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+Project Gutenberg's The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873, by J.T. Headley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873
+
+Author: J.T. Headley
+
+
+Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6856]
+This file was first posted on February 2, 2003
+Last Updated: June 20, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT RIOTS OF NEW YORK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Richard Prairie, David Moynihan, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                    THE
+
+                                GREAT RIOTS
+
+                                    OF
+
+                                 NEW YORK
+
+                               1712 to 1873
+
+                   INCLUDING A FULL AND COMPLETE ACCOUNT
+
+                                  OF THE
+
+                       FOUR DAYS' DRAFT RIOT OF 1863
+
+                           By HON. J.T. HEADLEY
+
+
+                                    TO
+
+                         THE METROPOLITAN POLICE,
+
+                                   WHOSE
+
+                UNWAVERING FIDELITY AND COURAGE IN THE PAST,
+
+                 ARE A SURE GUARANTEE OF WHAT THEY WILL DO
+
+                                    FOR
+
+                       NEW YORK CITY IN THE FUTURE,
+
+                                 THIS WORK
+
+                         IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED
+
+                                    BY
+
+                                THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+1. BURNING OF THE PROVOST-MARSHAL'S OFFICE
+
+2. THE OLD NEW YORK HOSPITAL, SCENE OF THE DOCTORS' RIOT
+
+3. COLORED ORPHAN ASYLUM (ERECTED SINCE THE RIOT)
+
+4. HEADQUARTERS METROPOLITAN POLICE
+
+5. HEADQUARTERS METROPOLITAN FIRE DEPARTMENT
+
+6. FORT LAFAYETTE, NEW YORK HARBOR
+
+7. FORT HAMILTON, NEW YORK HARBOR
+
+8. SCENE IN LEXINGTON AVENUE
+
+9. ATTACK ON THE TRIBUNE OFFICE
+
+10. FIGHT BETWEEN RIOTERS AND MILITIA
+
+11. HANGING AND BURNING A NEGRO IN CLARKSON STREET
+
+12. THE DEAD SERGEANT IN TWENTY-SECOND STREET
+
+13. DRAGGING COLONEL O'BRIEN'S BODY IN THE STREET
+
+14. BURNING SECOND AVENUE ARMORY
+
+15. RECEIVING DEAD BODIES AT THE MORGUE
+
+PREFACE.
+
+The materials for the descriptions of the Negro and Doctors' Riots
+were gathered from the Archives of the Historical Society; those of the
+immediately succeeding ones, from the press of the times.
+
+For the scenes and incidents that occurred on the stage and behind
+the curtain in the Astor-place Opera Riot, I am indebted to a pamphlet
+entitled "_Behind the Scenes_."
+
+The materials for the history of the Draft Riots were obtained in
+part from the Daily Press, and in part from the City and Military
+Authorities, especially Commissioner Acton, Seth Hawley, General Brown,
+and Colonel Frothingham, who succeeded in putting them down.
+
+Mr. David Barnes, who published, some ten years ago, a pamphlet entitled
+"The Metropolitan Police," kindly furnished me facts relating to the
+Police Department of great value, and which saved me much labor and
+time.
+
+Much difficulty has been encountered in gathering together, from various
+quarters, the facts spread over a century and a half, but it is believed
+that everything necessary to a complete understanding of the subjects
+treated of has been given, consistent with the continuity and interest
+of the narrative.
+
+Of course some minor riots--a collection of mobs that were easily
+dispersed by the police, and were characterized by no prolonged struggle
+or striking incidents--are not mentioned.
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Character of a City illustrated by Riots.--New Material for History of
+Draft Riots.--History of the Rebellion incomplete without History of
+them.--The Fate of the Nation resting on the Issues of the Struggle in
+New York City.--The best Plan to adopt for Protection against Mobs.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE NEGRO RIOTS OF 1712-1741.
+
+Almost impossible for the present Generation to comprehend its true
+Character and Effect on the People.--Description of New York at that
+Time.--The Negro Slaves.--The Negro Riot of 1712.--Description
+of it.--The Winter of 1741.--Governor's House burned down.--Other
+Fires.--Suspicion of the People.--Arrest and Imprisonment of the
+Blacks.--Reward offered for the supposed Conspirators.--Alarm and Flight
+of the Inhabitants.--Examination and Confession of Mary
+Burton.--Peggy, the Newfoundland Beauty, and the Hughson Family.--The
+Conspiracy.--Executions.--Fast.--Hughson's Hearing.--Hung in
+Chains.--The Body, and that of a Negro, left to swing and rot in the
+Air.--Strange Change in the Appearances of the Bodies.--The People
+throng to look at them.--Negroes burned at the Stake.--Terrific
+Spectacle.--Bloody Summer.--Execution of a Catholic Priest.--Strange
+Scenes.--Upper Classes accused.--Executions stopped.--Reason of the
+Panic.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE STAMP-ACT RIOT OF 1765.
+
+Thorough Understanding of the Principles of Liberty by the People.--The
+Stamp Act.--How viewed by the Colonists.--Colden strengthens Fort George
+in Alarm.--Arrival of the Stamps.--How the News was received by the Sons
+of Liberty.--A Bold Placard.--Stamp Distributor frightened.--Patriotic
+Action of the Merchants.--Public Demonstration against the Stamp
+Act.--Colden takes Refuge in the Fort.--Dare not fire on the
+People.--The People at the Gate demand the Stamps.--Colden and Lord Bute
+hung in Effigy.--Colden's Coach-house broken open.--The Images placed in
+the Coach, and dragged with Shouts through the Streets.--Hung again in
+Sight of the Fort.--A Bonfire made of the Fence around Bowling
+Green, and the Governor's Carriages, while the Garrison look silently
+on.--Prejudice against Coaches.--Major James' House sacked.--Great Joy
+and Demonstration at the Repeal of the Stamp Act.--Celebration of the
+King's Birthday.--Loyalty of the People.--Mutiny Act.--A Riot becomes a
+Great Rebellion.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+DOCTORS' RIOT, 1788.
+
+Body-snatching.--Bodies dug up by Medical Students.--Excitement of the
+People.--Effect of the Discovery of a human Limb from the Hospital.--Mob
+ransack the Building.--Destruction of Anatomical Specimens.--Arrival
+of Mayor, and Imprisonment of Students.--Second Day.--Examination
+of Columbia College and Physicians' Houses.--Appeal of the Mayor and
+distinguished Citizens to the Mob.--Mob attempt to break into Jail and
+seize the Students.--The Fight.--The Military called out.--Beaten by the
+Mob.--Larger Military Force called out.--Attacked by the Mob.--Deadly
+Firing.--Great Excitement.--Flight of Doctors and Students.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+SPRING ELECTION RIOTS OF 1834.
+
+Fatal Error in our Naturalization Laws.--Our Experiment of
+Self-government not a fair one.--Fruit of giving Foreigners the Right
+to Vote.--Bitter Feeling between Democrats and Whigs.--First Day of
+Election.--Ships "Constitution" and "Veto."--Whigs driven from the
+Polls.--Excitement.--Whigs determined to defend themselves.--Meeting
+called.--Resolutions.--Second Day's Election.--Attack on the Frigate
+"Constitution."--A Bloody Fight.--Mayor and Officers wounded.--Mob
+triumphant.--Excitement of the Whigs.--The Streets blocked by fifteen
+thousand enraged Whigs.--Military called out.--Occupy Arsenal and
+City Hall all Night.--Result of the Election.--Excitement of the
+Whigs.--Mass-meeting in Castle Garden.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ABOLITION RIOTS OF 1834 AND 1835.
+
+The Slavery Question agitated.--The End, Civil War.--The
+Results.--William Lloyd Garrison.--Feeling of the People on the
+Subject.--First Attempt to call a Meeting of the Abolitionists in New
+York.--Meeting in Chatham Street Chapel.--A Fight.--Mob take Possession
+of Bowery Theatre.--Sacking of Lewis Tappan's House.--Fight between Mob
+and Police.--Mobbing of Dr. Cox's Church, in Laight Street.--His
+House broken into.--Street Barricaded.--Attack on Arthur Tappan's
+Store.--Second Attack on Church in Laight Street.--Church sacked in
+Spring Street.--Arrival of the Military.--Barricades carried.--Mr.
+Ludlow's House entered.--Mob at Five Points.--Destruction of
+Houses.--The City Military called out.--Mob overawed, and Peace
+restored.--Five Points Riot.--Stone-cutters' Riot.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+FLOUR RIOT OF 1837.
+
+Starvation will always create a Riot.--Foreign Population easily aroused
+against the Rich.--Severe Winter of 1836.--Scarcity of Flour.--Meeting
+of Citizens called without Result.--Meeting called in the
+Park.--Speeches.--Sacking of Hart & Co.'s Flour Store, in Washington
+Street.--Strange Spectacle.--National Guards called out.--Disperse the
+Mob.--Attack on Herrick's Flour Store.--Folly of the Riot.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+ASTOR-PLACE RIOTS, 1849.
+
+Rivalry between Forrest and Macready.--Macready's Arrival in this
+Country.--The Announcement of his Appearance at the Astor-place Opera
+House, and Forrest at the Broadway Theatre the same Night posted Side
+by Side.--Bowery Boys crowd the Opera House.--Anxiety of
+the Managers.--Consultations and Dramatic Scenes behind the
+Curtain.--Stamping of the People.--Scene on raising the Curtain.--Stormy
+Reception of Macready.--Howled down.--Mrs. Pope driven from the Stage by
+the Outrageous Language of the Mob.--Macready not allowed to go
+on.--His foolish Anger.--Flees for his Life.--His Appearance the
+Second Night.--Preparations to put down the Mob.--Exciting Scene in the
+Theatre.--Terrific Scenes without.--Military arrive.--Attacked by the
+Mob.--Patience of the Troops.--Effort to avoid Firing.--The Order
+to Fire.--Terrific Scene.--Strange Conduct of Forrest.--Unpublished
+Anecdote of General Scott.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+POLICE RIOT--DEAD-RABBITS' RIOT--BREAD RIOT, 1857.
+
+Creation of the Metropolitan District.--Collision between Mayor
+Wood's Police and the Metropolitan Police.--Seventh Regiment called
+out.--Dead-Rabbits' Riot.--Severe Fight between the Roach Guards and
+Dead Rabbits.--Police driven back.--Barricades erected.--Military called
+out.--Killed and Wounded.--Bread Riot.--Financial Distress.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+DRAFT RIOTS OF 1863.
+
+Cause of the Riots.--The London _Times_.--Draft called a despotic
+Measure.--The despotic Power given to Washington by Congress.--Despotic
+Action sometimes Necessary, in order to save the Life of the
+Nation.--The Rights of Government.--Drafting he Legitimate Way to raise
+an Army--It is not Unequal or Oppressive.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Rights of Municipalities.--Interference of the Legislature with the City
+Government.--Conflict between the Governor and Police Commissioners.--A
+Wrong becomes a Practical Blessing.--Provost Marshals.--Riot not
+anticipated.--Bad time to commence the Draft.--Preparations of
+Superintendent Kennedy.--The Police System.--Attack on Provost Marshal
+Captain Erhardt.--Telegrams of the Police.--Kennedy starts on a Tour of
+Observation.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Commencement of the Mob.--Its Line of March.--Its immense Size.--Attacks
+a Provost-marshal's Office, in Third Avenue.--Set on Fire.--Terrible
+Struggle of Kennedy for his Life with the Mob.--Carried to Head-quarters
+unconscious.--Acton's Preparations.--The Telegraph System.--Mob cutting
+down Telegraph Poles.--Number of Despatches sent over the Wires during
+the Riot.--Superintendent of Telegraph Bureau seized and held Prisoner
+by the Mob.
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+Soldiers beaten by the Mob.--Gallant Fight of Sergeant McCredie.--Mob
+Triumphant.--Beat Police Officers unmercifully.--Fearful Scenes.--Fifty
+thousand People block Third Avenue.--A whole Block of Houses
+burning.--Attack on a Gun Factory.--Defeat of the Broadway
+Squad.--Houses sacked in Lexington Avenue.--Telegraph
+Dispatches.--Bull's Head Tavern burned.--Block on Broadway
+burned.--Burning of the Negroes' Orphan Asylum.--Attack on Mayor
+Opdyke's House.--A Crisis nobly met.--Gallant Fight and Victory of
+Sergeant Carpenter.--A thrilling Spectacle.
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+No Military in the City.--The Mayor calls on General Wool, commanding
+Eastern Department, for Help.--Also on General Sandford.--General Wool
+sends to General Brown, commanding Garrison in the Harbor, for U. S.
+Troops.--Marines of the States appealed to for Troops.--General Brown
+assumes Command.--Attack of Mob on the _Tribune_ Building.--Its severe
+Punishment.--Government Buildings garrisoned.--Difficulty between
+Generals Brown and Wool.--Head-quarters.--Police Commissioners' Office
+Military Head-quarters.
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+Telegraph Bureau.--Its Work.--Skill and Daring and Success of its
+Force.--Interesting Incidents.--Hairbreadth Escapes.--Detective
+Force.--Its arduous Labors.--Its Disguises.--Shrewdness, Tact, and
+Courage.--Narrow Escapes.--Hawley, the Chief Clerk.--His exhausting
+Labors.
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+DRAFT RIOT--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 Man 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.
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+DRAFT RIOT--THIRD DAY.
+
+Scenes in the City and at Head-quarters.--Fight in Eighth
+Avenue.--Cannon sweep the Streets.--Narrow Escape of Captain Howell
+and Colonel Mott.--Battle for Jackson's Foundry.--Howitzers clear
+the Street.--State of Things shown by Telegraph Dispatches.--General
+Sandford sends out a Force against a Mob, at Corner of Twenty-ninth
+Street and Seventh Avenue.--Colonel Gardin's Fight with the Mob.--Is
+Wounded.--Mob Victorious.--Dead and Wounded Soldiers left in the
+Street.--Captain Putnam sent to bring them away.--Disperses the
+Mob.--Terrific Night.
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+DRAFT RIOT--FOURTH DAY.
+
+Proclamations by the Governor and Mayor.--City districted.--Appearance
+of the East Side of the City.--A small Squad of Soldiers chased into
+a Foundry by the Mob.--Fierce Fight between the Mob and Military in
+Twenty-ninth Street.--Soldiers driven from the Ground, leaving a dead
+Sergeant behind.--Captain Putnam sent to bring the Body away.--Mows
+down the Rioters with Canister.--Storms the Houses.--Utter Rout of
+the Mob.--Colored Orphans and Negroes taken by Police to
+Blackwell's Island.--Touching Scene.--Coming on of Night and a
+Thunder-storm.--Returning Regiments.--Increased Force in the City to put
+down Violence.--Archbishop Hughes offers to address the
+Irish.--Curious Account of an Interview of a Lady with him and Governor
+Seymour.--Strange Conduct of the Prelate.
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+CLOSING SCENES.
+
+Tranquil Morning.--Proclamation of the Mayor.--Mob cowed.--Plunderers
+afraid of Detection.--Dirty Cellars crowded with rich Apparel,
+Furniture, and Works of Art.--Archbishop Hughes' Address.--Useless
+Efforts.--Acton's Forty-eight Hours without Sleep over.--Change in
+Military Commanders in the City.--General Brown relinquishes his
+Command.--True Words.--Noble Character and Behavior of the Troops and
+Police.--General Brown's invaluable Services.
