SECOND DAY.
Appearance of the City.--Assembling of the Mob.--Fight between Rioters
and the Police and Soldiers.--Storming of Houses.--Rioters hurled
from the Roofs.--Soldiers fire on the People.--Awful Death of
Colonel O'Brien.--Fight in Pitt Street.--Deadly Conflict for a Wire
Factory.--Horrible Impaling of a Mart on an Iron Picket.--Mystery
attached to Him.--Second Attack on Mayor Opdyke's House.--Second
Fight for the Wire Factory.--Telegraphic Dispatches.--Citizens
Volunteering.--Raid on the Negroes.--They are hunted to Death.--Savage
Spectacle.--Negroes seek Head-quarters of Police.--Appearance and State
of the City.--Colonel Nugent's House sacked.--Fight with the Mob in
Third Avenue.--Battle at Gibbon's House.--Policeman Shot.--Night
Attack on Brooks and Brothers' Clothing Store.--Value of the Telegraph
System.--Captain Petty.--Seymour's Speech to the Mob.--Cars and Stages
seized.--Barricades.--Other Fights.--Acton and his Labors.
The early July morning broke tranquilly over the great city, and the
rattling of vehicles was heard in some of the streets, where men were
going to their places of business. In a large portion of it everything
wore its usual air of tranquillity, yet a close observer would notice an
uneasiness resting on the countenances of men. Furtive glances were
cast down side streets, and people seemed on the watch, as though in
expectation of something to come, and the very atmosphere appeared laden
with evil omens. Around police head-quarters, and inside the building,
were large bodies of policemen and the U. S. troops under General Brown.
But uptown, in the vicinity of Thirteenth Street and Second and Third
Avenues, crowds of men began early to assemble, though perfectly quiet
in their demeanor, while smaller knots in the adjoining wards could be
seen discussing the events of the day before. In the meantime, exciting
reports came from Harlem and Yorkville--as early as five o'clock, the
following telegram was sent to the Twentieth Precinct: "Notify General
Sandford to go immediately to Eighty-sixth Street and Harlem--mob
burning." Indeed the air was charged with electricity, but the
commissioners now felt ready to meet the storm whenever and wherever
it should burst. A large force of special policemen had been sworn in,
while General Brown had over seven hundred troops, ready to co-operate
with the police. The public buildings were all well guarded--Sandford
had a strong force in the arsenal, and the military and civil
authorities stood waiting the next movement of the mob. Telegrams
arriving, showed that the northern part of the city was alive with
gathering crowds, while from Sixth Avenue on the west nearly to Second
Avenue in the east, and down almost to Broome Street, the streets were
black with excited men. Stores were closed, factories emptied of their
hands, who voluntarily joined the rioters, or were forced into their
ranks, and there was evidently a gathering of the elements in those
directions for a fearful storm. Soon immense crowds began to patrol the
streets in different wards, showing that simultaneous action would be
required at various points. The troops were called out and marshalled in
Mulberry Street, and those companies selected for immediate action drawn
up in line. Colonel Frothingham, after an earnest conversation with the
officers, addressed the soldiers. He told them that the fate of the
city was in their hands, and everything depended on their good conduct.
Knowing the temptations to disorderly conduct in the midst of the great
city, he urged on them especially to obey implicitly their officers
under all circumstances. His manner and words were earnest, and listened
to with profound attention. Soon a company headed by Sergeant Carpenter,
with a police force two hundred and fifty strong, started for Second and
Third Avenues, where the greatest gatherings were reported to be.
At this time the rioters seemed hesitating about their course of action.
There was apparently no recognized leader, no common understanding and
purpose, though all were engaged in animated discussions of some topic.
Dirty, ferocious-looking women were scattered through the crowd; some of
the men were armed, while all looked defiant and determined.
There were doubtless many who had come from mere curiosity, and a few
attempted to allay the excitement, among them a Catholic priest, who
harangued them, urging them to maintain peace. His address seemed to
have considerable influence on those immediately around him; but as soon
as he left, his words were forgotten, and the mighty throng, estimated
by some at ten thousand, began to be agitated by passion. What would
have been the first act of violence, it is impossible to say, had they
been left undisturbed. But at the cry of "the police and soldiers are
coming," everything else was forgotten.
Inspector Carpenter, coming down Twenty-first Street, struck Second
Avenue, and wheeling, moved in solid column through the crowd up to
Thirty-second Street. The force was assailed with hoots and yells, and
all kinds of opprobrious epithets, but no violence was shown, until it
had crossed Thirty-second Street. The mob not only filled the street,
but numbers, with piles of stones and brick-bats, had climbed to the
roofs of the houses. These deeming themselves secure, suddenly, with one
accord, rained their missiles on the rear of the column.
The men fell rapidly, and two were dangerously hurt. Carpenter
immediately halted his command, and ordered fifty men to enter the
houses, and mounting to the roof, clear them of the assailants.
Barricaded doors were at once broken in, and every one that opposed
their progress clubbed without mercy, as they made their way to the
upper floors. Captain Mount of the Eleventh Precinct, led this storming
party. Officers Watson and Cole distinguished themselves by being the
first on the roof, fighting their way through a narrow scuttle. As
the police, one by one, stepped on to the roof, they rushed on the
desperadoes with their clubs, and felled them rapidly. Those who
attempted to escape through the scuttles were met by the police in the
rooms below; or if one chanced to reach the street, he was knocked down
by those keeping guard there. Some dropped from second and third story
windows, and met with a worse fate than those who staid behind. One huge
fellow received such a tremendous blow, that he was knocked off his feet
and over the edge of the roof, and fell headlong down a height of four
stories to the pavement beneath. Crushed to death by the force of the
fall, he lay a mangled heap at the feet of his companions.
