retreat. Fortunately, there was a side
passage with which the mob was unacquainted, and, one by one they
succeeded in gaining this, and vanishing. A few, too faithful or too
plucky to retreat before such a foe, persisted in remaining at their
posts till the fire, which had at last been communicated to the
building, crept unpleasantly near; then, by dropping from sill to sill
of the broken windows, or sliding by their hands and feet down the rough
pipes and stones, reached the pavement,--but not without injuries and
blows, and broken bones, which disabled for a lifetime, if indeed they
did not die in the hospitals to which a few of the more mercifully
disposed carried them.
The work thus begun, continued,--gathering in force and fury as the day
wore on. Police stations, enrolling-offices, rooms or buildings used in
any way by government authority, or obnoxious as representing the
dignity of law, were gutted, destroyed, then left to the mercy of the
flames. Newspaper offices, whose issues had been a fire in the rear of
the nation's armies by extenuating and defending treason, and through
violent and incendiary appeals stirring up "lewd fellows of the baser
sort" to this very carnival of ruin and blood, were cheered as the crowd
went by. Those that had been faithful to loyalty and law were hooted,
stoned, and even stormed by the army of miscreants who were only driven
off by the gallant and determined charge of the police, and in one place
by the equally gallant, and certainly unique defence, which came from
turning the boiling water from the engines upon the howling wretches,
who, unprepared for any such warm reception as this, beat a precipitate
and general retreat. Before night fell it was no longer one vast crowd
collected in a single section, but great numbers of gatherings,
scattered over the whole length and breadth of the city,--some of them
engaged in actual work of demolition and ruin; others with clubs and
weapons in their hands, prowling round apparently with no definite
atrocity to perpetrate, but ready for any iniquity that might
offer,--and, by way of pastime, chasing every stray police officer, or
solitary soldier, or inoffensive negro, who crossed the line of their
vision; these three objects--the badge of a defender of the law,--the
uniform of the Union army,--the skin of a helpless and outraged
race--acted upon these madmen as water acts upon a rabid dog.
Late in the afternoon a crowd which could have numbered not less than
ten thousand, the majority of whom were ragged, frowzy, drunken women,
gathered about the Orphan Asylum for Colored Children,--a large and
beautiful building, and one of the most admirable and noble charities of
the city. When it became evident, from the menacing cries and groans of
the multitude, that danger, if not destruction, was meditated to the
harmless and inoffensive inmates, a flag of truce appeared, and an
appeal was made in their behalf, by the principal, to every sentiment of
humanity which these beings might possess,--a vain appeal! Whatever
human feeling had ever, if ever, filled these souls was utterly drowned
and washed away in the tide of rapine and blood in which they had been
steeping themselves. The few officers who stood guard over the doors,
and manfully faced these demoniac legions, were beaten down and flung
to one side, helpless and stunned whilst the vast crowd rushed in. All
the articles upon which they could seize--beds, bedding, carpets,
furniture,--the very garments of the fleeing inmates, some of these torn
from their persons as they sped by--were carried into the streets, and
hurried off by the women and children who stood ready to receive the
goods which their husbands, sons, and fathers flung to their care. The
little ones, many of them, assailed and beaten; all,--orphans and
caretakers,--exposed to every indignity and every danger, driven on to
the street,--the building was fired. This had been attempted whilst the
helpless children--some of them scarce more than babies--were still in
their rooms; but this devilish consummation was prevented by the heroism
of one man. He, the Chief of the Fire Department, strove by voice and
arm to stay the endeavor; and when, overcome by superior numbers, the
brands had been lit and piled, with naked hands, and in the face of
threatened death, he tore asunder the glowing embers, and trod them
under foot. Again the effort was made, and again failed through the
determined and heroic opposition of this solitary soul. Then, on the
front steps, in the midst of these drunken and infuriate thousands, he
stood up and besought them, if they cared nothing for themselves nor for
these hapless orphans, that they would not bring lasting disgrace upon
the city by destroying one of its noblest charities, which had for its
object nothing but good.
He was answered on all sides by yells and execrations, and frenzied
shrieks of "Down with the nagurs!" coupled with every oath and every
curse that malignant hate of the blacks could devise, and drunken, Irish
tongues could speak. It had been decreed that this building was to be
razed to the ground. The house was fired in a thousand places, and in
less than two hours the walls crashed in,--a mass of smoking, blackened
ruins; whilst the children wandered through the streets, a prey to
beings who were wild beasts in everything save the superior ingenuity of
man to agonize and torture his victims.