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+Continued Tranquillity.--Strange Assortment of Plunder gathered in the
+Cellars and Shanties of the Rioters.--Search for it exasperates
+the Irish.--Noble Conduct of the Sanitary Police.--Sergeant
+Copeland.--Prisoners tried.--Damages claimed from the City.--Number
+of Police killed.--Twelve hundred Rioters killed.--The Riot Relief
+Fund.--List of Colored People killed.--Generals Wool and Sandford's
+Reports.--Their Truthfulness denied.--General Brown vindicated.
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+ORANGE RIOTS OF 1870 AND 1871.
+
+Religious Toleration.--Irish Feuds.--Battle of Boyne
+Water.--Orangemen.--Origin and Object of the Society.--A Picnic at Elm
+Park.--Attacked by the Ribbonmen.--The Fight. After Scenes.--Riot
+of 1871.--Conspiracy of the Irish Catholics to prevent a Parade of
+Orangemen.--Forbidden by the City Authorities.--Indignation of
+the People.--Meeting in the Produce Exchange.--Governor Hoffman's
+Proclamation.--Morning of the 12th.--The Orangemen at Lamartine
+Hall.--Attack on the Armories.--The Harpers threatened.--Exciting
+Scenes around Lamartine Hall and at Police Head-quarters.--Hibernia
+Hall cleared.--Attack on an Armory.--Formation of the Procession.--Its
+March.--Attacked.--Firing of the Military without Orders.--Terrific
+Scene.--The Hospitals and Morgue.--Night Scenes.--Number of killed and
+wounded.--The Lesson.
+
+
+THE GREAT RIOTS OF NEW YORK CITY.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Character of a City illustrated by Riots.--New Material for History of
+Draft Riots.--History of the Rebellion incomplete without History of
+them.--The Fate of the Nation resting on the Issues of the Struggle in
+New York City.--The best Plan to adopt for Protection against Mobs.
+
+The history of the riots that have taken place in a great city from its
+foundation, is a curious and unique one, and illustrates the peculiar
+changes in tone and temper that have come over it in the course of
+its development and growth. They exhibit also one phase of its moral
+character--furnish a sort of moral history of that vast, ignorant,
+turbulent class which is one of the distinguishing features of a
+great city, and at the same time the chief cause of its solicitude and
+anxiety, and often of dread.
+
+The immediate cause, however, of my taking up the subject, was a request
+from some of the chief actors in putting down the Draft Riots of
+1863, to write a history of them. It was argued that it had never been
+written, except in a detached and fragmentary way in the daily press,
+which, from the hurried manner in which it was done, was necessarily
+incomplete, and more or less erroneous.
+
+It was also said, and truly, that those who, by their courage and
+energy, saved the city, and who now would aid me not only officially,
+but by their personal recollections and private memoranda, would soon
+pass away, and thus valuable material be lost.
+
+Besides these valid reasons, it was asserted that the history of the
+rebellion was not complete without it, and yet no historian of that most
+important event in our national life had given the riots the prominence
+they deserved, but simply referred to them as a side issue, instead
+of having a vital bearing on the fate of the war and the nation. On no
+single battle or campaign did the destiny of the country hinge as upon
+that short, sharp campaign carried on by General Brown and the Police
+Commissioners against the rioters in the streets of New York, in the
+second week of July, 1863. Losses and defeats in the field could be
+and were repaired, but defeat in New York would in all probability have
+ended the war. It is not necessary to refer to the immediate direct
+effects of such a disaster on the army in the field, although it is
+scarcely possible to over-estimate the calamitous results that would
+have followed the instantaneous stoppage, even for a short time, of the
+vast accumulations of provisions, ammunition, and supplies of all kinds,
+that were on their way to the army through New York. Nor is it necessary
+to speculate on the effect of the diversion of troops from the front
+that such an event would have compelled, in order to recover so vital
+a point. Washington had better be uncovered than New York be lost. One
+thing only is needed to show how complete and irreparable the disaster
+would have been; namely, the effect it would have had on the finances of
+the country. With the great banking-houses and moneyed institutions of
+New York sacked and destroyed, the financial credit of the country
+would have broken down utterly. The crash of falling houses all over
+the country that would have followed financial disaster here, would have
+been like that of falling trees in a forest swept by a hurricane. Had
+the rioters got complete possession of the city but for a single day,
+their first dash would have been for the treasures piled up in its
+moneyed institutions. Once in possession of these, they, like the mobs
+of Paris, would have fired the city before yielding them up. In the
+crisis that was then upon us, it would not have required a long stoppage
+in this financial centre of the country to have effected a second
+revolution. With no credit abroad and no money at home, the Government
+would have been completely paralyzed. Not long possession of the city
+was needed, but only swift destruction.
+
+Doubtless the disastrous effects would have been increased tenfold,
+if possible, by uprisings in other cities, which events showed were to
+follow. Even partial success developed hostile elements slumbering in
+various parts of the country, and running from Boston almost to the
+extreme West.
+
+In this view of the case, these riots assume a magnitude and importance
+that one cannot contemplate without a feeling of terror, and the truth
+of history requires that their proper place should be assigned them, and
+those who put them down have an honorable position beside our successful
+commanders and brave soldiers. It is also important, as a lesson for
+the future, and naturally brings up the question, what are the best
+measures, and what is the best policy for the city of New York to
+adopt, in order to protect itself from that which to-day constitutes its
+greatest danger--_mob violence?_ If it ever falls in ruins, the work
+of destruction will commence and end within its own limits. We have a
+police and city military which have been thought to be sufficient, but
+experience has shown that though this provision may be ample to restore
+law and order in the end, it works slowly, often unwisely, and always
+with an unnecessary expenditure of life. In conversing with those of
+largest experience and intelligence in the police department on this
+subject of such great and growing importance, we are convinced, from
+their statements and views, a vast improvement in this matter can be
+made, while the cost to the city, instead of being increased, will be
+lessened; that is, a cheaper, wiser, and more effectual plan than the
+present one can be adopted. Of course this does not refer to mere local
+disturbances, which the police force in the ordinary discharge of its
+duties can quell, but to those great outbreaks which make it necessary
+to call out the military. Not that there might not be exigencies in
+which it would be necessary to resort, not only to the military of the
+city, but to invoke the aid of neighboring States; for a riot may assume
+the proportions of a revolution, but for such no local permanent remedy
+can be furnished.
+
+The objections to relying on the military, as we invariably do in case
+of a large mob, are many. In the first place, it takes the best part
+of a day to get the troops together, so that a mob, so far as they are
+concerned, has time not only to waste and destroy for many hours, but
+increase in strength and audacity. The members of the various regiments
+are scattered all over the city, engaged in different occupations and
+employments, and without previous notice being given, it is a long and
+tedious process to get them to their respective headquarters and in
+uniform. This wastes much and most valuable time. Besides, they are
+compelled to reach the mustering place singly or in small groups, and
+hence liable to be cut off or driven back by the mob, which in most
+cases would know the place of rendezvous.
+
+In the second place, the members are taken out from the mass of the
+people, between whom there might be a strong sympathy in some particular
+outbreak, which would impair their efficiency, and make them hesitate to
+shoot down their friends and acquaintances.
+
+In the third place, in ordinary peace times, these uniformed regiments
+are not the steadiest or most reliable troops, as was witnessed in the
+riots of 1863, as well as in those of the Astor Place in 1849.
+
+They hesitate, or are apt to become hasty or disorganized in a close,
+confused fight, and driven back. In the commencement of a riot, a defeat
+of the military gives increased confidence, and indeed, power to a mob,
+and snakes the sacrifice of life, in the end, far greater.
+
+In the fourth place, clearing the streets does not always dissipate
+a mob. A whole block of houses may become a fortress, which it
+is necessary to storm before a permanent victory is gained.
+Half-disciplined men, unaccustomed, and unskilled to such work, make
+poor headway with their muskets through narrow halls, up stairways, and
+through scuttle-holes.
+
+In the fifth place, the military of the city cannot be called away from
+their work for two or three days, to parade the city, without a heavy
+expense, and hence the process is a costly one.
+
+In the last place, the firing of these troops at the best is not very
+judicious, and cannot be discriminating, so that those are shot down
+often least culpable, and of least influence in the mob--in fact, more
+lives usually are taken than is necessary.
+
+The simplest, most efficient, and most economical plan would be to
+select five hundred or more of the most courageous, experienced, and
+efficient men from the police department, and form them into a separate
+battalion, and have them drilled in such evolutions, manoeuvres, and
+modes of attack or defence, as would belong to the work they were
+set apart to do. A battery might be given them in case of certain
+emergencies, and a portion carefully trained in its use. At a certain
+signal of the bell, they should be required to hasten, without a
+moment's delay, to their head-quarters. A mob could hardly be gathered
+and commence work before this solid body of disciplined, reliable men
+would be upon them. These five hundred men would scatter five thousand
+rioters like chaff before them. It would be more efficient than two
+entire regiments, even if assembled, and would be worth more than the
+whole military of the city for the first half day.
+
+Besides, clubs are better than guns. They take no time to load--they are
+never discharged like muskets, leaving their owners for the time at the
+mercy of the mob. Their volleys are incessant and perpetual, given
+as long and fast as strong arms can strike. They are also more
+discriminating than bullets, hitting the guilty ones first. Moreover,
+they disable rather than kill--which is just as effectual, and far
+more desirable. In addition to all this, being trained to one purpose,
+instructed to one duty, a mob would be their natural enemies, and hence
+sympathy with them in any cause almost impossible.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+THE NEGRO RIOTS OF 1712-1741.
+
+Almost impossible for the present Generation to comprehend its true
+Character and Effect on the People.--Description of New York at that
+Time.--The Negro Slaves.--The Negro Riot of 1712.--Description
+of it.--The Winter of 1741.--Governor's House burned down.--Other
+Fires.--Suspicion of the People.--Arrest and Imprisonment of the
+Blacks.--Reward offered for the supposed Conspirators.--Alarm and Flight
+of the Inhabitants.--Examination and Confession of Mary
+Burton.--Peggy, the Newfoundland Beauty, and the Hughson Family.--The
+Conspiracy.--Executions.--Fast.--Hughson's Hearing.--Hung in
+Chains.--The Body, and that of a Negro, left to swing and rot in the
+Air.--Strange Change in the Appearances of the Bodies.--The People
+throng to look at them.--Negroes burned at the Stake.--Terrific
+Spectacle.--Bloody Summer.--Execution of a Catholic Priest.--Strange
+Scenes.--Upper Classes accused.--Executions stopped.--Reason of the
+Panic.
+
+Probably no event of comparatively modern times--certainly none in our
+history--has occurred so extraordinary in some of its phases, as the
+negro riot of 1741. We cannot fully appreciate it, not merely because of
+the incompleteness of some of its details, nor from the lapse of time,
+but because of our inability to place ourselves in the position or state
+of mind of the inhabitants of New York City at that period. We can no
+more throw ourselves into the social condition, and feel the influences
+of that time, than we can conceive the outward physical appearance of
+the embryo metropolis. It is impossible to stand amid the whirl and
+uproar of New York to-day, and imagine men ploughing, and sowing
+grain, and carting hay into barns, where the City Hall now stands. The
+conception of nearly all the city lying below the Park, above it farms
+to Canal Street, beyond that clearings where men are burning brush and
+logs to clear away the fallow, and still farther on, towards Central
+Park, an unbroken wilderness, is so dim and shadowy, that we can hardly
+fix its outlines. Yet it was so in 1741. Where now stands the Tombs,
+and cluster the crowded tenements of Five Points, was a pond or lakelet,
+nearly two miles in circumference and fifty feet deep, and encircled by
+a dense forest. Its deep, sluggish outlet into the Hudson is now Canal
+Street. In wet weather there was another water communication with the
+East River, near Peck Slip, cutting off the lower part of the island,
+leaving another island, containing some eight hundred acres. Through
+Broad Street, along which now rolls each day the stream of business, and
+swells the tumult of the Brokers' Board, then swept a deep stream, up
+which boatmen rowed their boats to sell oysters. The water that supplied
+these streams and ponds is now carried off through immense sewers, deep
+under ground, over which the unconscious population tread. Where Front
+and Water Streets on the east side, and West Greenwich and Washington on
+the west side, now stretch, were then the East and Hudson Rivers, having
+smooth and pebbly beaches. There was not a single sidewalk in all the
+city, and only some half dozen paved streets. On the Battery stood the
+fort, in which were the Governor's and secretary's houses, and over
+which floated the British flag.
+
+But all this outward appearance is no more unlike the New York of to-day
+than its internal condition.
+
+The population numbered only about ten thousand, one-fifth of which was
+negroes, who were slaves. Their education being wholly neglected, they
+were ignorant and debased, and addicted to almost every vice. They were,
+besides, restive under their bondage amid the severe punishments often
+inflicted on them, which caused their masters a great deal of anxiety.
+Not isolated as an inland plantation, but packed in a narrow space, they
+had easy communication with each other, and worse than all, with the
+reckless and depraved crews of the vessels that came into port. It is
+true, the most stringent measures were adopted to prevent them from
+assembling together; yet, in spite of every precaution, there would now
+and then come to light some plan or project that would fill the whites
+with alarm. They felt half the time as though walking on the crust of a
+volcano, and hence were in a state of mind to exaggerate every danger,
+and give credit to every sinister rumor.
+
+The experience of the past, as well as the present state of feeling
+among the slaves, justified this anxiety and dread; for only thirty
+years before occurred just such an outbreak as they now feared. On the
+7th of April, in 1712, between one and two o'clock in the morning,
+the house of Peter Van Tilburgh was set on fire by negroes, which was
+evidently meant as a signal for a general revolt.
+
+The cry of fire roused the neighboring inhabitants, and they rushed out
+through the unpaved muddy streets, toward the blazing building. As they
+approached it, they saw, to their amazement, in the red light of the
+flames, a band of negroes standing in front, armed with guns and long
+knives. Before the whites could hardly comprehend what the strange
+apparition meant, the negroes fired, and then rushed on them with their
+knives, killing several on the spot. The rest, leaving the building to
+the mercy of the flames, ran to the fort on the Battery, and roused the
+Governor. Springing from his bed, he rushed out and ordered a cannon to
+be fired from the ramparts to alarm the town. As the heavy report boomed
+over the bay and shook the buildings of the town, the inhabitants leaped
+from their beds, and looking out of the windows, saw the sky lurid with
+flames. Their dread and uncertainty were increased, when they heard the
+heavy splash of soldiers through the mud, and the next moment saw their
+bayonets gleam out of the gloom, as they hurried forward towards the
+fire. In the meantime, other negroes had rushed to the spot, so that
+soon there were assembled, in proportion to the white population, what
+in the present population of the city would be fully 10,000 negroes.
+
+The rioters stood firm till they saw the bayonets flashing in the
+fire-light, and then, giving one volley, fled into the darkness
+northward, towards what is now Wall Street. The scattered inhabitants
+they met, who, roused by the cannon, were hastening to the fire, they
+attacked with their knives, killing and wounding several. The soldiers,
+firing at random into the darkness, followed after them, accompanied by
+a crowd of people. The negroes made for the woods and swamps near
+where the Park now stands, and disappearing in the heavy shadows of the
+forest, were lost to view. Knowing it would be vain to follow them into
+the thickets, the soldiers and inhabitants surrounded them and kept
+watch till morning. Many, of course, got off and buried themselves in
+the deeper, more extensive woods near Canal Street, but many others
+were taken prisoners. Some, finding themselves closely pressed and all
+avenues of escape cut off, deliberately shot themselves, preferring
+such a death to the one they knew awaited them. How many were killed and
+captured during the morning, the historian does not tell us. We can
+only infer that the number must have been great, from the statement he
+incidentally makes, that "during the day _nineteen more were_
+taken, tried, and executed--some that turned State's evidence were
+transported." "Eight or ten whites had been murdered," and many more
+wounded.