The fight was sharp and fierce, and kept up for nearly an hour, and
bodies scattered around showed with what deadly force the club had been
wielded. But with the clearing of the houses there came a lull in the
conflict, and the immense crowd looked on in sullen silence, as the
police reformed in the street, and recommenced their march. The military
force that had accompanied the police, had formed on the avenue, about
a block and a half above where the latter were stationed, while the
detachment was clearing the houses. Two howitzers were placed in
position commanding the avenue. Colonel O'Brien, of the Eleventh New
York Volunteers, who was raising a regiment for the war, had gathered
together, apparently on his own responsibility, about fifty men, and
appearing on the field, from his superior rank, assumed command. For a
short time the rioters remained quiet, but as the police marched away,
they suddenly awoke out of their apparent indifference. Maddened at the
sight of the mangled bodies of their friends stretched on the pavement,
and enraged at their defeat by the police, they now turned on the
soldiers, and began to pelt them with stones and brick-bats. O'Brien
rode up and down the centre of the street a few times, evidently
thinking his fearless bearing would awe the mob. But they only jeered
him, and finding the attack growing hotter and more determined, he
finally gave the order to fire. The howitzers belched forth on the
crowd, the soldiers levelled their pieces, and the whistling of
minie-balls was heard on every side. Men and women, reeled and fell on
the sidewalk and in the street. One woman, with her child in her arms,
fell, pierced with a bullet. The utmost consternation followed. The
crowd knew from sad experience that the police would use their clubs,
but they seemed to think it hardly possible that the troops would
fire point-blank into their midst. But the deadly effect of the fire
convinced them of their error, and they began to jostle and crowd each
other in the effort to get out of its range. In a few minutes the avenue
was cleared of the living, when the wounded and dead were cared for by
their friends. Order had been restored, and O'Brien, with some twenty
or thirty men, marched down to police head-quarters, and offered his
services to Genera Brown. Colonel Frothingham thanked him, but soon saw
that the Colonel was not in a fit state to have command of troops, and
so reported to General Brown. O'Brien appeared to comprehend the state
of things, and asked to be excused on the plea of sickness. He was
excused, and rode away. Whether he disbanded his handful of men, or they
disbanded themselves, was not stated, but _he_ was soon back again at
the scene of the riot. His residence was close by, but had been deserted
that morning by the family, which had fled in alarm to Brooklyn.
Scowling visages lowered on the colonel, as he rode slowly back among
the crowd, and low muttered threats were heard. Although an Irishman,
and well-known in that neighborhood, his sympathy with the Government
had awakened more or less hostile feeling against him, which his conduct
to-day kindled into deadly hate. Apparently unconscious or reckless of
this, he dismounted, and entered a neighboring drug-store or saloon.
After remaining a few moments he came out, and paused as he beheld the
crowd that had assembled around the door. There was little said, but
dark and angry countenances were bent on him from every side, and he saw
that mischief was intended. Drawing his sword, and taking a revolver in
the other hand, he deliberately walked out into the street. He had taken
but a few steps, when a powerful blow on the back of his head made him
stagger forward. In an instant a rush was made for him, and blows
were rained so fast and fierce upon him, that he was unable to defend
himself. Knocked down and terribly mangled, he was dragged with savage
brutality over the rough pavement, and swung from side to side like a
billet of wood, till the large, powerful body was a mass of gore, and
the face beaten to a pumice. The helpless but still animate form would
then be left awhile in the street, while the crowd, as it swayed to and
fro, gazed on it with cool indifference or curses. At length a Catholic
priest, who had either been sent for, or came along to offer his
services wherever they might be needed, approached the dying man and
read the service of the Catholic Church over him, the crowd in the
meantime remaining silent. After he had finished, he told them to
leave the poor man alone, as he was fast sinking. But as soon as he had
disappeared, determined to make sure work with their victim, they again
began to pound and trample on the body. In the intervals of the attack,
the still living man would feebly lift his head, or roll it from side to
side on the stones, or heave a faint groan.
The whole afternoon was spent in this fiendish work, and no attempt was
made to rescue him. Towards sundown the body was dragged into his own
back-yard, his regimentals all torn from him, except his pantaloons,
leaving the naked body, from the waist up, a mass of mangled flesh
clotted with blood.
But the dying man could not be left alone in his own yard. A crowd
followed him thither, among which were women, who committed the most
atrocious violence on the body, until at last, with one convulsive
movement of the head, and a deep groan, the strong man yielded up his
life.
While this tragedy was being enacted here, similar scenes were occurring
all over the city. Mobs were everywhere, the spirit of pandemonium was
abroad, and havoc and revenge let loose.
Lieutenant Wood, whom General Brown had sent off, with a company of
regulars, came in conflict with a mob, two thousand strong, in Pitt and
Delancey Streets. Marching along Houston to the Bowery, he turned down
the latter, and kept on to Grand. On reaching Pitt Street, he beheld
the hooting, yelling crowd coming straight towards him. He immediately
formed his little force of one hundred and fifty men in line across
the street, and brought them to "shoulder arms." One of the ringleaders
stepped forward to speak to him, when Lieutenant Wood waved him off.
This was the signal for the attack, and immediately a shower of stones
fell among the soldiers. The officer ordered the men to fire--it was
said over the heads of the rioters--in order to disperse them. The
result was scattering shots in return from the latter. Wood then ordered
a point-blank volley, when men tumbled over right and left. The crowd
did not wait for a second, but fled in every direction. Wood then
marched back to headquarters, but on the way slipped and sprained his
ankle, which caused a report that he had been wounded.
A bloody conflict also took place between the police and mob in the same
avenue where Colonel O'Brien fell, below Thirtieth Street. There was a
wire factory here, in which several thousand carbines were stored.