Frightful as the day had been, the night was yet more hideous; since to
the horrors which were seen was added the greater horror of deeds which
might be committed in the darkness; or, if they were seen, it was by the
lurid glare of burning buildings,--the red flames of which--flung upon
the stained and brutal faces, the torn and tattered garments, of men and
women who danced and howled around the scene of ruin they had
caused--made the whole aspect of affairs seem more like a gathering of
fiends rejoicing in Pandemonium than aught with which creatures of flesh
and blood had to do.
Standing on some elevated point, looking over the great city, which
presented, as usual, at night, a solemn and impressive show, the
spectator was thrilled with a fearful admiration by the sights and
sounds which gave to it a mysterious and awful interest. A thousand
fires streamed up against the sky, making darkness visible; and from all
sides came a combination of noises such as might be heard from an
asylum in which were gathered the madmen of the world.
The next morning's sun rose on a city which was ruled by a reign of
terror. Had the police possessed the heads of Hydra and the arms of
Briareus, and had these heads all seen, these arms all fought, they
would have been powerless against the multitude of opposers. Outbreaks
were made, crowds gathered, houses burned, streets barricaded, fights
enacted, in a score of places at once. Where the officers appeared they
were irretrievably beaten and overcome; their stand, were it ever so
short, but inflaming the passions of the mob to fresh deeds of violence.
Stores were closed; the business portion of the city deserted; the large
works and factories emptied of men, who had been sent home by their
employers, or were swept into the ranks of the marauding bands. The city
cars, omnibuses, hacks, were unable to run, and remained under shelter.
Every telegraph wire was cut, the posts torn up, the operators driven
from their offices. The mayor, seeing that civil power was helpless to
stem this tide, desired to call the military to his aid, and place the
city under martial law, but was opposed by the Governor,--a governor,
who, but a few days before, had pronounced the war a failure; and not
only predicted, but encouraged this mob rule, which was now crushing
everything beneath its heavy and ensanguined feet. This man, through
almost two days of these awful scenes, remained at a quiet seaside
retreat but a few miles from the city. Coming to it on the afternoon of
the second day,--instead of ordering cannon planted in the streets,
giving these creatures opportunity to retire to their homes, and, in the
event of refusal, blowing them there by powder and ball,--he first went
to the point where was collected the chiefest mob, and proceeded to
address them. Before him stood incendiaries, thieves, and murderers, who
even then were sacking dwelling-houses, and butchering powerless and
inoffensive beings. These wretches he apostrophized as "My friends,"
repeating the title again and again in the course of his harangue,
assuring them that he was there as a proof of his friendship,--which he
had demonstrated by "sending his adjutant-general to Washington, to have
the draft stopped"; begging them to "wait for his return"; "to separate
now as good citizens"; with the promise that they "might assemble again
whenever they wished to so do"; meanwhile, he would "take care of their
rights." This model speech was incessantly interrupted by tremendous
cheering and frantic demonstrations of delight,--one great fellow almost
crushing the Governor in his enthusiastic embrace. This ended, he
entered a carriage, and was driven through the blackened, smoking scenes
of Monday's devastations; through fresh vistas of outrage, of the day's
execution; bland, gracious, smiling. Wherever he appeared, cheer upon
cheer rent the air from these crowds of drunken blasphemers; and in one
place the carriage in which he sat was actually lifted from the ground,
and carried some rods, by hands yet red with deeds of arson and murder;
while from all sides voices cried out, "Will ye stop the draft,
Gov'nur?" "Bully boy!" "Ye're the man for us!" "Hooray for Gov'nur
Saymoor!" Thus, through the midst of this admiring and applauding crowd,
this high officer of the law, sworn to maintain public peace, moved to
his hotel, where he was met by a despatch from Washington, informing him
that five regiments were under arms and on their way to put an end to
this bloody assistance to the Southern war.
His allies in newspaper offices attempted to throw the blame upon the
loyal press and portion of the community. This was but a repetition of
the cry, raised by traitors in arms, that the government, struggling for
life in their deadly hold, was responsible for the war: "If thou wouldst
but consent to be murdered peaceably, there could be no strife."