+
+It was a terrible event, and remembered by the present inhabitants with
+horror and dismay. To the little handful occupying the point of the
+island, it was a tragedy as great as a riot in New York to-day would be,
+in which was a loss of 5,000 or more on each side.
+
+Many middle-aged men, in 1741, were young men at that time, and
+remembered the fearful excitement that prevailed, and it was a common
+topic of conversation.
+
+The state of things, therefore, which we have described, was natural.
+This was rendered worse by the arrival, in the winter of 1741, of a
+Spanish vessel, which had been captured as a prize, the crew of which
+was composed in part of negroes, who were sold at auction as slaves.
+These became very intractable, and in spite of the floggings they
+received, uttered threats that they knew would reach their masters'
+ears. Still, no evidence of any general plot against the inhabitants was
+suspected, and things were moving on in their usual way, when, on the
+18th of March, a wild and blustering day, the Governor's house in the
+fort was discovered to be on fire. Fanned by a fierce south-east wind,
+the flames spread to the King's chapel, the secretary's house, barracks,
+and stables; and in spite of all efforts to save them, were totally
+consumed. The origin of the fire was supposed to be accidental, but a
+few days after, Captain Warren's house, near the fort, was found to be
+on fire. Two or three days later, the storehouse of Mr. Van Zandt was
+discovered on fire. Still, no general suspicions were aroused. Three
+more days passed, when a cow-stall was reported on fire, and a few
+hours later, the house of Mr. Thompson; the fire in the latter case
+originating in the room where a negro slave slept. The very next day,
+live coals were discovered under the stable of John Murray, on Broadway.
+This, evidently, was no accident, but the result of design, and the
+people began to be alarmed. The day following, the house of a sergeant
+near the fort was seen to be on fire, and soon after, flames arose from
+the roof of a dwelling near the Fly Market. The rumor now spread like
+wildfire through the town that it was the work of incendiaries. It
+seems to us a small foundation to base such a belief on, but it must
+be remembered that the public mind was in a state to believe almost
+anything.
+
+The alarm was increased by the statement of Mrs. Earle, who said that
+on Sunday, as she was looking out of her window, she saw three negroes
+swaggering up Broadway, engaged in earnest conversation. Suddenly she
+heard one of them exclaim, "Fire! fire! Scorch! scorch! a little d--n by
+and by!" and then throwing up his hands, laughed heartily. Coupled with
+the numerous fires that had occurred, and the rumors afloat, it at once
+excited her suspicions that this conversation had something to do with
+a plot to burn the city. She therefore immediately reported it to an
+alderman, and he, next day, to the justices.
+
+Although the number of buildings thus mysteriously set on fire was, in
+reality, small, yet it was as great in proportion to the town then, as
+three hundred would be in New York to-day. Less than that number, we
+imagine, would create a panic in the city, especially if the public mind
+was in a feverish state, as, for instance, during the recent civil war.
+
+Some thought the Spanish negroes had set the buildings on fire from
+revenge, especially as those of the Government were the first to suffer.
+Others declared that it was a plot of the entire negro population to
+burn down the city. This belief was strengthened by the fact that, in
+one of the last fires, a slave of one of the most prominent citizens was
+seen to leap from the window, and make off over garden fences. A shout
+was immediately raised by the spectators, and a pursuit commenced.
+The terrified fugitive made desperate efforts to escape, but being
+overtaken, he was seized, and, pale as death, lifted on men's shoulders
+and carried to jail.
+
+Added to all this, men now remembered it lacked but a few days of being
+the anniversary of the bloody riot of thirty years ago. They began to
+watch and question the negroes, and one of the Spanish sailors, on being
+interrogated, gave such unsatisfactory, suspicious answers, that
+the whole crew were arrested, and thrown into prison. But that same
+afternoon, while the magistrates, whom the alarming state of things had
+called together, were in consultation about it, the cry of "Fire!" again
+startled the entire community. The ringing of the alarm-bell had now
+become almost as terrifying as the sound of the last trumpet, and the
+panic became general. The first step was to ascertain if there were any
+strangers in town who might be concealed enemies, and a thorough search
+was made--the militia being ordered out, and sentries posted at the ends
+of all the streets, with orders to stop all persons carrying bags and
+bundles. This was done on the 13th of April. None being found, the
+conclusion became inevitable that some dark, mysterious plot lay at the
+bottom of it all, and the inhabitants thought the city was doomed, like
+Sodom. First, the more timorous packed up their valuable articles and
+fled into the country, up toward Canal Street. This increased the panic,
+which swelled until almost the entire population were seen hurrying
+through the streets, fleeing for their lives. The announcement of an
+approaching army would not have created a greater stampede. Every cart
+and vehicle that could be found was engaged at any price, into which
+whole families were piled, and hurried away to the farms beyond Chambers
+Street, in the neighborhood of Canal Street. It was a strange spectacle,
+and the farmers could hardly believe their senses, at this sudden
+inundation into their quiet houses of the people of the city. The town
+authorities were also swept away in the general excitement, and negroes
+of all ages and sexes were arrested by the wholesale, and hurried to
+prison. The Supreme Court was to sit in the latter part of April, and
+the interval of a few days was spent in efforts to get at the guilty
+parties. But nothing definite could be ascertained, as the conspirators,
+whoever they were, kept their own secret. At length, despairing of
+getting at the truth in any other way, the authorities offered a reward
+of a hundred pounds, and a full pardon to any one who would turn State's
+evidence, and reveal the names of the ringleaders. This was pretty
+sure to bring out the facts, if there were any to disclose, and almost
+equally sure to obtain a fabricated story, if there was nothing to tell.
+A poor, ignorant slave, shaking with terror in his cell, would hardly be
+proof against such an inducement as a free pardon, and to him or her an
+almost fabulous sum of money, if he had anything to reveal, while the
+temptation to invent a tale that would secure both liberty and money was
+equally strong.
+
+On the 21st of April the court met, Judges Philips and Horsmander
+presiding. A jury was impanelled, but although there was no lack of
+prisoners, there was almost a total want of evidence sufficient to put
+a single man on trial. The reward offered had not borne its legitimate
+fruits, and no one offered to make any revelations.
+
+Among the first brought up for examination was Mary Burton, a colored
+servant girl, belonging to John Hughson, the keeper of a low, dirty
+negro tavern over on the west side of the city, near the Hudson River.
+This was a place of rendezvous for the worst negroes of the town; and
+from some hints that Mary had dropped, it was suspected it had been the
+head-quarters of the conspirators. But when, brought before the Grand
+Jury, she refused to be sworn. They entreated her to take the oath and
+tell the whole truth, but she only shook her head. They then threatened
+her, but with no better success; they promised she should be protected
+from danger and shielded from prosecution, but she still maintained an
+obstinate silence. They then showed her the reward, and attempted to
+bribe her with the wealth in store for her, but she almost spat on it in
+her scorn. This poor negro slave showed an independence and stubbornness
+in the presence of the jury that astonished them. Finding all their
+efforts vain, they ordered her to be sent to jail. This terrified her,
+and she consented to be sworn. But after taking the oath, she refused to
+say anything about the fire. A theft had been traced to Hughson, and she
+told all she knew about that, but about the fires would neither deny nor
+affirm anything. They then appealed to her conscience painted before
+her the terrors of the final judgment, and the torments of hell, till
+at last she broke down, and proposed to make a clean breast of it. She
+commenced by saying that Hughson had threatened to take her life if she
+told, and then again hesitated. But at length, by persistent efforts,
+the following facts were wrenched from her by piecemeal. She said that
+three negroes--giving their names--had been in the habit of meeting at
+the tavern, and talking about burning of the fort and city and murdering
+the people, and that Hughson and his wife had promised to help them;
+after which Hughson was to be governor and Cuff Phillipse king. That the
+first part of the story was true, there is little doubt. How much, with
+the imagination and love of the marvellous peculiar to her race, she
+added to it, it is not easy to say. She said, moreover, that but one
+white person beside her master and mistress was in the conspiracy, and
+that was an Irish girl known as Peggy, "the Newfoundland Beauty."
+She had several _aliases_, and was an abandoned character, being a
+prostitute to the negroes, and at this time kept as a mistress by a
+bold, desperate negro named Caesar. This revelation of Mary's fell on
+the Grand Jury like a bombshell. The long-sought secret they now felt
+was out. They immediately informed the magistrates. Of course the
+greatest excitement followed. Peggy was next examined, but she denied
+Mary Burton's story _in toto_--swore that she knew nothing of any
+conspiracy or of the burning of the stores; that if she should accuse
+any one it would be a lie, and blacken her own soul.
+
+It is rather a severe reflection on the courts of justice of that
+period, or we might rather say, perhaps, a striking illustration of the
+madness that had seized on all, that although the law strictly forbade
+any slave to testify in a court of justice against a white person, yet
+this girl Mary Burton was not only allowed to appear as evidence against
+Peggy, but her oath was permitted to outweigh hers, and cause her to
+be sentenced to death. The latter, though an abandoned, desperate
+character, was seized with terror at the near approach of death, and
+begged to be allowed another examination, which was granted, and she
+professed to make a full confession. It is a little singular that
+while she corroborated Mary Burton's statement as to the existence of a
+conspiracy, she located the seat of it not in Hughson's tavern, but in
+a miserable shanty near the Battery, kept by John Romme, who, she said,
+had promised to carry them all to a new country, and give them their
+liberty, if they would murder the whites and bring him the plunder. Like
+Mary Burton's confession, if truthful at all, it evidently had a large
+mixture of falsehood in it.
+
+On Saturday, May 9th, Peggy was again brought in, and underwent a
+searching examination. Some of her statements seemed improbable, and
+they therefore tested them in every possible way. It lasted for several
+hours, and resulted in a long _detailed_ confession, in which she
+asserted, among other things, that it was the same plot that failed
+in 1712, when the negroes designed to kill all the whites, in fact,
+exterminate them from the island. She implicated a great many negroes
+in the conspiracy; and every one that she accused, as they were brought
+before her, she identified as being present at the meetings of the
+conspirators in Romme's house. The court seemed anxious to avoid any
+collusion between the prisoners, and therefore kept them apart, so that
+each story should rest on its own basis. By this course they thought
+they would be able to distinguish what was true and what was false.
+
+Either from conscious guilt, or from having got some inkling of
+the charge to be brought against him, Romme fled before he could be
+arrested. His wife, however, and the negroes whose names Peggy gave,
+were sent to jail.
+
+On the 11th of May, or twenty days after the court convened, the
+executions commenced. On this day, Caesar and Prince, two of the three
+negroes Mary Burton testified against, were hung, though not for the
+conspiracy, but for theft. They were abandoned men, and died recklessly.
+Peggy and Hughson and his wife were next condemned. The former, finding
+that her confession did not, as had been promised, secure her pardon,
+retracted all she had said, and exculpated entirely the parties whose
+arrest she had caused.
+
+An atmosphere of gloom now rested over the city; every face showed signs
+of dread. In this state of feeling the Lieutenant-governor issued a
+proclamation, appointing a day of fasting and humiliation, not only in
+view of this calamity, but on account also of the want and loss caused
+by the past severe winter, and the declaration of war by England against
+Spain. When the day arrived, every shop was closed and business of all
+kinds suspended, and the silence and repose of the Sabbath rested on the
+entire community. Without regard to sect, all repaired to the places of
+worship, where the services were performed amid the deepest solemnity.
+
+The day of execution appointed for Hughson, his wife, and Peggy was a
+solemn one, and almost the entire population turned out to witness it.
+The former had declared that some extraordinary appearance would take
+place at his execution, and every one gazed on him as he passed in a
+cart from the prison to the gallows. He was a tall, powerful man, being
+six feet high. He stood erect in the cart all the way, his piercing eye
+fixed steadily on the distance, and his right hand raised high as his
+fetters would permit, and beckoning as though he saw help coming from
+afar. His face was usually pale and colorless, but to-day it was noticed
+that two bright red spots burned on either cheek, which added to the
+mystery with which the superstitious spectators invested him. When the
+sad procession arrived at the place of execution, the prisoners were
+helped to the ground, and stood exposed to the gaze of the crowd.
+Hughson was firm and self-possessed; but Peggy, pale, and weeping, and
+terror-struck, begging for life; while the wife, with the rope round
+her neck, leaned against a tree, silent and composed, but colorless
+as marble. One after another they were launched into eternity, and the
+crowd, solemn and thoughtful, turned their steps homeward.
+
+Hughson was hung in chains; and in a few days a negro was placed beside
+him, and here they swung, "blind and blackening," in the April air, in
+full view of the tranquil bay, a ghastly spectacle to the fishermen as
+they plied their vocation near by. For three weeks they dangled here in
+sunshine and storm, a terror to the passers-by. At length a rumor passed
+through the town that Hughson had turned into a negro, and the negro
+into a white man. This was a new mystery, and day after day crowds
+would come and gaze on the strange transformation, some thinking it
+supernatural, and others trying to give an explanation. Hughson had
+threatened to take poison, and it was thought by many that he had, and
+it was the effect of this that had wrought the change in his appearance.
+For ten days the Battery was thronged with spectators, gazing on these
+bloated, decomposing bodies, many in their superstitious fears expecting
+some new transformation. Under the increasing heat of the sun, they soon
+began to drip, till at last the body of Hughson burst asunder, filling
+the air with such an intolerable stench that the fishermen shunned the
+locality.
+
+As simple hanging was soon thought not sufficient punishment, and they
+were left to swing, and slowly rot in chains, so this last was at length
+thought to be too lenient, and the convicts were condemned to be burned
+at the stake. Two negroes, named Quack and Cuffee, were the first doomed
+to this horrible death. The announcement of this sentence created the
+greatest excitement. It was a new thing to the colonists, this mode of
+torture being appropriated by the savages for prisoners taken in war.
+Curious crowds gathered to see the stake erected, or stare at the loads
+of wood as they passed along the street, and were unloaded at its base.
+It was a strange spectacle to behold--the workmen carefully piling
+up the fagots under the spring sun; the spectators looking on, some
+horrified, and others fierce as savages; and over all the blue sky
+bending, while the gentle wind stole up from the bay and whispered
+in the tree-tops overhead. On the day of execution an immense crowd
+assembled. The two negroes were brought forward, pale and terrified, and
+bound to the stake. As the men approached with the fire to kindle
+the pile, they shrieked out in terror, confessed the conspiracy, and
+promised, if released, to tell all about it. They were at once taken
+down. This was the signal for an outbreak, and shouts of "burn 'em, burn
+'em" burst from the multitude. Mr. Moore then asked the sheriff to delay
+execution till he could see the Governor and get a reprieve. He hurried
+off, and soon returned with a conditional one. But, as he met the
+sheriff on the common, the latter told him that it would be impossible
+to take the criminals through the crowd without a strong guard, and
+before that could arrive, they would be murdered by the exasperated
+populace. They were then tied up again, and the torch applied. The
+flames arose around the unhappy victims. The curling smoke soon hid
+their dusky forms from view, while their shrieks and cries for mercy
+grew fainter and fainter, as the fierce fire shrivelled up their forms,
+till at last nothing but the crackling of the flames was heard, and
+the shouting, savage crowd grew still. As the fire subsided, the two
+wretched creatures, crisped to a cinder, remained to tell, for the
+hundredth time, to what barbarous deeds terror and passion may lead men.