Of this, some of the rioters were aware, and communicated the fact to
others, and a plan was formed to capture them. Having discovered from
the morning's experience that the military had been called in to aid
the police, arms became imperatively necessary, if they hoped to make
a successful resistance. All public depositories of arms they knew were
guarded, but this factory was not, and hence they resolved to capture it
without delay. Swarming around it, they forced the entrance, and began
to throw out the carbines to their friends. The attack, however, had
been telegraphed to head-quarters, and Inspector Dilks was despatched
with two hundred men to save the building, and recover any arms that
might be captured. He marched rapidly up to Twenty-first Street, and
down it to the avenue. Here he came suddenly upon the mob, that blocked
the entire street. As the head of the force appeared, the rioters,
instead of being frightened, greeted it with jeers and curses. It was
two hundred against a thousand; but the inspector did not hesitate a
moment on account of the inequality of numbers, but instantly formed
his men and ordered a charge. The mob, instead of recoiling, closed
desperately on the police, and a fierce hand-to-hand encounter took
place. The clubs, however, mowed a clean swath along the street, and the
compact little force pushed like a wedge into the throng, and cleared a
bloody space for itself. The orders were to recapture all the arms; for
this was of more vital importance than the capture of men. Wherever,
therefore, a musket was seen, a man would dash for it, and, seizing it,
fight his way back into line. On the pavement, the sidewalk, and in the
gutters, men lay bleeding and dying, until at last, the more resolute
having been knocked on the head, the vast crowd, like a herd of buffalo,
broke and tore madly down the street. One of the leaders was a man
of desperate courage, and led on the mob with reckless fury, though
bleeding freely from the terrible punishment he received. As his
comrades turned to flee, leaving him alone, a fearful blow sent him
reeling and staggering towards the sidewalk. As he reached it, he fell
heavily over against the iron railing, and his chin striking one of the
iron pickets, the sharp point entered it and penetrated through to the
roof of his mouth. No one noticed him, or if they did, paid no attention
to him in the headlong flight on the one hand, and swift pursuit on the
other. Thus horridly impaled, his body hanging down along the sidewalk,
the wretched man was left to die. At length Captain Hedden noticed him,
and lifting up the corpse, laid it down on the sidewalk. It was found,
to the surprise of all, to be that of a young man of delicate features
and white, fair skin. "Although dressed as a laborer, in dirty overalls
and filthy shirt, underneath these were fine cassimere pants, handsome,
rich vest, and fine linen shirt." [Footnote: D.M. Barnes.] He was
evidently a man in position far above the rough villains he led on, but
had disguised himself so, as not to be known. He never was known. The
corpse, during the fight that followed, disappeared with the bodies of
many others.
The street being cleared, Dilks turned his attention to the factory,
which was filled with armed rioters, who were determined to defend it
to the last. Detaching a portion of his force, he ordered it to take the
building by storm. Dashing over all obstacles, the men won the stairway
step by step, and entering the main room on the second story, felled a
man at almost every blow. Those who succeeded in escaping down-stairs
were knocked on the head by the force in the street, and soon no rioters
were left but the dead and dying. How many fell in this fight it is
impossible to tell; but one physician alone dressed the wounds of
twenty-one desperately wounded men. Taking what guns they could find and
had captured in the street, the force marched triumphantly back, cheered
on their way by the spectators.
In the meantime, Mayor Opdyke's house in Fifth Avenue had again been
attacked and partially sacked. Captain Maniere, one of the provost
marshals, however, assembled a small force, and drove out the rioters,
who were mostly young men and boys, before the work of destruction was
complete. The news of this attack had been telegraphed to head-quarters
of the police, and Captain Helme, of the Twenty-seventh Precinct,
despatched to its defence. At his approach the rioters dispersed.
Soon after, he was ordered with his command over to the Second Avenue,
accompanied by a detachment of troops under Captain Franklin. This was
in the afternoon--the mob had reassembled, and reinforced by those who
had been dispersed at Thirty-fourth Street, where Colonel O'Brien fell,
had overcome the small body of police at the wire factory, and again
taken possession of it. They had found some boxes of guns that had been
overlooked by Dilks, and having armed themselves, determined to hold
it. Even women joined in the defence. As the force approached, it was
greeted with shouts of defiance and missiles of every kind. An immense
crowd was gathered outside, while the windows of the five-story building
were filled with angry, excited faces, and arms wildly gesticulating.
Charging on this dense mass, and clubbing their way to the building, the
police entered it, and streaming up the stairways, cleared it floor by
floor, some being knocked senseless, others leaping from windows, to be
killed by the fall, and others escaping down-stairs, to be met by the
force in the street. A thorough search was now made for arms, and the
building emptied of them. Taking possession of these, the police and
military took up their line of march for head-quarters. They had not
proceeded far, however, before the mob that had scattered in every
direction began to pour back again into the avenue, and close on the
military that were bringing up the rear. Following them with hoots and
yells that were unheeded, they became emboldened, and pressing nearer,
began to hurl stones and bricks, and everything they could lay their
hands on, against the soldiers. The latter bore it for awhile patiently;
but this only made the wretches more fierce and daring. Seeing there
was but one way to end this, Captain Franklin ordered his men to "About
face;" and "ready, aim, fire," fell in quick succession. The yelling,
shouting crowd were in point-blank range, and the volley told with
deadly effect. The street was strewed with dead and dying, while the
living fled down the avenue.
In the meantime, mobs had sprung up in every part of the city; some
larger and some smaller; some after negroes, others firing buildings or
sacking them.
Some idea of the pressure on the Police Commissioners during this
forenoon, and the condition the city was in, may be gathered from the
following despatches, which are only a small portion of those received
and answered in two hours:
10.20. From Thirteenth. Send military here immediately.
10.22. To Seventh. Find military and send them to Thirteenth Street
forthwith.
10.45. From Sixteenth. A mob has just attacked Jones' soap factory;
stores all closed.
10.50. To Twenty-sixth. Tell Inspector Leonard to send one hundred men
here forthwith.
10.55. To Twentieth. From General Brown. Send to arsenal and say a heavy
battle is going on. Captain Wilkins and company of regulars will report
to me here at once.
11.18. From Sixteenth. Mob is coming down to station-house; we have no
men.
11.20. From Eighteenth. The mob is very wild, corner Twenty-second
Street and Second Avenue. They have attacked the Union steam factory.
11.35. To Twenty-sixth. Send another one hundred men here forthwith.
11.35. From Twentieth. Send one hundred men to disperse mob assailing
Mayor Opdyke's house.
11.38. To Twenty-first. Can you send a few men here?
11.40. From Twenty-second. The mob has gone to Mr. Higgins' factory,
foot of Forty-third Street, to burn it.
11.45. From Eighteenth. What shall we do? The mob is about 4,500 strong.
_Answer_. Clear them down, if you can.
11.50. From Eighteenth. We must leave; the mob is here with guns.
11.50. From Twentieth. Mob tearing up track on Eleventh Avenue.
11.58. The mob have just sacked a large gun-store in Grand Street, and
are armed, and are on the way to attack us.
12.10. To Fifteenth. Send your men here forthwith.
12.35. From Twentieth. Send two hundred men forthwith to Thirty-fifth
Street arsenal.
12.36. From Twenty-first. The mob have just broken open a gun-store on
Third Avenue, between Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Streets, and are
arming.
12.40. From Twenty-first. Send help--the crowd is desperate.
And so on.