These editors outraged common sense, truth, and decency, by speaking of
the riots as an "uprising of the people to defend their liberties,"--"an
opposition on the part of the workingmen to an unjust and oppressive
law, enacted in favor of the men of wealth and standing." As though the
_people_ of the great metropolis were incendiaries, robbers, and
assassins; as though the poor were to demonstrate their indignation
against the rich by hunting and stoning defenceless women and children;
torturing and murdering men whose only offence was the color God gave
them, or men wearing the self-same uniform as that which they declared
was to be thrust upon them at the behest of the rich and the great.
It was absurd and futile to characterize this new Reign of Terror as
anything but an effort on the part of Northern rebels to help Southern
ones, at the most critical moment of the war,--with the State militia
and available troops absent in a neighboring Commonwealth,--and the
loyal people unprepared. These editors and their coadjutors, men of
brains and ability, were of that most poisonous growth,--traitors to the
Government and the flag of their country,--renegade Americans. Let it,
however, be written plainly and graven deeply, that the tribes of
savages--the hordes of ruffians--found ready to do their loathsome
bidding, were not of native growth, nor American born.
While it is true that there were some glib-tongued fellows who spoke the
language without foreign accent, all of them of the lowest order of
Democratic ward-politicians, of creatures skulking from the outstretched
arm of avenging law; while the most degraded of the German population
were represented; while it is also true that there were Irish, and
Catholic Irish too,--industrious, sober, intelligent people,--who
indignantly refused participation in these outrages, and mourned over
the barbarities which were disgracing their national name; it is
pre-eminently true,--proven by thousands of witnesses, and testified to
by numberless tongues,--that the masses, the rank and file, the almost
entire body of rioters, were the worst classes of Irish emigrants,
infuriated by artful appeals, and maddened by the atrocious whiskey of
thousands of grog-shops.
By far the most infamous part of these cruelties was that which wreaked
every species of torture and lingering death upon the colored people of
the city,--men, women, and children, old and young, strong and feeble
alike. Hundreds of these fell victims to the prejudice fostered by
public opinion, incorporated in our statute-books, sanctioned by our
laws, which here and thus found legitimate outgrowth and action. The
horrors which blanched the face of Christendom were but the bloody
harvest of fields sown by society, by cultured men and women, by speech,
and book, and press, by professions and politics, nay, by the pulpit
itself, and the men who there make God's truth a lie,--garbling or
denying the inspired declaration that "He has made of one blood all
people to dwell upon the face of the earth"; and that he, the All-Just
and Merciful One, "is no respecter of persons."
This riot, begun ostensibly to oppose the enforcement of a single law,
developed itself into a burning and pillaging assault upon the homes and
property of peaceful citizens. To realize this, it was only necessary to
walk the streets, if that were possible, through those days of riot and
conflagration, observe the materials gathered into the vast, moving
multitudes, and scrutinize the faces of those of whom they were
composed,--deformed, idiotic, drunken, imbecile, poverty-stricken;
seamed with every line which wretchedness could draw or vicious habits
and associations delve. To walk these streets and look upon these faces
was like a fearful witnessing in perspective of the last day, when the
secrets of life, more loathsome than those of death, shall be laid bare
in all their hideous deformity and ghastly shame.
The knowledge of these people and their deeds was sufficient to create a
paralysis of fear, even where they were not seen. Indeed, there was
terror everywhere. High and low, rich and poor, cultured and ignorant,
all shivered in its awful grasp. Upon stately avenues and noisome alleys
it fell with the like blackness of darkness. Women cried aloud to God
with the same agonized entreaty from knees bent on velvet carpets or
bare and dingy floors. Men wandered up and down, prisoners in their own
homes, and cursed or prayed with equal fury or intensity whether the
homes were simple or splendid. Here one surveyed all his costly store of
rare and exquisite surroundings, and shook his head as he gazed, ominous
and foreboding. There, another of darker hue peered out from garret
casement, or cellar light, or broken window-pane, and, shuddering,
watched some woman stoned and beaten till she died; some child shot
down, while thousands of heavy, brutal feet trod over it till the hard
stones were red with its blood, and the little prostrate form, yet warm,
lost every likeness of humanity, and lay there, a sickening mass of
mangled flesh and bones; some man assaulted, clubbed, overborne, left
wounded or dying or dead, as he fell, or tied to some convenient tree or
lamp-post to be hacked and hewn, or flayed and roasted, yet living,
where he hung,--and watching this, and cowering as he watched, held his
breath, and waited his own turn, not knowing when it might come.