+
+Some of the negroes went laughing to the place of execution, indulging
+in all sorts of buffoonery to the last, and mocking the crowd which
+surrounded them.
+
+All protested their innocence to the last, and if they had confessed
+previously, retracted before death their statements and accusations. But
+this contradiction of themselves, to-morrow denying what to-day they
+had solemnly sworn on the Bible to be true, instead of causing the
+authorities to hesitate, and consider how much terror and the hope of
+pardon had to do with it, convinced them still more of the strength
+and dangerous nature of the conspiracy, and they went to work with a
+determination and recklessness which made that summer the bloodiest and
+most terrific in the annals of New York. No lawyer was found bold enough
+to step forward and defend these poor wretches, but all volunteered
+their services to aid the Government in bringing them to punishment. The
+weeks now, as they rolled on, were freighted with terror and death, and
+stamped with scenes that made the blood run cold. This little town, on
+the southern part of Manhattan Island was wholly given to panic, and
+a nameless dread of some mysterious, awful fate, extended even to the
+scattered farm-houses near Canal Street. Between this and the last of
+August, a hundred and fifty-four negroes, exclusive of whites,
+were thrown into prison, till every cell was crowded and packed to
+suffocation with them. For three months, sentence of condemnation was
+on an average of one a day. The last execution was that of a Catholic
+priest, or rather of a schoolmaster of the city, who was charged with
+being one. Mary Burton, after an interval of three months, pretended to
+remember that he was present with the other conspirators she had first
+named as being in Hughson's tavern.
+
+His trial was long, and apparently without excitement. He conducted his
+own case with great ability, and brought many witnesses to prove
+his good character and orderly conduct; but he, of course, could not
+disprove the assertion of Mary, that she had some time or other seen him
+with the conspirators at Hughson's tavern--for the latter, with his wife
+and Peggy, and the negroes she had before named, had all been executed.
+Mary Burton alone was left, and her evidence being credited, no amount
+of testimony could avail him.
+
+Although the proceedings were all dignified and solemn, as became
+an English court, yet the course the trial took showed how utterly
+unbalanced and one-sided it had become. To add weight to Mary's
+evidence, many witnesses were examined to prove that Ury, though a
+schoolmaster, had performed the duties of a Catholic priest, as though
+this were an important point to establish. The attorney-general, in
+opening the case, drew a horrible picture of former persecutions by the
+Papists, and their cruelties to the Protestants, until it was apparent
+that all that the jury needed to indorse a verdict of guilty was
+evidence that he was a Catholic priest. Still it would be unfair to
+attribute this feeling wholly to religious intolerance or the spirit of
+persecution. England was at this time at war with Spain, and a report
+was circulated that the Spanish priests in Florida had formed a
+conspiracy to murder the English colonists. A letter from Ogilthorpe,
+in Georgia, confirmed this. Ury, who was an educated Englishman, but had
+led an adventurous life in different countries, could not disprove this,
+and he was convicted and sentenced to be hung. He met his fate with
+great composure and dignity, asserting his innocence to the last. He
+made the eighteenth victim hung, while thirteen had been burned at the
+stake, and seventy-one transported to various countries.
+
+At the average rate of two every week, one hanged and one burned alive,
+they were hurried into eternity amid prayers, and imprecations, and
+shrieks of agony. The hauling of wood to the stake, and the preparation
+of the gallows, kept the inhabitants in a state bordering on insanity.
+Business was suspended, and every face wore a terrified look. The voice
+of pity as well as justice was hushed, and one desire, that of swift
+vengeance, filled every heart. Had the press of to-day, with its system
+of interviewing, and minuteness of detail and description, existed then,
+there would have been handed down to us a chapter in human history that
+could be paralleled only in the dark ages.
+
+A swift massacre, a terrible slaughter, comes and goes like an
+earthquake or a tornado, and stuns rather than debases; but this long,
+steady succession of horrible executions and frightful scenes changed
+the very nature of the inhabitants, and they became a prey to a spirit
+demoniacal rather than human. The prayers and tears of those led forth
+to the stake, their heartrending cries as they were bound to it, and
+their shrieks of agony that were wafted out over the still waters of
+the bay, fell on hard and pitiless hearts. The ashes of the wood that
+consumed one victim would hardly grow cold before a new fire was kindled
+upon them, and the charred and blackened posts stood month after month,
+hideous monuments of what man may become when judgment and reason are
+surrendered to fear and passion. The spectacle was made still more
+revolting by the gallows standing near the stake, on which many were
+hung in chains, and their bodies left to swing, blacken, and rot in the
+summer air, a ghastly, horrible sight.
+
+Where this madness, that had swept away court, bar, and people together,
+would have ended, it is impossible to say, had not a new terror seized
+the inhabitants. Mary Burton, on whose accusation the first victims had
+been arrested and executed, finding herself a heroine, sought new fields
+in which to win notoriety. She ceased to implicate the blacks, and
+turned her attention to the whites, and twenty-four were arrested and
+thrown into prison. Elated with her success, she began to ascend in the
+social scale, and criminated some persons of the highest social standing
+in the city, whose characters were above suspicion. This was turning
+the tables on them in a manner the upper class did not expect, and
+they began to reflect what the end might be. The testimony that was
+sufficient to condemn the slaves was equally conclusive against them.
+The stake and the gallows which the court had erected for the black
+man, it could not pull down because a white gentleman stood under their
+shadow.
+
+Robespierre and his friends cut off the upper-crust of society without
+hesitation or remorse; but unfortunately the crust next below this
+became in turn the upper-crust, which also had to be removed, until at
+last they themselves were reached, when they paused. They had advanced
+up to their necks in the bloody tide of revolution, and finding that to
+proceed farther would take them overhead, they attempted to wade back to
+shore. So here, so long as the accusations were confined to the lowest
+class, it was all well enough, but when _they_ were being reached,
+it was high time to stop. The proceedings were summarily brought to a
+close, further examinations were deemed unnecessary, and confessions
+became flat and unprofitable; and this strange episode in American
+history ended.
+
+That there had been cause for alarm, there can be no doubt. That threats
+should be uttered by the slaves, is natural; for this would be in
+keeping with their whole history in this country. Nor is it at all
+improbable that a conspiracy was formed; for this, too, would only be in
+harmony with the conduct of slaves from time immemorial. The utter folly
+and hopelessness of such a one as the blacks testified to, has been
+urged against its existence altogether. If the argument is good for
+anything, it proves that the conspiracy thirty years before never
+existed, and that the Southampton massacre was a delusion, and John
+Brown never hatched his utterly insane conspiracy in Harper's Ferry.
+There have been a good many servile insurrections plotted in this
+country, not one of which was a whit more sensible or easier of
+execution than this, which was said to look to the complete overthrow of
+the little city. That the fires which first started the panic were the
+work of negro incendiaries, there is but little doubt; but how far they
+were a part of a wide-laid plan, it is impossible to determine.
+
+Unquestionably, success at the outset would have made the movement
+general, so that nothing but military force could have arrested it.
+
+There is one thing, however, about which there is no doubt--that a panic
+seized the people and the courts, and made them as unreliable as in
+the days of the Salem witchcraft. But these striking exhibitions of the
+weakness of human nature under certain circumstances have been witnessed
+since the world was made, and probably will continue to the end of time,
+or until the race enters on a new phase of existence. Panics, even among
+the most veteran soldiers, sometimes occur, and hence we cannot wonder
+they take place amid a mixed population. Popular excitements are never
+characterized by reason and common-sense, and never will be. In this
+case, there was more reason for a panic than at first sight seems to be.
+
+In the first place, the proportion of slaves to the whites was large.
+In the second place, they were a turbulent set, and had shown such
+a dangerous spirit, that the authorities became afraid to let them
+assemble together in meetings. This restriction they felt sorely, and it
+made them more restive. All were aware of this hostile state of feeling,
+and were constantly anticipating some outbreak or act of violence.
+Besides, it was but a few years since the thing they now feared did
+actually take place. And then, too, the point first aimed at was
+significant, and showed a boldness founded on conscious strength. Right
+inside the fort itself, and to the Governor's house, the torch was
+applied. It certainly looked ominous. Besides, the very wholesale manner
+in which the authorities thought it best to go to work increased the
+panic. In a very short time over a hundred persons were thrown into
+prison. The same proportion to the population to-day would be over ten
+thousand. Such a wholesale arrest would, of itself, throw New York into
+the wildest excitement, and conjure up all sorts of horrible shapes. Add
+to this, an average of two hundred burned at the stake, and two hundred
+hung every week, or more than fifty a day, and nearly three times that
+number sentenced to transportation, and one can faintly imagine what a
+frightful state of things would exist in the city. The very atmosphere
+grew stifling from the smoke of burning men and women, while the gallows
+groaned under its weight of humanity. Had this been the wild work of a
+mob it would have been terrible enough, but when it was the result of a
+deliberate judicial tribunal, which was supposed to do nothing except on
+the most conclusive evidence, the sense of danger was increased tenfold.
+The conclusion was inevitable, that the conspiracy embraced every black
+man in the city, and was thoroughly organized. In short, the whole place
+was, beyond doubt, resting over a concealed volcano, and the instinct of
+self-preservation demanded the most summary work. Let the inhabitants of
+any city become thoroughly possessed of such an idea, and they will act
+with no more prudence or reason than the people of New York at that
+time did. An undoubted belief in such a state of things will confuse
+the perceptions and unbalance the judgment of a community anywhere and
+everywhere on the globe.
+
+Still, consistent as it is with human history, one can hardly believe
+it possible, as he stands in New York to-day, that men have there been
+burned at the stake under the sanction of English law, or left to swing
+and rot in the winds of heaven, by order of the Supreme Court of the
+city.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+THE STAMP-ACT RIOT OF 1765.
+
+Thorough Understanding of the Principles of Liberty by the People.--The
+Stamp Act.--How viewed by the Colonists.--Colden strengthens Fort George
+in Alarm.--Arrival of the Stamps.--How the News was received by the Sons
+of Liberty.--A Bold Placard.--Stamp Distributor frightened.--Patriotic
+Action of the Merchants.--Public Demonstration against the Stamp
+Act.--Colden takes Refuge in the Fort.--Dare not fire on the
+People.--The People at the Gate demand the Stamps.--Colden and Lord Bute
+hung in Effigy.--Colden's Coach-house broken open.--The Images placed in
+the Coach, and dragged with Shouts through the Streets.--Hung again in
+Sight of the Fort.--A Bonfire made of the Fence around Bowling
+Green, and the Governor's Carriages, while the Garrison look silently
+on.--Prejudice against Coaches.--Major James' House sacked.--Great Joy
+and Demonstration at the Repeal of the Stamp Act.--Celebration of the
+King's Birthday.--Loyalty of the People.--Mutiny Act.--A Riot becomes a
+Great Rebellion.
+
+At the present day, when personal ambition takes the place of
+patriotism, and love of principle gives way to love of party; when the
+success of the latter is placed above constitutional obligations and
+popular rights, one seems, as he turns back to our early history, to be
+transported to another age of the world, and another race of beings.
+
+Nothing shows how thoroughly understood by the common people were the
+principles of liberty, and with what keen penetration they saw through
+all shams and specious reasoning, than the decided, nay, fierce, stand
+they took against the stamp act. This was nothing more than our present
+law requiring a governmental stamp on all public and business paper
+to make it valid. The only difference is, the former was levying a
+tax without representation--in other words, without the consent of the
+governed. The colonies assembled in Congress condemned it; hence the
+open, violent opposition to it by the people rises above the level of a
+common riot, and partakes more of the nature of a righteous revolution.
+Still, it was a riot, and exhibited the lawless features of one.
+
+The news of the determination of the English Government to pass a
+stamp act, raised a storm of indignation throughout the colonies, from
+Massachusetts to South Carolina, and it was denounced as an oppressive,
+unrighteous, tyrannical measure. From the wayside tavern and the pulpit
+alike, it was attacked with unsparing severity. The Government, however,
+thought it a mere ebullition of feeling, that would not dare exhibit
+itself in open opposition. Nor does this confidence seem strong, when we
+remember the weakness of the colonies on the one side, and the strength
+of an organized government, with the law and force both, on the other.
+
+Cadwallader Colden, a Scotchman by birth, and a clergyman by profession,
+was at that time acting Governor of New York; and to guard against any
+resort to force on the part of the people when the stamps should arrive,
+had Fort George, on the Battery, reinforced by a regiment from Crown
+Point, its magazines replenished, the ramparts strengthened, and its
+guns trained on the town. The people saw all this, and understood its
+import; but it had the opposite effect from that which was intended,
+for, instead of overawing the people, it exasperated them.
+
+At length, in October, 1765, a ship with the British colors flying came
+sailing up the bay, and anchored off Fort George. In a short time the
+startling tidings was circulated, that she brought a quantity of stamps.
+It was like sounding an alarm-bell, and the streets became thronged
+with excited men, while all the provincial vessels in the harbor lowered
+their colors to half-mast, in token of mourning. In anticipation of this
+event, an organization of men had been formed, called "Sons of Liberty."
+They at once assembled, and resolved at all hazards to get hold of those
+stamps. They had caused the act itself to be hawked about the streets as
+"the folly of England and the ruin of America," and now they determined
+to measure their strength with the Governor of the colony. That night,
+when the town was wrapped in slumber, they quietly affixed on the doors
+of every public office and on corners of the streets, the following
+placard:
+
+PRO PATRIA.
+
+_The first man that either distributes or makes use of stamped paper,
+let him take care of his house, person, and effects._
+
+VOX POPULI.
+
+"WE DARE."
+
+To the stamp distributors they said, "Assure yourselves, the spirit of
+Brutus and Cassius is yet alive. We will not submit to the stamp act
+upon any account or in any instance."
+
+McEvers, the head stamp distributor, frightened by the bold, determined
+attitude of the people, refused to receive the stamps, and Golden had
+them sent for greater safety to Fort George. He had written, to the
+British Secretary, "_I am resolved to have the stamps distributed_." But
+the people were equally resolved they should not be. Still, on the 30th
+day of October, he and all the royal governors took the oath to carry
+the stamp act into effect; but they soon discovered that they could find
+no one bold enough to act as distributor. All along the sea-coast,
+in every part of the colonies, the people were aroused, and either
+assembling quietly, or called together by the ringing of bells and
+firing of cannon, presented such a united, determined front, that not
+one person remained duly commissioned to distribute stamps. On the
+last day of October, the merchants of New York came together, and
+bound themselves to "send no new orders for goods or merchandise, to
+countermand all former orders, and not even receive goods on commission,
+unless the stamp act be repealed"--that is, give up commerce at once,
+with all its wealth and benefits, rather than submit to a tax of a few
+shillings on paper.
+
+Friday, the 1st of November, was the day fixed upon for a public
+demonstration of the people throughout the colonies against it, and
+never dawned a morning more pregnant with the fate not only of a nation,
+but of the world.
+
+From New Hampshire to South Carolina it was ushered in by the tolling of
+muffled bells, the firing of minute-guns, and flags hung at half-mast.