Between these rapid telegrams asking for help, were others making and
answering inquiries. And so it was kept up from daylight till midnight
for three days in succession. These urgent calls for help coming from
every quarter at the same time, would have thrown into inextricable
confusion a less clear head than Acton's. It was a terrible strain on
him, and had it continued a little longer, would have cost him his life.
In the midst of it all he received anonymous letters, telling him he had
but one more day to live.
But while the police head-quarters were thus crowded with business, and
the commissioners were straining every nerve to meet the frightful state
of things in the city, other means were being taken to add to their
efficiency.
Governor Seymour had reached the city, and after being closeted with
Mayor Opdyke, had issued a proclamation, calling on the rioters to
disperse, and saying that they would be put down at all hazards.
At a meeting of the merchants and bankers in Wall Street, it was
resolved to close up business, and form volunteer companies of a hundred
men each, to serve under the military. General Wetmore was one of the
first to offer his services. The high-spirited citizen, William E.
Dodge, was among the most prominent advocates of the measure, and soon
found himself a captain under orders. The steamboat of the harbor police
was busy in bringing troops and cannon from Riker's and Governor's
Island, and rapidly steaming from point to point on the river, to
prevent destruction around the docks. Around the arsenal cannon were
placed. At the city armory, corner of White and Elm Streets, were a
company of the Eighty-fourth New York Militia, and some of the Zouaves
and other troops. The Sub-treasury and Custom House were defended by the
Tenth National Zouaves and a hundred and fifty armed citizens. In front
of the Government stores in Worth and White streets, the Invalid Corps
and a company of marines patrolled, while howitzers loaded with grape
and canister, stood on the corner of the street. Nearly four hundred
citizens had been sworn in at police head-quarters as special policemen,
and had been furnished with clubs and badges. All this time the fight
was going on in every direction, while the fire-bells continually
ringing increased the terror that every hour became more wide-spread.
Especially was this true of the negro population. From the outset, they
had felt they were to be objects of vengeance, and all day Monday and
to-day those who could leave, fled into the country. They crowded the
ferry-boats in every direction, fleeing for life. But old men and women,
and poor families, were compelled to stay behind, and meet the fury of
the mob, and to-day it became a regular hunt for them. A sight of one in
the streets would call forth a halloo, as when, a fox breaks cover, and
away would dash a half a dozen men in pursuit. Sometimes a whole crowd
streamed after with shouts and curses, that struck deadly terror to the
heart of the fugitive. If overtaken, he was pounded to death at once;
if he escaped into a negro house for safety, it was set on fire, and
the inmates made to share a common fate. Deeds were done and sights
witnessed that one would not have dreamed of, except among savage
tribes.
At one time there lay at the corner of Twenty seventh-Street and Seventh
Avenue the dead body of a negro, stripped nearly naked, and around it
a collection of Irishmen, absolutely dancing or shouting like wild
Indians. Sullivan and Roosevelt Streets are great negro quarters,
and here a negro was afraid to be seen in the street. If in want of
something from a grocery, he would carefully open the door, and look
up and down to see if any one was watching, and then steal cautiously
forth, and hurry home on his errand. Two boarding-houses here were
surrounded by a mob, but the lodgers, seeing the coming storm, fled. The
desperadoes, finding only the owner left behind, wreaked their vengeance
on him, and after beating him unmercifully, broke up the furniture,
and then fired the buildings. A German store near by, because it was
patronized extensively by negroes, shared the same fate, after its
contents had been distributed among themselves. A negro barber's shop
was next attacked, and the torch applied to it. A negro lodging-house in
the same street next received the visit of these furies, and was soon
a mass of ruins. Old men, seventy years of age, and young children, too
young to comprehend what it all meant, were cruelly beaten and killed.
The spirit of hell seemed to have entered the hearts of these men, and
helpless womanhood was no protection against their rage. Sometimes a
stalwart negro would break away from his murderers, and run for his
life. With no place of safety to which he could flee, he would be headed
off in every direction, and forced towards the river. Driven at last to
the end of a pier, he would leap off, preferring to take his chances in
the water rather than among these bloody men. If bruised and beaten in
his desperate struggle for life, he would soon sink exhausted with his
efforts. Sometimes he would strike out for a ship, but more often dive
under the piers, and hold on to a timber for safety, until his yelling
pursuers had disappeared, when he would crawl stealthily out, and with
terrified face peer in every direction to see if they had gone. Two were
thus run off together into the East River. It was a strange spectacle to
see a hundred Irishmen pour along the streets after a poor negro. If
he could reach a police station he felt safe; but, alas! if the force
happened to be away on duty, he could not stay even there. Whenever
the police could strike the track of the mad hunt, they stopped it
summarily, and the pursuers became the pursued, and received the
punishment they had designed for the negro. All this was in the
nineteenth century, and in the metropolis of the freest and most
enlightened nation on earth.
[Image: Hanging and burning a negro in Clarkson Street.]
The hunt for these poor creatures became so fearful, and the utter
impossibility to protect them in their scattered localities so apparent,
that they were received into the police stations. But these soon proved
inadequate, and they were taken to head-quarters and the arsenal, where
they could be protected against the mob. Here the poor creatures were
gathered by hundreds, and slept on the floor, and were regularly fed by
the authorities.
It is impossible to give a detailed account of what transpired in every
part of the city. If there had been a single band of rioters, no matter
how large, a force of military and police, properly armed, could have
been concentrated to have dispersed it. But bodies of men, larger or
smaller, bent on violence and devastation, were everywhere; even out at
Harlem eight buildings were burned, and the lower end of Westchester
was in a state of agitation and alarm. A mob of thousands would be
scattered, only to come together at other points. A body of police and
military plunging through the heaving multitude, acted often only as a
stone flung into the water, making but a momentary vacuum. Or, if they
did not come together again, they swung off only to fall in, and be
absorbed by a crowd collected in another part of the city. The alarm
of Monday had only been partial, but to-day it culminated. Families,
husbands, and sons left their business, and with arms patrolled the
streets. Stores were shut up, stages and cars stopped running, and all
business was suspended.
The blood flowing through the thousand arteries of this great mart
seemed suddenly frozen in its channels, and its mighty pulsations to
stop at the mandate of lawless men. The city held its breath in
dread, but there were firm hearts at police head-quarters. Acton never
flinched, and in General Brown he found a soldier that knew his duty,
and would do it at all hazards. Still, the uprising kept swelling into
vaster proportions, embracing a still larger territory.
