July 13, 1863
White New Yorkers, mostly the poor Irish immigrants who comprised almost half of the city’s population, began a rampage that is now known as the Draft Riots, still the deadliest civil disorder in US history. It started two days after the drawing for a draft lottery. Their anger, stoked by the “Copperhead” faction of the Democratic party, was directed against the rich, who profited immensely from both slavery and the war (and who could buy their way out of military service), and African-Americans, who were exempt from the draft and, to the poor whites, represented the slaves, freed in January by the Emancipation Proclamation, who they feared would travel north and “steal” their jobs. African Americans were attacked on sight. It is thought that twenty Black merchant seamen were killed and their bodies dumped into the East River. Others were clubbed to death, or lynched; the Colored Orphans Asylum was burned to the ground. Symbols of privilege and power, such as draft offices, police stations, arsenals, and the homes and shops of the wealthy were attacked and burned. Brooks Brothers, which supplied uniforms to the Union generals, was ransacked. Abolitionists (such as newspaper editor Horace Greeley), Protestant churches and public buildings were also targets of angry, alcohol-fueled rioters. Most of the small police force was killed or injured; weary New York regiments from the recent Battle of Gettysburg were returned to New York to restore order. An estimated 50,000 to 70,000 took part in the riots, and some individual mobs numbered as many as 10,000. Over three days of rioting, at least 120 were killed and 2,000 wounded; some sources place the number of dead as high as 2,000. The (very violent) film clip here is from the film “Gangs of New York.”