+Eulogies were pronounced on liberty, and everywhere people left their
+shops and fields, and gathered in excited throngs to discuss the great
+question of taxation.
+
+"Even the children at their games, though hardly able to speak, caught
+up the general chorus, and went along the streets, merrily carolling:
+'Liberty, Property, and no Stamps.'" [Footnote: Bancroft.]
+
+In New York the uprising was terrific, for the population rushed
+together as one man--as Gage, the commander of Fort George said, "by
+thousands."
+
+The sailors flocked in from the vessels, the farmers from the country,
+and the shouts, and ringing of bells, and firing of cannon made the city
+fairly tremble. Colden was terrified at the storm that was raised, and
+took refuge in the fort. An old man, bent and bowed with the weight
+of eighty years, he tottered nervously to the shelter of its guns, and
+ordered up a detachment of marines from a ship of war in port, for his
+protection. In his indignation, he wanted to fire on the people, and the
+black muzzles of the cannon pointing on the town had an ominous look.
+Whether he had threatened to do so by a message, we do not know; at any
+rate, the people either suspected his determination or got wind of it,
+for during the day an unknown person handed in at the fort-gate a
+note, telling him if he did, the people would hang him, like Porteus of
+Edinburgh, on a sign-post. He wisely forebore to give the order, for if
+he had not, his gray hairs would have streamed from a gibbet.
+
+At length the day of turmoil wore away, and night came on, but with it
+came no diminution of the excitement. Soon as it was dark, the "Sons of
+Liberty," numbering thousands, surged tumultuously up around the fort,
+and demanded that the stamps should be given up that they might be
+destroyed. Golden bluntly refused, when with loud, defiant shouts they
+left, and went up Broadway to "the field" (the present Park), where they
+erected a gibbet, and hanged on it Colden in effigy, and beside him a
+figure holding a boot; some said to represent the devil, others Lord
+Bute, of whom the _boot_, by a pun on his name, showed for whom the
+effigy was designed.
+
+The demonstration had now become a riot, and the Sons of Liberty
+degenerated into a mob. The feeling that had been confined to words all
+day must now have some outlet. A torchlight procession was formed, and
+the scaffold and images taken down, and borne on men's shoulders
+along Broadway towards the Battery. The glare of flaring lights on the
+buildings and faces of the excited crowd, the shouts and hurrahs that
+made night hideous, called out the entire population, which gazed in
+amazement on the strange, wild spectacle.
+
+They boldly carried the scaffold and effigies to within a few feet of
+the gate of the fort, and knocked audaciously for admission. Isaac Sears
+was the leader of these "Sons of Liberty."
+
+Finding themselves unable to gain admittance, they went to the
+Governor's carriage-house, and took out his elegant coach, and placing
+the two effigies in it, dragged it by hand around the streets by the
+light of torches, amid the jeers and shouts of the multitude. Becoming
+at last tired of this amusement, they returned towards the fort, and
+erected a second gallows, on which they hung the effigies the second
+time.
+
+All this time the cannon, shotted and primed, lay silent on their
+carriages, while the soldiers from the ramparts looked wonderingly, idly
+on. General Gage did not dare to fire on the people, fearing they would
+sweep like an inundation over the ramparts, when he knew a general
+massacre would follow.
+
+The mob now tore down, the wooden fence that surrounded Bowling Green,
+and piling pickets and boards together, set them on fire. As the flames
+crackled and roared in the darkness, they pitched on the Governor's
+coach, with the scaffold and effigies; then hastening to his
+carriage-house again, and dragging out a one-horse chaise, two sleighs,
+and other vehicles, hauled them to the fire, and threw them on, making a
+conflagration that illumined the waters of the bay and the ships riding
+at anchor. This was a galling spectacle to the old Governor and the
+British officers, but they dared not interfere.
+
+What was the particular animosity against those carriages does not
+appear, though it was the only property of the Governor they destroyed,
+unless they were a sign of that aristocratic pride which sought to
+enslave them. There were, at this time, not a half-dozen coaches in the
+city, and they naturally became the symbols of bloated pride. It is
+said the feeling was so strong against them, that a wealthy Quaker named
+Murray, who lived out of town, near where the distributing reservoir now
+is, kept one to ride down town in, yet dared not call it a coach, but a
+"_leathern convenience_."
+
+Although Sears and other leaders of the Sons of Liberty tried to
+restrain the mob, their blood was now up, and they were bent on
+destruction. Having witnessed the conflagration of the Governor's
+carriages, they again marched up Broadway, and some one shouting
+"James' house," the crowd took up the shout, and passing out of the city
+streamed through the open country, to where West Broadway now is, and
+near the corner of Anthony Street. This James was Major in the Royal
+Artillery, and had made himself obnoxious to the people by taking a
+conspicuous part in putting the fort into a state of defence. He had a
+beautiful residence here, which the mob completely gutted, broke up
+his elegant furniture, destroyed his library and works of art, and laid
+waste his ornamented grounds. They then dispersed, and the city became
+quiet.
+
+The excitement was, however, not quelled--the people had not yet got
+hold of the stamps, which they were determined to have. Colden, having
+seen enough of the spirit of the "Sons of Liberty," was afraid to risk
+another night, even in the fort, unless it was in some way appeased;
+and so the day after the riot, he had a large placard posted up, stating
+that he should have nothing more to do with the stamps, but would leave
+them with Sir Henry Moore, the newly appointed Governor, then on his way
+from England.
+
+This, however, did not satisfy the Sons of Liberty: they wanted the
+stamps themselves, and through Sears, their leader, insisted on their
+being given up--telling him very plainly if he did not they would storm
+the fort, and they were determined to do it.
+
+The Common Council of the city now became alarmed at the ungovernable,
+desperate spirit of the mob, which seemed bent on blood, and begged the
+Governor to let them be deposited in the City Hall. To this he finally
+though reluctantly consented, but the feeling in the city kept at fever
+heat, and would remain so until the act itself was repealed.
+
+Moore, the new Governor, soon arrived, and assumed the reigns of
+government. The corporation offered him the freedom of the city in a
+gold box, but he refused to receive it, unless upon stamped paper.
+It was evident he was determined to enforce the stamp act. But on
+consulting with Colden and others, and ascertaining the true state
+of things, he wisely abandoned his purpose, and soon made it publicly
+known. To appease the people still more, he dismantled the fort, which
+was peculiarly obnoxious to them from the threatening attitude it had
+been made to assume. Still, the infamous act was unrepealed, and the
+people refused to buy English manufactures, and commerce languished.
+
+At length, Parliament, finding that further insistance in carrying out
+the obnoxious act only worked mischief, had repealed it. When the news
+reached New York, the most unbounded joy was manifested. Bells were
+rung, cannon fired, and placards posted, calling on a meeting of the
+citizens the next day to take measures for celebrating properly the
+great event. At the appointed time, the people came together at Howard's
+Hotel, and forming a procession, marched gayly to "the field," and right
+where the City Hall now stands, then an open lot, a salute of twenty-one
+guns was fired. A grand dinner followed, at which the Sons of Liberty
+feasted and drank loyal toasts to his Majesty, and all went "merry as a
+marriage-bell." The city was illuminated, and bonfires turned the night
+into day. In a few weeks, the King's birthday was celebrated with great
+display. A huge pile of wood was erected in the Park, and an ox roasted
+whole for the people. Cart after cart dumped its load of beer on the
+ground, till twenty-five barrels, flanked by a huge hogshead of rum, lay
+in a row, presided over by men appointed to deal out the contents to the
+populace. A boisterous demonstration followed that almost drowned the
+roar of the twenty-one cannon that thundered forth a royal salute. As
+a fitting wind-up to the bacchanalian scene, at night twenty-five
+tar-barrels, fastened on poles, blazed over the "common," while
+brilliant fireworks were exhibited at Bowling Green. The feasting
+continued late in the night, and so delighted were the "Sons of
+Liberty," that they erected a mast, inscribed "to his most gracious
+Majesty, George the Third, Mr. Pitt, and Liberty." A petition was also
+signed to erect a statue to Pitt, and the people seemed determined by
+this excess of loyalty to atone for their previous rebellious spirit.
+The joy, however, was of short duration--the news of the riots caused
+Parliament to pass a "mutiny act," by which troops were to be quartered
+in America in sufficient numbers to put down any similar demonstration
+in future, a part of the expense of their support to be paid by the
+colonists themselves. This exasperated "the Sons of Liberty", and they
+met and resolved to resist this new act of oppression to the last. The
+troops arrived in due time, and of course collisions took place between
+them and the people. Matters now continued to grow worse and worse,
+until the "riot of the Sons of Liberty" became a revolution, which
+dismembered the British Empire, and established this great republic, the
+influence of which on the destiny of the world no one can predict.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+DOCTORS' RIOT, 1788.
+
+Body-snatching.--Bodies dug up by Medical Students.--Excitement of the
+People.--Effect of the Discovery of a human Limb from the Hospital.--Mob
+ransack the Building.--Destruction of Anatomical Specimens.--Arrival
+of Mayor, and Imprisonment of Students.--Second Day.--Examination
+of Columbia College and Physicians' Houses.--Appeal of the Mayor and
+distinguished Citizens to the Mob.--Mob attempt to break into Jail and
+seize the Students.--The Fight.--The Military called out.--Beaten by the
+Mob.--Larger Military Force called out.--Attacked by the Mob.--Deadly
+Firing.--Great Excitement.--Flight of Doctors and Students.
+
+In former times "body-snatching," or digging up bodies for dissections,
+was much, more heard of than at present. The fear of it was so great,
+that often, in the neighborhood where medical students were pursuing
+their studies, persons who lost friends would have a watch kept over
+their graves for several nights, to prevent them from being dug up.
+Neither the high social position of parties nor sex was any barrier to
+this desecration of graves, and the public mind was often shocked by
+accounts of the young and beautiful being disinterred, to be cut up by
+medical students. In the city there was, a few years ago--and perhaps
+there is now--a regular commercial price for bodies.
+
+[Illustration: THE NEW YORK HOSPITAL.--Scene of the Doctors' Riot.
+Located formerly on Broadway at the head of Pearl Street.]
+
+[Illustration: THE COLORED ORPHAN ASYLUM 143d St. The former building
+destroyed during the Draft Riot of 1863.]
+
+Although it was conceded that for thorough instruction in medical
+science, subjects for dissection were necessary, yet no one outside of
+the medical profession could be found to sanction "bodysnatching."
+There is a sacredness attached to the grave that the most hardened
+feel. Whenever the earth is thrown over the body of a man, no matter how
+abject or sinful he may have been, the involuntary exclamation of every
+one is "_requiescat in pace_." When, it comes to be one of our own
+personal friends, a parent, sister, or child, to this feeling of
+sacredness is added that of affection, and no wrong is like that of
+invading the tomb of those we love. Shakespeare left his curse for
+him who should disturb his bones; and all feel like cursing those
+who disturb the bones of friends who are linked to them by blood and
+affection.
+
+In the winter of 1787 and 1788, medical students of New York City dug up
+bodies more frequently than usual, or were more reckless in their mode
+of action, for the inhabitants became greatly excited over the stories
+that were told of their conduct. Some of these, if true, revealed a
+brutality and indecency, shocking as it was unnecessary. Usually,
+the students had contented themselves with ripping open the graves of
+strangers and negroes, about whom there was little feeling; but this
+winter they dug up respectable people, even young women, of whom they
+made an indecent exposure.
+
+The stories did not lose anything by repetition, and soon the conduct of
+physicians and medical students became a town talk. There seemed to be
+no remedy for this state of things; the graveyards, which were then in
+the heart of the city, were easily accessible; while plenty of men could
+be found, who, for a small sum, would dig up any body that was desired.
+A mere accident caused this state of feeling to culminate and suddenly
+break out into action. In the spring, some boys were playing in the
+rear of the hospital, when a young surgeon, from a mere whim, showed an
+amputated arm to them. One of them, impelled by curiosity, immediately
+mounted a ladder that stood against the wall, used in making some
+repairs, when the surgeon told him to look at his mother's arm. The
+little fellow's mother had recently died, and filled with terror, he
+immediately hastened to his father, who was a mason, and working at the
+time in Broadway. The father at once went to his wife's grave, and had
+it opened. He found the body gone, and returned to his fellow-workmen
+with the news. They were filled with rage, and, armed with tools, and
+gathering a crowd as they marched, they surged up around the hospital.
+
+At first many seemed to be impelled only by curiosity, but as the throng
+increased, the masons became eager for decisive action. Threats and
+denunciations began to arise on every side, and then appeals for
+vengeance, till at length they rushed for the door, and pouring into
+the building, began the work of destruction. For a while there was
+a terrible rattling of bones, as they tore down, and smashed every
+anatomical specimen they could lay their hands on. Valuable imported
+ones shared the common fate. They swarmed through the building, and
+finally came upon fresh subjects, apparently but just dug up. This
+kindled their rage tenfold, and the students, who thus far had been
+unmolested, were in danger of being roughly handled.
+
+The news of the gathering of the crowd and its threatening aspect, had
+reached the Mayor, who immediately summoned the sheriff, and taking
+him with several prominent citizens, hastened to the spot. Finding the
+students in the hands of the infuriated mob, he released them, and to
+the satisfaction, apparently, of the rioters, sent them to jail for
+safe-keeping.
+
+There was now nothing left for them to do, and they dispersed, and the
+matter was thought to be ended.
+
+But, during the evening, knots of men were everywhere discussing the
+events of the day, and retailing the exciting reports that were now
+flying thickly around; and next morning, whether from any concert of
+action, or impelled by mere curiosity, is not known, crowds began to
+fill the street and yard in front of the city hospital. The discovery
+of the bodies the day before had deepened the excitement, and now a
+more thorough examination of the building was proposed, and also an
+examination of the physicians' houses. Matters were beginning to wear
+a serious aspect, and the Governor, Mayor, Chancellor, and some of the
+prominent citizens of the town, came together to consult on a course of
+action. It was finally resolved to resort in a body to the spot where
+the mob was assembled, and make a personal appeal to it. They did so,
+and presented an imposing appearance as they advanced up Broadway.
+Although representing the State and city, they did not presume on their
+authority, but attempted persuasion. Mounting the steps, they in
+turn addressed the throng, which now kept momentarily increasing, and
+exhorted them as law-abiding citizens to use no violence. Some made
+most pathetic appeals to their feelings, their pride and self-respect;
+indeed, begged them, by every consideration of home and justice, to
+desist, and retire peacefully to their homes. They solemnly promised
+that a most thorough investigation should be made, and they should have
+all the satisfaction the laws could afford. More they ought not to ask.
+These appeals and promises produced a favorable effect on many of the
+mob, and they left. But the greater part refused to be pacified. Their
+blood was up, and they insisted on making the examination themselves.
+They did not propose to commit any violence, but having begun their
+investigations they were determined to go through with them.
+
+The Mayor and the Governor seemed to have an unaccountable repugnance
+to the use of force, and let the mob depart for Columbia College without
+any resistance. The professors and students were amazed at this sudden
+inundation of the crowd, who swarmed without opposition through every
+part of the building. Finding nothing to confirm their suspicions, they
+left without doing any material injury. Still unsatisfied, however, they
+repaired to the houses of the neighboring physicians, and the leaders,
+acting as a delegation of the crowd, went through them with the same
+result. It was a singularly well-behaved mob, and they received the
+report of the self-constituted committees with apparently perfect
+satisfaction, and when they had made the round of the houses, gradually
+broke up into knots and dispersed.