Broadway was deserted. A few hacks could be seen, but with very
different occupants than those which they ordinarily contained. The
iron shutters were closed on the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and a stack of arms
stood in the hall-way. Crowds of respectable citizens, not on duty, were
making all haste toward railroad depots and steamboat landings. Every
boat, as it swung from the dock, was loaded to its utmost capacity with
people leaving a city that seemed doomed to destruction; going, many
knew not where, only out of New York. Cars were packed, and long trains
were made up to carry the crowds in haste to get away. But travel on the
Hudson River Road was soon stopped by the mob, that tore up the track to
prevent communication with other parts of the State, and the arrival of
troops.
The Harlem and Third Avenue tracks were also torn up, as the rioters
were determined to isolate the great city, which they had doomed to
destruction. Passing from one object to another, now acting as if from
plan, and now intent only on destruction and plunder, the crowd streamed
from point to point with shouts and yells, that sent terror through the
adjoining streets. Suddenly, some one remembered that they were in the
vicinity of Colonel Nugent's house, in Yorkville, the assistant provost
marshal general, and shouting out the news, a rush was made for it, and
it was sacked from top to bottom.
As the police were gathered together either at the precinct stations or
head-quarters, ordinary patrol duty was out of the question; hence,
many isolated, acts of violence could be committed with impunity. This
freedom from close surveillance, coupled with the contagion of the
lawless spirit which was abroad, made every section of the city where
the lower classes lived more or less restless. It was impossible for the
police to divide itself up so to furnish protection in individual cases,
and yet be in sufficient force to cope with the mobs, that numbered by
thousands. Although the whole city was heaving like a troubled sea, yet
the main gathering this day had been in the upper part and on both
sides of it. The terrific contests we described farther back were in
the Second Avenue, on the east side, but, nearly opposite, in the Sixth
Avenue, crowds had been gathering since early in the forenoon.
For a long time they swayed backward and forward, apparently without
any definite purpose, and moved only by the spirit of disorder that
had taken possession of the city. But about two o'clock, these various
bodies began by mutual attraction to flow together, and soon became
one immense mass, and impelled by some information or other, gathered
threateningly around a large mansion on the corner of Forty-sixth
Street and Fifth Avenue. They had supplied themselves with all sorts of
weapons, revolvers, old muskets, stones, clubs, barrel-staves--in short,
everything that could be found, that might be of service in a fight--and
soon commenced plundering the residence. But their movements had been
telegraphed to head-quarters, and Captain Walling, of the Twentieth
Precinct, was dispatched thither, with a company of regulars under
Captain Putnam, a descendant of "Old Put." The report soon spread
through the crowd, that bayonets could be seen coming up the avenue.
Marching up to Forty-sixth Street, the force turned into it, towards
the Fifth Avenue; and breaking into the charge step, with the order "no
prisoners" ringing in their ears, struck the mob almost in the
centre, cutting it in two, like a mighty cleaver. There was no need of
bayonets--the police, at the head of the military, went right through
it, and scattered the men in every direction. The force then divided
into squads, and each one taking a section of the mob, followed it up
on a swift run, and smote them right and left for several blocks. The
larger portion went down Sixth Avenue, and seeing only a portion of the
police pursuing, turned and showed fight, when the leader received a
bullet in the head and fell. Seeing their leader fall, the mob wheeled
and took to their heels.
Captain Walling in one instance saw a crowd with fire-arms standing in
an alley-way. Just then a fire-engine and company came down the street,
and he with his small force got behind it, and kept concealed until
opposite the unsuspecting crowd, when, with a shout, they dashed on it.
A volley received them,--with answering volley, the police charged into
the narrow opening. The rioters fled into a tenement-house, from which
came yells and screams of terrified women and children. Walling had some
sharpshooters with him, to pick off those beyond the reach of the clubs.
One fellow, armed, was seen astraddle of the ridge pole of a house. The
next moment a sharpshooter covered him, and he tumbled headlong to the
ground. The same afternoon he saw some twenty or thirty men attempting
to stave in a hardware store, evidently after pistols. Walling charged
on them alone, and with one terrible blow, his club sent the leader to
the pavement with his brains oozing out.
Although the draft was almost forgotten by the rioters, in the thirst
for plunder and blood, still men in the streets and some of the papers
talked of its being unconstitutional, and to be contested in the
courts--others that it had been and would be suspended, as though any
disposal of it now could affect the conduct of the rioters. Force was
the only argument they would listen to. The riot had almost ceased to
wear any political aspect since the attack on the _Tribune_ office, the
day before, had been defeated. An occasional shout or the sight of a
negro might now and then remind one of its origin, but devastation and
plunder were the great objects that urged on the excited masses. The
sacking of Opdyke's house was done chiefly by a few youngsters, who were
simply following the example set them the day before; while the burning
of negro buildings, the chasing and killing of negroes, seemed to have
only a remote connection with the draft, and was simply the indulgence
of a hatred they were hitherto afraid to gratify. So the setting fire
to the Weehawken ferry afterwards, could be made to grow out of
politics only so far as a man who kept a liquor saloon there was a known
Republican. This seemed a weak inducement to draw a crowd so far, when
more distinguished victims were all around them. It is more probable
that some personal enemy of parties in the vicinity, finding the mob
ready to follow any cry, led them thither; for one man seemed to be the
leader, who, mounted on a fine cavalry horse, and brandishing a sword,
galloped backwards and forwards through the crowd, giving his orders
like a field officer. Mobs springing up everywhere, and flowing together
often apparently by accident, each pursuing a different object: one
chasing negroes and firing their dwellings; others only sacking; a
house, and others still, wreaking their vengeance on station-houses,
while scores, the moment they got loaded down with plunder, hastened
away to conceal it--all showed that the original cause of the uprising
had been forgotten. A strong uncertainty seemed at times to keep them
swaying backwards and forwards, as though seeking a definite object, or
waiting for an appointed signal to move, and then at some shout would
rush for a building, a negro, or station-house.
The mob was a huge monster--frightful both in proportions and
appearance, yet not knowing where or how to use its strength. The attack
on Mr. Gibbon's house at Twenty-ninth Street and Eighth Avenue, during
this afternoon, was attributed to the fact that he was Mr. Greeley's
cousin, and that the former sometimes slept there--rather a far-fetched
inference, as though a mob would be aware of a fact that probably not a
dozen immediate neighbors knew.
Some one person might have raised a cry of "Greeley's house," which
would have been sufficient to insure its destruction. The police being
notified of this attack, sent a squad of men with a military force to
disperse the mob. Captain Ryer formed his troops in front of the house,
and Sergeant Devoursney did the same with a part of his men, while the
other portion was sent into the building, that was filled with men,
women, and children, loading themselves down with the spoils. The
appearance of the caps and clubs in the rooms created a consternation
that would have been ludicrous, but for the serious work that followed.
No defence was made, except by a few persons singly. One fellow advanced
to the door with a pistol in his hand, and fired, sending a ball through
Officer Hill's thigh. The next instant the latter felled him to the
floor with his club, and before he could even attempt to rise he was
riddled with balls. Some of the women fell on their knees, and shrieked
for mercy; while one strong Irish woman refused to yield her plunder,
and fought like a tigress. She seized an officer by the throat, and
trying to strangle and bite him, would not let go till a blow sobered
her into submission.
Some were loaded with shawls and dresses, and one burly,
ferocious-looking Irishman carried under his arm a huge bundle of select
music. As the police chased the plunderers down-stairs, and out into the
street, in some unaccountable way the troops got so confused that they
fired a volley that swept the police as well as the rioters. Officer
Dipple was so severely wounded that he died the following Sunday, while
Officers Hodson and Robinson both received flesh wounds.
In the upper part of the city, few buildings, except those too near
police and army head-quarters, or too well defended, offered much spoil
except private houses, and these had been the chief objects of attack.
But Brooks and Brothers' clothing store in Catharine Street, situated in
a part of the city thickly populated with the very class mobs are made
of, became toward evening an object of great attraction to groups of
hard-looking men and women. As night settled down, the heavens being
overcast, it became very dark; for in all the neighboring houses the
lights were extinguished by the inmates, who were terribly alarmed at
the rapidly increasing crowd in the street. To deepen and complete the
gloom the rioters turned off the gas. Officer Bryan, of the Fourth Ward,
telegraphed to head-quarters the threatening appearance of things, and a
force of fifty or sixty men were at once despatched to the spot. In the
mean time Sergeant Finney, with Platt and Kennedy, stood at the entrance
to defend the building till the police could arrive.
For awhile the three determined police officers, standing silent in the
darkness, overawed the leaders. But soon from the crowd arose shouts,
amid which were heard the shrill voices of women, crying, "Break open
the store." This was full of choice goods, and contained clothing enough
to keep the mob supplied for years. As the shouts increased, those
behind began to push forward those in front, till the vast multitude
swung heavily towards the three police officers. Seeing this movement,
the latter advanced with their clubs to keep them back. At this, the
shouts and yells redoubled, and the crowd rushed forward, crushing down
the officers by mere weight. They fought gallantly for a few minutes;
but, overborne by numbers, they soon became nearly helpless, and were
terribly beaten and wounded, and with the utmost exertions were barely
able to escape, and make their way back to the station. The mob now had
it all its own way, and rushing against the doors, burst bolts and bars
asunder, and streamed in. But it was dark as midnight inside, and they
could not distinguish one thing from another; not even the passage-ways
to the upper rooms of the building, which was five stories high. They
therefore lighted the gas, and broke out the windows. In a few minutes
the vast edifice was a blaze of light, looking more brilliant from
the midnight blackness that surrounded it. The upturned faces of the
excited, squalid throng below presented a wild and savage spectacle in
the flickering light. Men and women kept pouring in and out, the latter
loaded with booty, making their way home into the adjacent streets,
and the former rushing after their portion of the spoils. Coats and
pantaloons, and clothing of every description, were rapidly borne
away; and it was evident, give them time enough, the crowd would all
disappear, and there would be scarcely enough left to finish the work
of destruction. Thinking only of the rich prize they had gained, they
seemed to forget that retribution was possible, when suddenly the cry
of "Police! police!" sent a thrill of terror through them. Sergeant
Delaney, at the head of his command, marched swiftly down the street,
until close upon the mob, when the order, "Double-quick," was given, and
they burst with a run upon them. For a moment, the solid mass, by
mere weight, bore up against the shock; but the clubs soon made a lane
through it broad as the street. Just then a pistol-shot rung from a
house, almost over their heads. Many of the rioters were armed with
muskets, and the comparatively small police force, seeing that firearms
were to be used, now drew their revolvers, and poured a deadly volley
right into their midst. Several fell at the first discharge; and
immediately terror seized that portion of the multitude nearest the
police, especially the women, and many fell on their knees, crying for
mercy. Others forced their way recklessly over their companions, to get
out of reach. As the police made their way to the front of the store,
they formed line, while Sergeant Matthew, of the First Precinct, with
his men, entered the building. The scene here became more frightful
than the one without. The rioters on the first floor made but little
resistance, and, thinking only of escape, leaped from the windows, and
rushed out of doors like mad creatures. But as they attempted to flee,
those without knocked them over with their clubs. Having cleared this
story, the police mounted to the second, where the rioters, being more
closely penned, showed fight. Pistol-shots rang out, and some of the
police officers had narrow escapes. One powerful bully fought like a
tiger, till two policemen fell upon him with their clubs, and soon left
him stark and stiff. At last they drove the whole crowd into a rear
building, and kept them there till they had time to secure them.
Just as the store was cleared, Sergeant Carpenter, who had been sent as
a reinforcement in case of need, came up with a hundred and fifty men,
and charging on the crowd, sent them flying down the narrow streets.
After quiet had been restored, a military force arrived and took
possession of the building.
Just previous to this, another attempt was made to burn the _Tribune_
building, but was easily repelled. The _Times_ office, near by, warned
by the fate of its neighbor the night before, had established a regular
garrison inside, while it brilliantly illuminated the open space all
around it, in the circle of which the rioters did not care to come.
The invaluable service of the telegraph was tested to-day, not merely in
enabling General Brown and the commissioners to despatch men quickly to
a threatened point, but to keep a force moving from one ward to another,
as messages came in, announcing the incipient gathering in different
districts. Word sent to the station in the neighborhood where they were
acting, would instantly change their route; and knots of men, which if
left alone would soon have swelled into formidable mobs, were broken up,
for they found military and police force marching down on them before
they could form a plan of action. Nor was this all. A force sent to a
certain point, after dispersing the mob, would be directed to make a
tour through the disaffected districts--all the time keeping up its
communication with head-quarters, so that if any serious demonstration
was made in that section of the city, it could be ordered there at once,
thus saving half the time it would take to march from head-quarters.