+
+But the lawless spirit of a mob seldom arrests and controls itself.
+Having once felt its strength and power, it is never satisfied till it
+measures them against those of the legal authorities, and yields only
+when it must. Hence, as a rule, the quicker "it feels the strong hand
+of power" the better for all parties. Promising legal satisfaction, to
+law-breakers is a very unsatisfactory proceeding. Obedience first and
+discussion afterwards is the proper order to be observed.
+
+The Mayor had hardly time to congratulate himself on having overcome
+so easily a serious difficulty, before he found that he had not as yet
+touched it. In the afternoon, the crowd again began to assemble, and
+this time around the jail, with the avowed purpose of taking vengeance
+on the students and physicians locked up there for safe-keeping. Having
+asserted and exercised, against all law, the right of domiciliary
+visits, it was but a short and easy step to assert the right to punish
+also contrary to law. As they gathered in front of the jail, it was
+seen that a different spirit from that which they had hitherto exhibited
+ruled them. The tiger was unchained, and loud shouts and yells were
+heard. "Bring out your doctors! bring out your doctors!" arose on every
+side. They threatened to tear down the building unless they were given
+up. The inmates became thoroughly alarmed, and barricaded the doors and
+windows, and armed themselves the best way they could for self-defence.
+Attempts were made to parley with the crowd, but they would listen to
+nothing, and answered every appeal with loud shouts for the doctors.
+What they _intended_ to do with them by way of punishment was not so
+clear, though what their fate would have been, if once at their mercy,
+there was little doubt. The city authorities now became alarmed, murder
+was imminent, and having no police force sufficient to cope with such
+a formidable mob, they decided that the city was in a state of
+insurrection, and called out the military. About three o'clock, the
+force marched up the street, and passed quietly through the crowd, which
+opened as they advanced. As they moved past, a shower of dirt and stones
+followed them, accompanied with taunts, and jeers, and mocking
+laughter. The whole military movement was evidently intended only for
+intimidation--to show the rioters what could be done if they resorted to
+violence; for the soldiers, instead of taking up their quarters, as they
+should have done, in the building, having exhibited themselves,
+marched away. But the mob, still retaining its position and threatening
+attitude, another force, a little later, consisting of only twelve men,
+was sent up. This was worse than nothing, and as the little handful
+marched solemnly up, the crowd broke out into derisive laughter, and all
+sorts of contemptuous epithets were heaped upon them. Instead of waiting
+for them to come near, they rushed down, the street to meet them, and
+swarming like bees around them, snatched away their muskets, and broke
+them to pieces on the pavement. [Footnote: John Jay and Baron Steuben
+were both wounded in trying to allay the mob.] The soldiers, disarmed,
+scattered, and hustled about, were glad to escape with whole bodies.
+
+This first act of open resistance excited the rioters still more--they
+had passed the Rubicon, and were now ready for anything, and "to the
+jail! to the jail!" arose in wild yells, and the turbulent mass poured
+like a tumultuous sea around the building. They rushed against the
+doors, and with united shoulders and bodies endeavored to heave them
+from their hinges. But being secured with heavy bolts and bars, they
+resisted all their efforts. They then smashed in the windows with
+stones, and attempted to force an entrance through them; but the handful
+of men inside took possession of these, and, with such weapons as they
+could find, beat them back. Numbers were of no avail here, as only a
+few at a time could approach a window, while those within, being on the
+defensive, knocked them back as often as they attempted to climb in.
+The rioters, baffled in their attempts, would then fall back, and hurl
+paving-stones and bricks at the windows, when those who defended them
+would step one side. But the moment the former advanced again, the
+latter would crowd the windows with clubs and sticks. The enraged
+assailants tore off pickets, and advancing with these, made desperate
+efforts to clear the windows. But those within knew it was a matter of
+life and death with them, and stubbornly held their ground. The fight
+was thus kept up till dark, amid yells and shouts and a pandemonium of
+noises, and no efforts apparently were made to put an end to it, and
+release the inmates of the jail. But steps had been taken to organize
+and arm a large body of militia under an experienced officer, and now
+in the dim starlight their bayonets were seen gleaming, as they marched
+steadily forward on the dark, heaving mass that filled the street far as
+the eye could see. The rioters, however, instead of being intimidated at
+the sight, sent up a yell of defiance, and arming themselves with stones
+and brick-bats, hurled them in a blinding volley on the troops. So
+fierce was the assault, that before the latter had time to form, many
+were knocked down, and some badly wounded. The commanding officer,
+finding the fight thus forced on him, gave the order in a ringing voice,
+"Ready, aim, fire!" A flash broad as the street followed, lighting up
+the gloom, and revealing the scowling faces of the mob, the battered
+front of the jail, and the pale faces of those guarding the windows.
+They had not expected this close, point-blank volley, for the timid
+action of the authorities had not prepared them for it, and they stopped
+in amazement and hesitation. The commanding officer understood his
+business, and instead of waiting to see if they would disperse, poured
+in another volley. The rioters were confounded as they saw their
+comrades fall by their side, but still stood at bay; until at last,
+seeing the dead and wounded on every side, they could stand it no
+longer, but broke and fled in every direction. In a few minutes the
+street was clear of all but the dead and wounded, the groans of the
+latter loading the night air. The poor wretches were carried away, and
+the troops remained on the spot all night. The next day the city was in
+a fever of excitement. The number of killed was greatly exaggerated,
+and the denunciations of the butchery, as it was called, were fierce and
+loud. On almost every corner groups of excited men were seen in angry
+discussion--multitudes gathered in front of the jail, and gazed with
+horror on the blood-stained pavement.
+
+The soldiers who had committed the slaughter were cursed and threatened
+by turns, but they quietly rested on their arms, ready, it was evident,
+to repeat the experiment at the first open act of violence. For awhile
+there was danger of a general outbreak throughout the city; but
+the authorities had become thoroughly aroused to the danger of the
+situation, and seeing that the quicker they brought the conflict to a
+close, the better, made such a display of force, that the riotous spirit
+was overawed. Still, it was not entirely subdued, and it was evident
+that it was kept under by fear alone. The physicians of the city came in
+for almost as large a share of the hatred as the military. They were the
+original cause of the disturbance, and threats against them became so
+open and general, that they were in constant dread of personal violence,
+and many fled from the city. They scattered in every direction, and
+there threatened to be a general Hegira of physicians. All the medical
+students were secretly stowed into carriages, and hurried off into the
+country, where they remained till the excitement died away. It did not,
+however, subside readily; indeed, the danger of open revolt was so great
+for several days, that the military continued to keep guard at the jail.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+SPRING ELECTION RIOTS OF 1834.
+
+Fatal Error in our Naturalization Laws.--Our Experiment of Self
+government not a fair one.--Fruit of giving Foreigners the Right
+to Vote.--Bitter Feeling between Democrats and Whigs.--First Day of
+Election.--Ships "Constitution" and "Veto."--Whigs driven from the
+Polls.--Excitement.--Whigs determined to defend themselves.--Meeting
+called.--Resolutions.--Second Day's Election.--Attack on the Frigate
+"Constitution."--A Bloody Fight.--Mayor and Officers wounded.--Mob
+triumphant.--Excitement of the Whigs.--The Streets blocked by fifteen
+thousand enraged Whigs.--Military called out.--Occupy Arsenal and
+City Hall all Night.--Result of the Election.--Excitement of the
+Whigs.--Mass-meeting in Castle Garden.
+
+This country never committed a more fatal mistake than in making
+its naturalization laws so that the immense immigration from foreign
+countries could, after a brief sojourn, exercise the right of suffrage.
+Our form of government was an experiment, in the success of which not
+only we as a nation were interested, but the civilized world. To have
+it a fair one, we should have been allowed to build and perfect the
+structure with our own material, not pile into it such ill-formed,
+incongruous stuff as the despotisms of Europe chose to send us. Growing
+up by a natural process, educating the people to the proper exercise of
+their high trust, correcting mistakes, and adjusting difficulties as
+we progressed, the noble building would have settled into greater
+compactness as it arose in height, and all its various proportions been
+in harmony. We should have built slowly but surely. But when there
+was thrown upon us a mass of material wholly unfit for any political
+structure, and we were compelled to pile it in hap-hazard, it was
+not long before the goodly edifice began to show ugly seams, and the
+despotisms of Europe pointed to them with scorn, and asked tauntingly
+how the doctrine of self-government worked. They emptied their prisons
+and poor-houses on our shores, to be rid of a dangerous element at home,
+and we, with a readiness that bordered on insanity, not only took them
+into our bosoms, but invited them to aid us in making our laws and
+electing our rulers. To ask men, the greater part of whom could neither
+read nor write, who were ignorant of the first principles of true civil
+liberty, who could be bought and sold like sheep in the shambles, to
+assist us in founding a model republic, was a folly without a parallel
+in the history of the world, and one of which we have not yet begun to
+pay the full penalty. It was a cruel wrong, not only to ourselves, but
+to the oppressed masses of Europe, who turned their longing eyes on us
+for encouragement and the moral aid which our success would give them in
+their struggles against despotism.
+
+If the reason given for endowing this floating population--and dangerous
+element under any circumstances--with the full rights of citizens had
+been the true one, namely: to be just to them, and consistent with the
+great doctrine of equality on which our Government rested, there might
+be some little comfort in reflecting on the mistake we made. But this
+was false. The right of suffrage was given them by a party in order to
+secure their votes, and secure them, too, by appealing to those very
+passions that made them dangerous to the republic, and which
+the interest of all alike required should be removed instead of
+strengthened.
+
+All the good the Democratic party has ever done this country will hardly
+compensate for the evil of this one act.
+
+If our experiment shall finally prove a failure, we verily believe it
+will be owing to the extension of the political franchise to whites and
+blacks who were unfit to use it, and cared for it not because of its
+honor, or the good use to which it might be put, but as a piece of
+merchandise to be sold to the highest bidder or used as a weapon of
+assault against good order and righteous laws.
+
+Of course, the first pernicious effect of this transfer of power to
+ignorant, reckless men would be felt at the polls in New York City,
+where this class was in the greatest number. The elections here soon
+became a farce, and the boasted glory of a free ballot-box a taunt and
+a by-word. That gross corruption and villany practised here should
+eventually result in the open violation of law, as it did in the charter
+election of 1834, was natural.
+
+Political animosity was probably more bitter between the Democrats,
+under Jackson's administration, and the Whigs, than between any two
+political parties since the time of Federalists and Democrats, in the
+days of the elder Adams.
+
+In the spring of 1834 especially, party spirit ran very high in the
+city. As usual, for a month or more before the election, which took
+place on the second Tuesday in April, all kinds of accusations and
+rumors were afloat. There was no registry law, and comparatively few
+places for the polls, so that there could be little check on voting, no
+end to repeating, while the gathering of an immense crowd around each
+place of voting became inevitable. At this election, there was a split
+in the Democratic party, Mr. Verplanck being the candidate of the
+Independent Democrats, and Mr. Lawrence of the "Tammany."
+
+The most extensive preparations were made on both sides for the
+conflict, and it was generally expected there would be a personal
+collision in some of the wards.
+
+Tuesday, the 8th of April, dawned dark and stormy, and the rain began to
+fall heavily, at times coming down in torrents. But to such a fever
+heat had the public feeling been carried, that no one seemed to heed the
+storm. The stores were closed, business of all kinds suspended; while
+the streets were black with men hurrying to the polls. At twelve o'clock
+the American flag was hoisted on the Exchange, when the building became
+deserted, and all gathered at the places where the voting was going on.
+Men stood in long lines, extending clear out into the street, patiently
+enduring the pelting rain, waiting till their turn came to vote.
+
+The famous expression of Jackson, "Perish credit, perish commerce,"
+had been taken out of the connection in which it was used, and paraded
+everywhere. The sailors had been enlisted in the struggle, and rigged
+up a beautiful little frigate in complete order, and named it the
+"Constitution." Mounting it on wheels, several hundred of them paraded
+it through the streets and past the polls. As they passed through
+Wall Street, thundering cheers greeted them, and the excited populace,
+heedless of the rain, fell into the procession, till it swelled to
+thousands, who, with songs and shouts, followed after. Fearful of the
+effect of this demonstration on the voters, the Jackson men hastily
+rigged out a boat, surmounted by a flag on which was painted in large
+characters, "Veto;" and "Constitution" and "Veto" sailed after
+each other through the city. This should have been prevented by the
+authorities, for it was impossible for these two processions to meet
+without a fight occurring, while it was equally certain that the Whig
+one would be attacked, if it attempted to pass the polls in those
+wards in which the roughs had the control. But the "Hickory poles" had
+inaugurated a new mode of carrying on political campaigns. Appeals were
+made to the senses, and votes obtained by outward symbols, rather
+than by the discussion of important political questions. This mode of
+electioneering culminated with the log-cabin excitement.
+
+In the Eleventh Ward, the Jackson party had two private doors through
+which to admit their voters to the polls, while bullies kept back from
+the main entrance the Independent Republicans. In most of the strong
+Jackson wards, where it was all on one side, the voting went on
+peaceably enough, but in the Sixth, it was soon evident that a storm was
+inevitable. Oaths and threats and yells of defiance made the polls
+here seem more like an object on which a mob was seeking to wreak its
+vengeance, than a place where freemen were depositing their votes under
+sanction of law. The babel of sound continued to grow worse in spite
+of the rain, and swelled louder and louder, till at last the Jackson
+roughs, headed by an ex-alderman, made a rush for the committee room
+where their opponents were assembled. Some of them were armed with
+clubs, and others with knives, which they brandished fiercely as they
+burst into the room. Before the members could offer any resistance, they
+were assailed with such fury, that in a short time nearly twenty were
+stretched bleeding and maimed on the floor; one so badly wounded that
+he was carried out lifeless, and apparently dead. It was a savage
+onslaught, and those who escaped injury reached the street hatless,
+and with coats half-torn from their backs. The mob, now being complete
+masters of the room, tore down all the banners, destroyed the ballots,
+and made a complete wreck of everything. The Whig leaders, enraged at
+such dastardly, insulting treatment, despatched a messenger in all haste
+to the Mayor for help, but he replied that he could not furnish it, as
+all the available force was away in other sections of the city on duty.
+The excitement among the Whigs now became fearful, and they determined
+to take the matter in their own hands. The election was to last three
+days, and they concluded to let the polls, when the mob entered, take
+care of themselves the balance of the day, and organize a plan for
+self-protection on the morrow.
+
+A call was at once issued for a meeting at Masonic Hall, and that night
+four thousand Whigs packed the building, from limit to limit. General
+Bogardus was called to the chair, who, after stating the object of
+the meeting, and describing the conduct of the mob in the Sixth Ward,
+offered the following resolutions:
+
+"_Whereas_, The authority of the POLICE of the city has been set at
+defiance by a band of _hirelings, mercenaries_, and _bullies_ in the
+Sixth Ward, and the LIVES of our citizens put in jeopardy. And _whereas_
+it is evident that we are in a state of anarchy, which requires the
+prompt and efficient interposition of every friend of good order who is
+disposed to sustain the constitution and laws, therefore, be it
+
+"_Resolved_, That in order to preserve the _peace_ of the city, and
+especially of the Sixth Ward, the friends of the constitution and
+the liberties of the citizen will meet at this place (Masonic Hall),
+to-morrow (Wednesday), at half-past seven o'clock A.M., and repair to
+the Sixth Ward poll, for the _purpose of keeping it open to_ ALL VOTERS
+until such time as the official authorities may 'procure a sufficient
+number of special constables to keep the peace.'