Thus, for instance, Captain Petty was ordered this morning to
head-quarters from the City Hall, where he had passed the night, and
directed to take two hundred men (including his own precinct force), and
go to the protection of a soap factory in Sixteenth Street, Eighth and
Ninth Avenues. He moved off his command, marching rapidly up Broadway
and down Sixteenth Street. The mob saw it coming two blocks off, and
immediately scattered in every direction, which awakened the supreme
contempt of the captain. He now marched backward and forward, and
through the cross streets, up as far as Nineteenth Street, scattering
every fragment of the mob that attempted to hold together, and finally
returned to head-quarters. This was a long march, but the men had
scarcely rested, when the captain was hurried off to aid in the
protection at the wire factory in Second Avenue. In the fierce fight
that followed, he, with ten men at his back, charged up the broad
stairway, fighting his way step by step to the fifth story. Caught up
here at the top of the building, the rioters were clubbed without mercy.
Some, to escape the terrible punishment, plunged down the hatchway;
others attempted to dash past the men, and escape down the stairs.
At one time eight bodies lay in the door-way, blocking it up. He then
marched back to head-quarters. He had been marching and fighting all
day. Similar exhausting duties were performed by other commands, both
police and military. Inspector Dilks, with his force gathered from
various precincts, passed the entire day in marching and fighting. The
men, weary and hungry, would reach head-quarters or certain points,
hoping to get a little rest and refreshment, when the hurried order
would come to repair to a point a mile off, where the mob was firing
and sacking houses, and off they would start on the double-quick.
Uncomplaining and fearless of danger, and never counting numbers, both
police and soldiers were everywhere all this day, and proved themselves
as reliable, gallant, and noble a set of men as ever formed or acted as
the police force of any city in the world.
In the meantime, Governor Seymour and the Mayor of the city were not
idle. The latter at the City Hall, fearing an attack, asked Acton for
a guard of protection, and fifty men were sent him. Report of the mob
assembled there, reached Governor Seymour, at the St. Nicholas, and he
immediately hastened thither, and addressed the crowd from the steps,
which allayed excitement for the time. This speech was variously
commented upon. Some of the criticisms were frivolous, and revealed the
partisan, rather than the honest man. If the Governor had not previously
issued a proclamation to the whole city, in which he declared without
reservation that the mobs should be put down at all hazards--if this
speech had been his only utterance, then the bitter denunciations
against him would have been deserved. It would have been pusillanimous,
cowardly, and unworthy the Governor of the State. But he spoke in his
official capacity, not only firmly, emphatically, and in no ambiguous
terms, but he had hurried up the military, and used every means in his
power to accumulate and concentrate the forces under his control to put
down the riot. No faint-heartedness or sentimental qualmishness marked
any of his official acts. Prompt, energetic, and determined, he placed
no conditions on his subordinates in the manner of putting down the mob,
and restoring the supremacy of the law. But here in this address he was
speaking to men who, as a body at least, had as yet committed no overt
act; and many doubtless were assembled expecting some public declaration
from the City Hall. He was not addressing the plunderers and rioters
that were firing houses and killing negroes, but a mixed assembly, the
excitement of which he thought best to allay, if possible. Some said he
began his address with "My friends;" others, "Fellow-citizens." Whether
he did one, or the other, or neither, is of no consequence and meant
nothing. To have commenced, "Ye villains and cut-throats, disperse at
once, or I'll mow you down with grape-shot!" might have sounded very
brave, but if that was all he was going to say, he had better kept his
room.
A _proclamation_ like this address would have been infamous. Here
is where the mistake was made in the criticisms heaped upon it. His
official acts were all such as became the Chief Magistrate of New York.
The speech, therefore, must be judged rather by the rules of taste and
propriety, than, by those which apply to him officially. If a man's
official acts are all right, it is unjust to let them go for nothing,
and bring into prominence a short address made without premeditation
in the front of an excited, promiscuous assembly, moved by different
motives. That it was open to criticism in some respects, is true.
It should have been imbued more with the spirit of determination to
maintain order and suppress violence, and less been said of the measures
that had or would be taken to test the constitutionality of the draft,
and of his purpose, if it were decided in the courts to be wrong,
to oppose it. Such talk had better be deferred till after order
is restored. When men begin to burn and plunder dwellings, attack
station-houses, hang negroes, and shoot down policemen, it is too late
to attempt to restore peace by talking about the constitutionality of
laws. The upholding of laws about the constitutionality of which there
is no doubt, is the only thing deserving of consideration. The Common
Council of the city exhibited in this respect a most pusillanimous
spirit, by offering resolutions to have the constitutionality of the law
tested, when, the entire constitution and laws of the State were being
subverted! Unquestionably, some charity should be extended to men who
are pleading for those whose votes elevated them to office. Brutuses
are rare nowadays; and politicians do not like to shoot down their own
voters--they would much rather make more voters out of men no more fit
to exercise the right of suffrage than horses and mules.
Governed by a similar spirit, Archbishop Hughes, although he had yielded
to the pressure made on him and issued an address to the Irish, calling
on them to abstain from violence, yet accompanied it with a letter to
Horace Grreeley, directly calculated to awaken or intensify, rather than
allay their passions. He more than intimated that they had been
abused and oppressed, and thought it high time the war was ended.
The proclamation was short, but the letter was a long one, full of a
vindictive spirit, and showing unmistakably with whom his sympathies
were.
Towards evening a mob assembled over in Ninth Avenue, and went to work
with some system and forethought. Instead of wandering round, firing and
plundering as the whim seized them, they began to throw up barricades,
behind which they could rally when the military and police came to
attack them. Indeed, the same thing had been done on the east side of
the city; while railroads had been torn up, and stages stopped, to
keep them from carrying policemen, rapidly from one quarter to another.