+
+"_Resolved_, That while at the Sixth Ward poll, those who are not
+residents thereof will not take part in the election, but simply act as
+_conservators of the peace_, until such times as the MAJESTY OF THE LAWS
+shall be acknowledged and respected."
+
+These resolutions were carried with acclamations and shouts and stamping
+of feet.
+
+There was no bluster in these resolutions, but their meaning was
+apparent enough, and the city authorities understood it. From that hall,
+next morning, would march at least five or six thousand determined men,
+and if the mob rallied in force, to repeat the action of the day before,
+there would be one of the bloodiest fights that ever disgraced the city.
+It was believed that the great mass of the rioters were Irishmen, and
+the thought that native-born Americans should be driven from their own
+ballot-box by a herd of foreigners, aroused the intensest indignation.
+It was an insult that could not and should not be tolerated.
+
+The next morning, at half-past seven, Masonic Hall was filled to
+repletion. The excitement can be imagined, when such a crowd could be
+gathered at this early hour.
+
+In the Ninth Ward a meeting was also called, and a resolution passed,
+tendering a committee of one hundred to the general committee; that,
+with a committee of the same number from each of the fourteen wards of
+the city, would make a battalion eighteen hundred strong, to be ready at
+a moment's notice, to march to any poll "to protect the sacred right of
+suffrage."
+
+These measures had their desired effect. The presence of large bodies of
+men at the different polls, for the purpose of protecting them, overawed
+the unorganized mob, although in some of the wards attempts were made to
+get up a riot. Stones and clubs were thrown, and one man stabbed; it was
+thought at the time fatally. The Sixth Ward, "the Bloody Sixth," as
+it was called, was the point of greatest danger, and thither the Mayor
+repaired in person, accompanied by the sheriff and a large posse, and
+remained the greater part of the day. Threats and opprobrious epithets
+were freely used, and occasionally a paving-stone would be hurled from
+some one on the outskirts of the crowd; but the passage to the polls
+was kept open, and by one o'clock the citizens could deposit their votes
+without fear of personal violence.
+
+The evil of having the election continue three days now became more
+apparent than ever. The disorderly class, "the roughs," by their
+protracted drinking, became more and more maddened, and hence riper for
+more desperate action. This second night was spent by them in carousing,
+and the next morning they turned out to the polls, not only ready, but
+eager for a fight. Early in the forenoon, the frigate "Constitution"
+was again on its voyage through the streets, followed by a crowd. As
+it passed Masonic Hall, the head-quarters of the Whig Committee, it was
+saluted with cheers. This was followed by a rush upon it, on the part of
+the mob, who attempted to destroy it. The Whigs inside of the building,
+seeing the attack, poured forth with a loud cheer, and fell on the
+assailants with such fury, that they turned and fled. The news of what
+was passing, had, in the meantime, reached the Sixth Ward folks, and
+a shout was raised for followers. Instantly a huge crowd, composed of
+dirty, ragged, savage-looking men, broke away with discordant yells, and
+streamed up Duane Street towards the building, picking up paving-stones
+and brick-bats, and pulling down pickets as they ran. Coming in sight of
+the little frigate, they raised a shout and dashed on it. The procession
+had now passed the hall, but the Whigs, informed of what was going
+on, again sallied forth to the help of the sailors, who were fighting
+manfully against overwhelming odds. But they were soon overpowered, and
+again took refuge in the hall. This was now assailed, and stones came
+crashing through the windows. The Mayor was sent for, and soon appeared
+with the sheriff, backed by forty watchmen. Mounting the steps, he held
+up his staff of office, and commanded the peace. But the half-drunken
+mob had now got beyond the fear of the mere symbol of authority, and
+answered him with a shower of stones, and then charged on the force that
+surrounded him. A fierce and bloody fight followed. Citizens rushed out
+to the help of the Mayor, while the watchmen fell on the mob with their
+clubs. They soon stretched on the pavement more than their own number,
+but the odds against them was too great. The Mayor received a wound--ten
+or fifteen watchmen besides citizens were wounded--Captains Stewart,
+Munson, and Flaggs, badly injured, the latter with his skull horribly
+fractured, ribs broken, and face cut up. A few of the rioters were
+arrested, but the great mass broke through all opposition, and streaming
+into the hall, forced the committee to creep through back passages and
+windows.
+
+The news of this high-handed outrage was carried like the wind to the
+lower anti-Democratic wards, and the excited Whigs came streaming up,
+until Duane, Elm, Pearl, Cross, Augustus, and Chatham Streets, up to
+Broadway, were black with determined, enraged citizens. Ten or fifteen
+thousand were in a short time assembled, and a fearful battle seemed
+inevitable. In this appalling state of things, the Mayor called a
+consultation, and it was decided to declare the city in a state of
+insurrection, and call on the military for help. A messenger was
+immediately despatched to the Navy Yard for a company of marines.
+Colonel Gamble, commanding, replied that he would be glad to comply with
+the request, and put himself at their head, but that he had just sent
+them on board the "Brandywine" and "Vincennes." Application was then
+made to Commodore Hidgely, commander of the station; but he refused, on
+the ground that he had no authority to interfere. A messenger was then
+hurried across to Governor's Island for help, but he met with no better
+success. As a last resort, General Sanford was now directed to call out
+the city military.
+
+All this time the crowd kept increasing, while from out its bosom came
+an angry murmur like the moaning of the sea before a storm. The polls
+were deserted, and it seemed impossible that the opposing forces could
+be long kept apart. At length word passed through the Whigs that the mob
+were about to take possession of the arsenal. Instantly several hundred
+citizens made a dash for it, and occupied it. This was a brilliant piece
+of strategy, and no sooner did the rioters hear of it, than they swarmed
+around the building with yells and imprecations. The Whigs, however,
+held it, and some of them passed out arms to their friends.
+
+Three terrible hours had now passed since the first outbreak, and from
+the Park to Duane Street, Broadway, and the cross streets on the east
+side of it, were packed with excited men, their shouts, calls, and
+curses rising over the dwellings in tones that sent terror to the heart.
+But for the narrow streets, in which but few could come in contact,
+there would doubtless have been a collision long before.
+
+But at this critical moment a detachment of infantry and two squadrons
+of cavalry came marching down Broadway, and in close column. The crowd
+divided as they advanced, and they drew up before the arsenal. The
+gleaming of the bayonets and the rattle of sabres had a quieting effect
+on the rioters, and they began to disperse again to the polls, to watch
+the progress of the voting. In the meantime, the infantry took up their
+quarters at the arsenal, and the cavalry at the City Hall, for the
+night.
+
+When the polls closed at evening, the ballot-box of the Sixth Ward
+was taken under a strong guard to the City Hall, and locked up for the
+night. It was followed by four or five thousand excited men, but no
+violence was attempted.
+
+The election was over. For three days the city had been heaving to the
+tide of human passion, and trembling on the verge of a great disaster,
+and all because a few ruffians, not a fourth part of whom could probably
+read or write, chose to deny the right of suffrage to American citizens,
+and constitute themselves the proper representatives of the city.
+
+But the excitement did not end with the election. It was very close, and
+as the returns came in slowly, the people assembled in great numbers,
+to hear them reported. The next day, till three o'clock at night, ten or
+fifteen thousand people blocked Wall Street, refusing to disperse, till
+they knew the result. It was finally announced that Mr. Lawrence, the
+Democratic candidate, was elected by a small majority.
+
+The next thing was to ascertain the character of the Common Council. The
+same mighty throng assembled next day, forgetting everything else in the
+intense interest they felt in the result. It would seem impossible
+to get up such a state of feeling over the election of a few local
+officers, but the city shook from limit to limit as the slow returns
+came in. At last, it was announced that the Whigs had carried the Common
+Council by a small majority. As the news passed through the immense
+concourse, a shout vent up that shook Wall Street from Broadway to the
+East River. It rolled back and forth like redoubled thunder, till every
+throat was hoarse.
+
+When the crowd at last dispersed, it was only to assemble again in
+separate bodies in different parts of the city, and talk over the
+victory.
+
+Even then the excitement was not allowed to die away. The event was
+too great to be permitted to pass without some especial honor, and a
+mass-meeting was called in Castle Garden to celebrate it. Webster was
+sent for to make a speech, the most distinguished speakers of New York
+were called upon, and a day of general rejoicing followed, great as that
+which succeeded Lee's surrender.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+ABOLITION RIOTS OF 1834 AND 1835.
+
+The Slavery Question agitated.--The End, Civil War.--The
+Results.--William Lloyd Garrison.--Feeling of the People on the
+Subject.--First Attempt to call a Meeting of the Abolitionists in New
+York.--Meeting in Chatham Street Chapel.--A Fight.--Mob take Possession
+of Bowery Theatre.--Sacking of Lewis Tappan's House.--Fight between Mob
+and Police.--Mobbing of Dr. Cox's Church, in Laight Street.--His
+House broken into.--Street Barricaded.--Attack on Arthur Tappan's
+Store.--Second Attack on Church in Laight Street.--Church sacked in
+Spring Street.--Arrival of the Military.--Barricades carried.--Mr.
+Ludlow's House entered.--Mob at Five Points.--Destruction of
+Houses.--The City Military called out.--Mob overawed, and Peace
+restored.--Five Points Riot.--Stone-cutters' Riot.
+
+Most of the riots of New York have grown out of causes more or less
+local, and wholly transient in their nature. Hence, the object sought
+to be obtained was at once secured, or abandoned altogether. But those
+arising from the formation of Abolition societies, and the discussion of
+the doctrine of immediate emancipation, were of a different character,
+and confined to no locality or time. The spirit that produced them
+developed itself in every section of the country, and the question
+continued to assume vaster proportions, till the Union itself was
+involved, and what was first only a conflict between the police of the
+city and a few hundred or thousands of ignorant, reckless men, grew at
+last into the most gigantic and terrible civil war that ever cursed
+the earth. The Union was rent asunder, and State arrayed against State,
+while the world looked on aghast at the strange and bloody spectacle.
+The final result has been the emancipation of the slaves, and their
+endowment with all the rights and privileges of American citizens. But
+with this has come a frightful national debt, the destruction of that
+feeling of common interest and patriotism, which is the strongest
+security of a country; a contempt for the Constitution, the
+concentration of power in the hands of Congress, small regard for State
+rights, while the controlling power in the South has passed into the
+hands of an ignorant, incapable, irresponsible class; and, worse than
+all, the people have become accustomed to the strange spectacle, so
+fraught with danger in a republic, of seeing the legislatures and
+executives of sovereign States overawed and overborne by the national
+troops. That frightful conflict for the slave has sown dangerous seed;
+what the final harvest will be, the future historian alone will be able
+to show.
+
+The inconsistency of having a system of slavery incorporated into a
+republican government was always felt by good men North and South, as
+well as its damaging effect on the social and political well-being
+of the whole community; and steps had been taken both in Virginia
+and Kentucky to do away with it by legislative action. Whether these
+incipient steps would ever have ended in relieving us of the evil,
+can only be conjectured. We only know that a peaceable solution of the
+question was rendered impossible, by the action of the Abolitionists, as
+they were called, who, governed by the short logic, that slavery being
+wrong, it could not exist a moment without sin, and therefore must be
+abandoned at once without regard to consequences. The system of slavery
+was no longer a social or political problem, calling for great wisdom,
+prudence, statesmanship, and patience, but a personal crime, not to be
+tolerated for a moment. The whole South was divided by them into two
+classes, the oppressor and oppressed, the kidnapper and kidnapped, the
+tyrant and the slave--a relationship which liberty, religion, justice,
+humanity, alike demanded should be severed without a moment's delay.
+
+These views, in the judgment of the press at the time, and of sound
+statesmen, would eventually end in civil war, if adopted by the entire
+North, and hence they denounced them. The Abolitionists were considered
+by all as enemies to the Union, whom the lower classes felt should be
+put down, if necessary, by violence. This feeling was increased by the
+action of William Lloyd Garrison, the founder of the society, who went
+to England, and joined with the antislavery men there in abusing this
+country for its inconsistency and crime. These causes produced a state
+of public feeling that would be very apt to exhibit itself on the first
+opportunity. When, therefore, in the autumn of 1833, after Garrison's
+return from England, a notice appeared for an antislavery meeting in
+Clinton Hall, some of the most respectable men in New York determined to
+attend, and crush out, by the weight of their influence, the dangerous
+movement. Another class was resolved to effect the same project in
+another way, and on the 2d of October the following placard was posted
+in naming letters all over the city:
+
+NOTICE
+
+_To all persons from the South_.
+
+All persons interested in the subject of the meeting called by J.
+Leavitt, W. Goodell, W. Green, J. Rankin, Lewis Tappan,
+
+At Clinton Hall, this evening, at 7 o'clock, are requested to attend at
+the same hour and place.
+
+MANY SOUTHERNERS.
+
+New York, _October_ 2d, 1833.
+
+N.B. All citizens who may feel disposed to manifest the _true_ feeling
+of the State on this subject, are requested to attend.
+
+Putting the appeal in the name of the Southerners, was an artful device
+to call out the people.
+
+At an early hour crowds began to assemble in front of Clinton Hall;
+but to their surprise they found a notice nailed on the door, that no
+meeting would be held. Many, seeing it, returned home; but still the
+crowd continued to swell to thousands, who rent the air with shouts and
+threats against Garrison. Determined not to be disappointed in a meeting
+of some kind, they forced their way upstairs, till the room in which
+it was to be held was crammed to suffocation. The meeting was then
+organized, and waited till quarter past seven, when it was moved to
+adjourn to Tammany Hall. There it was again organized, and a gentleman
+was about to address the crowd, when a man stepped forward to the
+president, and stated that the meeting announced to be held in Clinton
+Hall was at that moment under full headway in Chatham Street Chapel.
+Instantly several voices shouted, "Let us go there and rout them!" But
+the chairman said they had met to pass certain resolutions, and they
+should attend to this business first, and then every one could do as he
+liked. The resolutions were read, and after some remarks had been
+made upon them, adopted, and the meeting adjourned. A portion of those
+present, however, were not satisfied, but resolved to go to the chapel
+and break up the meeting there. The little handful assembled within,
+apprised of their approach, fled, so that when the mob arrived, the
+building, though the doors were open and the lights burning, was empty.
+It immediately took possession of the room, and giving a negro who was
+foremost in the sport the name of one of the Abolitionists, made him
+chairman. The most absurd resolutions were then offered, and carried,
+when the chairman returned thanks for the honor done him amid the most
+uproarious laughter, and what had threatened to be a serious riot ended
+in a wild, lawless frolic.
+
+This was the beginning of the Abolition riots in New York City,
+which afterwards, to a greater or less extent, prevailed for years in
+different parts of the Union.
+
+Next summer the excitement, which during the winter had nothing to
+call it forth, broke out afresh, ending in destruction of property and
+bloodshed, and the calling out of the military. On the evening of the
+7th of July, an assembly of colored persons of both sexes occupied
+Chatham Street Chapel, for the purpose of listening to a sermon from
+a negro preacher. The New York Sacred Music Society had leased the
+building for certain evenings in the week, of which it was asserted this
+was one. Justice Lowndes, of the Police Court, was president, and
+Dr. Rockwell vice-president of the society, and they repaired to the
+building during the evening, and finding it occupied, at once claimed
+their right to it, and demanded that the blacks should leave. But the
+latter, having hired and paid for it, refused to do so, when a fight
+ensued, in which lamps and chairs were broken, loaded canes used
+freely, and some persons seriously injured. The news of the fight spread
+rapidly, and a dense crowd gathered around the door. But the police soon
+arrived, and forcing their way in, drove white and black out together,
+and locked up the church.