During the day, Colonel Frothingham had stood in Third Avenue, and
stopped and emptied every car as it approached, and filled it with
soldiers, to be carried to the upper part of the city. Acton, too, had
sent round to collect all the stages still running in Broadway and the
Bowery, and in a short time they came rumbling into Mulberry Street,
forming a long line in front of head-quarters. A telegram from Second
Avenue demanded immediate help, and the police were bundled into them
and hurried off. One driver refused to stir, saying, roughly, he was
not hired to carry policemen. Acton had no time to argue the case, and
quickly turning to a policeman, he said: "Put that man in cell Number
92." In a twinkling he was jerked from his seat and hurried away.
Turning to another policeman, he said: "Mount that box and drive." The
next moment the stage, with a long string of others, loaded inside and
out with the bluecoats, was whirling through the streets. He had done
the same with the Sixth Avenue cars. The son-in-law of George Law
remonstrated, saying that it would provoke the mob to tear down the
railroad buildings. There was no time to stand on ceremony; the cars
were seized, and the company, to save their property, paid a large sum
to the ringleaders of the rioters. In fact, a great many factories and
buildings were bought off in the same way; so that the leaders drove
quite a thriving business.
But, as before remarked, the commencement of barricades to obstruct the
movements of the police and military, after the Parisian fashion, was
a serious thing, and must be nipped in the bud; and Captain Walling, of
the Twentieth Precinct, who had been busy in this part of the city
all the afternoon in dispersing the mob, sent to head-quarters for a
military force to help remove them. He also sent to General Sandford,
at the arsenal, for a company of soldiers, which was promised, but never
sent. At six o'clock a force of regulars arrived from General Brown, and
repaired to the Precinct station-house. Captain Slott, of the Twentieth
Precinct, took command of the police force detailed to cooperate with
the troops, but delayed action till the arrival of the company promised
from the arsenal. Meanwhile, the rioters kept strengthening the
barricades between Thirty-seventh and Forty-third Streets, in Eighth
Avenue, by lashing carts, wagons, and telegraph poles together with wire
stripped from the latter. The cross streets were also barricaded. Time
passed on, and yet the bayonets of he expected reinforcement from the
arsenal did not appear. The two commanding officers now began to grow
anxious; it would not do to defer the attack till after dark, for such
work as was before them required daylight. At length, as the sun stooped
to the western horizon, it was resolved to wait no longer, and the order
to move forward was given. As they approached the first barricade, by
Thirty-seventh Street, a volley as poured into them from behind it,
followed by stones and brick-bats.
The police now fell back to the left, and the regulars advancing,
returned the fire. The rioters, however, stood their ground, and for a
time nothing was heard but the rapid roll of musketry. But the steady,
well-directed fire of the troops, at length began to tell on the mob,
and they at last broke, and fled to the next barricade. The police then
advanced, and tore down the barricade, when the whole force moved on to
the next. Here the fight was renewed, but the close and rapid volley of
the troops soon scattered the wretches, when this also was removed. They
kept on in this way, till the last barricade was abandoned, when the
uncovered crowd broke and fled in wild disorder. The soldiers pressed
after, breaking up into squads, and chasing and firing into the
disjointed fragments as they drifted down the various streets.
There was more or less disturbance in this section, however, till
midnight. At nine o'clock, an attack was made on a gun and hardware
store, in Thirty-seventh Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, but
Sergeant Petty was sent thither with a small force, and scattered them
at the first charge. At midnight, an attempt was made to destroy the
colored church in Thirtieth Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues;
but before the rioters had accomplished their work, Captain Walling,
with his entire force and the regulars, came up, and though met with a
volley, fell on them in such a headlong charge, that they scattered down
the street.
All this time the arsenal presented the appearance of a regular camp;
videttes were kept out, sentries established, howitzers commanded the
streets, and everything wore the look of a besieged fortress.
Sandford, whom Wool wished to take command of all the troops, evidently
thought that he had as much as he could do to hold that building,
without doing anything to quell the riot in the city.
One of the first companies that came up from the forts the day before,
and hence belonged to General Brown's force, got, no one could hardly
tell how, into the arsenal, and were there cooped up as useless as
though in garrison--for if seven hundred men with cannon sweeping every
approach could not hold it, seven thousand could not. General Brown and
Acton needed this company badly, but how to get it was the question.
Governor Seymour held no direct communication with the Police
Commissioners; for they were not on friendly terms, as they were holding
their places in defiance of him, he having removed them some time
before. Mr. Hawley, the chief clerk, who knew the Governor personally,
acted, therefore, as the channel of communication between them. He now
went to him, and asked him how things were at the arsenal. He replied,
he did not know--no report had been sent him. Hawley then asked him to
send an officer and ascertain, and get back the company belonging to
General Brown's command. He replied he had no one to send. Hawley then
offered to go himself, if he would give an order to this company of
United States troops to report at once to General Brown at police
head-quarters. He did so, and Hawley, reaching the arsenal in safety,
gave the order to the adjutant-general, before calling on Sandford, so
as to be sure it was obeyed.
On the northern limits of the city, serious disturbances had occurred
during the day, especially in Yorkville, to which Acton was compelled to
send a strong force. The mob also attempted to burn Harlem bridge, but
the heavy rain of the night before had made it so wet that it would not
ignite. Down town, likewise, mobs had assembled before the Western
Hotel and other places, but were dispersed before they had inflicted any
damage. Almost the last act in the evening was an attack on the house of
Mr. Sinclair, one of the owners of the _Tribune_.
But rioters must eat and sleep like other people, and though knots of
them could be seen in various parts of the city, the main portion seemed
to have retired soon after midnight.
In the police head-quarters, men were lying around on the floor in the
warm July night, snatching, as best they could, a little repose. General
Brown and staff, in their chairs or stretched on a settee, nodded in
this lull of the storm, though ready at a moment's notice to do their
duty. But there was no rest for Acton. He had not closed his eyes for
nearly forty hours, and he was not to close them for more than forty to
come.
With his nerves strung to their utmost tension, and resolved to put down
that mob though the streets ran blood, he gave his whole soul to the
work before him. He infused his determined, fearless spirit into every
one who approached him. Anonymous letters, telling him he had not
another day to live, he flung aside with a scornful smile, to attend to
the telegraph dispatches from the different precincts.
Troops and men were stationed at various points, and gunboats were
patrolling the rivers, and he must be on the alert every moment. The
fate of a great city lay on his heart, and he could not sleep.
[Illustration: THE DEAD SERGEANT IN 22d STREET]