+
+The riot, however, continued for some time in the street; but the
+blacks, finding themselves outnumbered, fled, and peace was restored.
+
+A portion of the crowd, having recognized Lewis Tappan, one of the
+leading Abolitionists, followed him home with hoots and yells, and even
+hurled stones at his house after he had entered it.
+
+The next evening, at dusk, the crowd began again to assemble in front
+of the chapel. But the lessee of it had closed and locked the gates. The
+multitude determined, however, not to be disappointed of a meeting,
+and forcing open the gates, obtained entrance. The meeting was then
+organized, and Mr. William W. Wilder called to the chair. After making
+a speech, in which he showed the evil effects of a sudden abolition
+of slavery, by relating his experience in San Domingo, he moved an
+adjournment until the next meeting of the Antislavery Society. The
+motion was carried, and the assembly broke up. This was, however,
+altogether too quiet a termination for a part of the crowd, and a shout
+was made for the Bowery Theatre. The attacks on us by the English,
+for upholding slavery, and their sympathy and aid for Garrison, and
+co-operation with him in agitating the question of abolition in this
+country, had rekindled the old slumbering feeling of hostility to that
+country; and Mr. Farren, the stage manager of the Bowery, being an
+Englishman, it was transferred to him, especially as reports had been
+circulated that he had spoken disrespectfully of the Americans.
+
+This night having been selected to give him a benefit, his enemies had
+posted placards over the city, stating the fact of his hostility to this
+country--whether with the intention of causing a thin house, or breaking
+it up altogether, is not known. At all events, the mob resolved on the
+latter course, and streaming up the Bowery in one wild, excited mass,
+gathered with loud shouts in front of the theatre. The doors were closed
+in their faces, but pressing against them with their immense weight,
+they gave way, and like a dark, stormy wave, they surged up the aisles
+toward the foot-lights. In the garish light, faces grew pale, and turned
+eagerly toward the doors for a way of escape. But these were jammed with
+the excited, yelling mob. The play was "Metamora," and was under full
+headway, when this sudden inundation of the rioters took place. The
+actors stopped, aghast at the introduction of this new, appalling scene.
+Messrs. Hamlin and Forrest advanced to the front of the stage, and
+attempted to address them; but apologies and entreaties were alike in
+vain. The thundering shouts and yells that interrupted them were not
+those of admiration, and spectators and actors were compelled to remain
+silent, while this strange audience took complete possession of the
+house, and inaugurated a play of their own.
+
+But the police, having received information of what was going on, now
+arrived, and forcing their way in, drove the rioters into the street,
+and restored order. But the demon of lawless violence, that was now
+fully raised, was not to be thus laid. Some one got hold of a bell, and
+began to ring it violently. This increased the excitement, and suddenly
+the shout arose, "to Arthur Tappan's." [Footnote: A silk merchant, and
+one of the leading Abolitionists.] The cry was at once taken up by a
+thousand voices, and the crowd started down the street. But instead of
+going to his house, they went to that of his brother, Lewis, in Hose
+Street, a still more obnoxious Abolitionist. Reaching it, they staved
+open the doors, and smashed in the windows, and began to pitch the
+furniture into the street. Chairs, sofas, tables, pictures, mirrors, and
+bedding, went out one after another. But all at once a lull occurred in
+the work of destruction. In pitching the pictures out, one came across
+a portrait of Washington. Suddenly the cry arose, "It is Washington!
+For God's sake, _don't burn Washington_!" In an instant the spirit of
+disorder was laid, and the portrait was handed carefully from man to
+man, till at length the populace, bearing it aloft, carried it with
+shouts to a neighboring house for safety. It was one of those strange
+freaks or sudden changes that will sometimes come over the wildest and
+most brutal men, like a gleam of gentle light across a dark and stormy
+sea--the good in man for a moment making its voice heard above the din
+and strife of evil passions.
+
+This singular episode being terminated, they returned to their work of
+destruction. But suddenly the cry of "Watchmen!" was heard, and the next
+moment the police came charging down the street. The mob recoiled before
+it, then broke and fled, and the former took possession of the street.
+But the latter, coming across some piles of brick, filled their arms and
+hands full, and rallying, returned. Charging the watchmen in turn with
+a blinding shower of these, they drove them from the ground. They then
+kindled a fire on the pavement, and as the flames flashed up in the
+darkness and gained headway, they piled on bedding and furniture, till
+the whole street was illuminated with the costly bonfire. This caused
+the fire-bells to be rung, and soon the engines came thundering down the
+street, before which the crowd gave way. The burning furniture was then
+extinguished, and the house taken possession of. It was now two o'clock
+in the morning, and the mob dispersed.
+
+The next day nothing was talked about in the saloons, groggeries, and on
+the corners of the by-streets, but the events of the night before; and
+as evening came on, a crowd began to assemble in front of the battered,
+dilapidated house of Lewis Tappan. Another attack was imminent, when the
+police came up and dispersed them. They had not, however, abandoned the
+purpose for which they had assembled.
+
+The little band of Abolitionists, that the year before had been composed
+mostly of comparatively obscure men, had now increased both in
+numbers and men of influence. Persecution had produced its usual
+effects--advanced the cause it designed to destroy. Among other
+well-known citizens who had joined their ranks were the two brothers,
+Dr. Abraham Cox, M.D., and Dr. Samuel Cox, the latter, pastor of Laight
+Street Church, and one of the most popular preachers of the city. Though
+opposed by a large majority of his congregation, he had become known
+as a bold, outspoken man against slavery; and now the mob, bent on
+mischief, streamed across the city toward his church. It was dark, and
+as they gathered in a black, dense mass in front of it, suddenly, as
+if by a common impulse, a loud yell broke forth, and the next moment a
+shower of stones and brick-bats fell on the windows. Babel was now let
+loose, and, amid the crashing of window-glass, arose every variety of
+sound and all kinds of calls, interspersed with oaths and curses on
+"Abolitionists and niggers."
+
+Shrieks of laughter and obscene epithets helped to swell the uproar.
+It was evident they would not be satisfied until they left the church
+a ruin; but at this critical moment, the Mayor, Justice Lowndes, the
+District Attorney, and a posse of police officers and watchmen arrived
+on the ground. Expecting trouble, they had arranged to be ready at a
+moment's warning to hasten to any threatened point. Their unexpected
+presence frightened the crowd, and fearing arrest, they slunk away
+in squads, and the danger seemed over. But, evidently by previous
+arrangement, the broken fragments, arriving by different streets, came
+together in front of Dr. Cox's house, in Charlton Street.
+
+The doctor, however, was not at home. He had received warnings and
+threats from various quarters, and knowing, from the fate of Lewis
+Tappan's house, what that of his own would be, he had, during the day,
+quietly removed his furniture, and in the afternoon put his family on
+board of a steamboat, and left the city.
+
+The mob found the door barricaded, but they broke it open, and began to
+smash the windows and blinds of the lower story. Before, however, they
+had begun to sack the house, police-officers and watchmen, with two
+detachments of horse, arrived and dislodged them. They did not, however,
+disperse. A more dangerous and determined spirit was getting possession
+of them than they had before evinced. Crowding back on each other, they
+packed the street east, within four blocks of Broadway. Seizing some
+carts, they made a hasty barricade of them across the streets, while a
+neighboring fence supplied them with clubs. A large number were armed
+with paving-stones, which they would smite loudly together, saying in
+deep undertones, "_all together_." As they thus stood savagely at bay, a
+collision seemed inevitable, and had they been attacked, would doubtless
+have made a desperate fight. But being let alone they slowly dispersed.
+A portion, however, though it was now late at night, could not retire
+without venting a little more spite, and returning to the church, broke
+in some more windows.
+
+Dr. Cox came back to his house next morning, to see if it was safe. As
+he left the mutilated building, a crowd of boys, who were looking at the
+ruins, immediately gave chase to him with yells and derisive laughter,
+and pressed him so closely, at the same time hurling dirty missiles
+at him, that he was compelled to take shelter in the house of a
+parishioner.
+
+The crowd around the house continued to increase all the morning, but a
+hundred policemen arriving at one o'clock, no disturbance of the peace
+was attempted. In the afternoon, Mayor Lawrence issued a proclamation,
+denouncing the rioters, and calling on all good citizens to aid in
+maintaining the peace, and assuring them that he had taken ample
+measures to repress all attempts at violence. At the Arsenal, City Hall,
+and Bazaar, large bodies of troops were assembled, ready to march at a
+moment's notice; and it was evident that the coming night was to witness
+a trial of strength between the rioters and the city authorities.
+
+As soon as it was fairly dark, large crowds gathered in front of Arthur
+Tappan's store, and began to stone the building. Some fifteen or twenty
+watchmen were stationed here, and endeavored to arrest the ringleaders,
+when the mob turned on them, and handled them so roughly that they
+were compelled to take refuge in flight. Alderman Lalagh was severely
+wounded; but he refused to leave, and standing fiercely at bay,
+denounced and threatened the maddened wretches, who in turn swore they
+would take his life. He told them to force open the doors if they dare;
+that the inside was full of armed men, who were ready to blow their
+brains out the moment the door gave way. This frightened them, and they
+had to content themselves with stoning the windows, and cursing the
+Abolitionist who owned the building. In the meantime, Justice Lowndes
+came up with a strong police force, when they fled.
+
+While this was going on here, similar scenes were passing in other parts
+of the city. At dark, some three or four hundred gathered around
+Dr. Cox's church, in Laight Street, discussing the conduct of the
+Abolitionists, but making no outward demonstrations calling for the
+interference of the police, until nine o'clock, when a reinforcement
+came yelling down Varick Street, armed with stones and brick-bats. These
+charged, without halting, so furiously on the police-officers, and the
+few watchmen stationed there, that, bruised and bleeding, they were
+compelled to flee for their lives. The next moment stones rattled like
+hail against the church, and, in a few minutes, the remaining windows
+were smashed in. The police rallied when they reached Beach Street,
+and hurried off a messenger to the City Hall for the military. In the
+meantime, loud shouts were heard in the direction of Spring Street, and
+with answering shouts the mob left the church, and rushed yelling like
+Indians to the spot. A vast crowd was in front of a church there, under
+the care of Rev. Mr. Ludlow, another Abolitionist, and had already
+commenced the work of destruction. They had torn down the fence
+surrounding it, and were demolishing the windows. Through them they made
+an entrance, and tore down the pulpit, ripped up the seats, and made
+a wreck of everything destructible without the aid of fire. The
+session-room shared the same fate, and the splintered wreck of both was
+carried in their arms, and on their shoulders, out of doors, and piled
+into barricades in the street on both sides of the building, to stop the
+anticipated charge of cavalry. Carts, hauled furiously along by the mob,
+were drawn up behind this, and chained together, making a formidable
+obstruction. They then rung the bell furiously, in order to bring out
+the firemen. The watch-house bell in Prince Street gave a few answering
+strokes, but information being received of what was going on, it ceased,
+and the firemen did not come out. It was now near eleven o'clock, when,
+all at once, an unearthly yell arose from the immense throng. Word had
+passed through it that the military was approaching. Pandemonium seemed
+suddenly to have broken loose, and shouts, and yells, and oaths arose
+from five thousand throats, as the men sprung behind their barricades.
+It was a moonless night, but the stars were shining brightly, and, in
+their light, the sheen of nearly a thousand bayonets made the street
+look like a lane of steel. The Twenty-seventh Regiment of National
+Guards, led by Colonel Stevens, had been sent from the City Hall, and
+their regular heavy tramp sounded ominously, as they came steadily on.
+The church-bell was set ringing furiously by the mob and there was every
+appearance of a determined resistance. As Colonel Stevens approached the
+first barricade, he halted his regiment, and ordered his pioneer guard
+to advance. They promptly obeyed, armed with their axes. A shower
+of stones met them, while clubs were waved frantically in the air,
+accompanied with oaths and threats. They, however, moved firmly up to
+the barricade, and the shining steel of their axes, as they swung them
+in the air, was as terrific as the gleam of the bayonets, and the crowd
+retired precipitately behind the second barricade. The first was now
+speedily torn down, and the head of the column advanced. The second was
+a more formidable affair, in fact, a regular bastion, behind which were
+packed in one dense mass an immense body of desperate men, reaching down
+the street, till lost in the darkness. It seemed now that nothing but
+deadly volleys would answer. One of the city officers advised Colonel
+Stevens to retreat, but, instead of obeying, he ordered the pioneer
+guard to advance, and sustained it by a detachment of troops. Amid the
+raining missiles they moved forward, when the crowd fell back, some
+fleeing up the side streets. The guard then mounted the barricade, and
+in a short time it was scattered in every direction; and when the order
+"Forward" was given, the column marched straight on the mob. At this
+moment, Justice Lowndes, at the head of a band of watchmen, arrived on
+the ground, when the two forces moved forward together, clearing the
+street of the rioters. While the fight was going on, some of the gang
+remained inside the church, and kept the bell ringing violently, until
+Colonel Stevens ordered one of his officers to cut the rope.
+
+A portion of the mob now hurried to Thompson Street, where Mr. Ludlow
+resided. The family had retired for the night, but their repose was
+suddenly broken by loud yells and the sound of stones dashing in their
+windows. Jumping up in wild alarm, they saw the doors broken in, through
+which streamed the shouting, yelling crowd.
+
+Either from fear of the military, which they knew would soon be upon
+them, or some other cause, they decamped almost as suddenly as they
+came, and relieved the terror-stricken household of their presence.
+
+About this time, another immense mob had collected at Five Points. The
+rioters here seemed to be well organized, and to act in concert. Runners
+were kept passing between the different bodies, keeping each informed
+of the actions of the other, and giving notice of the approach of the
+police.
+
+The destruction at Five Points was on a more extensive scale, and the
+gatherings in this, then dangerous section of the city--the home of
+desperadoes and depraved beings of every kind--were of such a character,
+that for a time the city authorities seemed to be over-awed. The rioters
+had it all their own way for several hours, and the midnight heavens
+became lurid with burning dwellings. It somehow got round that they had
+resolved to attack every house not illuminated with candles, and these
+dirty streets soon became brilliant with the lighted windows. Five
+houses of ill-fame were gutted, and almost entirely demolished. St.
+Philip's Church, in Centre Street, occupied by a colored congregation,
+was broken into, and for two hours the mob continued the work of
+destruction unmolested. They left it a complete ruin. A house adjoining,
+and three houses opposite, shared the same fate. The mob was everywhere;
+and although the police made some arrests and had some fights, they
+were too weak to effect much. About one o'clock a shout arose, "away to
+Anthony Street!" and thither the yelling wretches repaired.
+
+The Mayor was at the City Hall all night, doing what he could; but the
+mob had arranged their plans to act in concert, appearing in separate
+bodies in different sections of the city at the same time, so that he
+hardly knew, with the force at his disposal, where to strike. The next
+morning he issued another proclamation, calling on the citizens to
+report to him and be organized into companies to aid the police. He
+called also on all the volunteer military companies of the city to rally
+to the support of the laws. They did so, and that (Saturday) night they,
+with most of the fire companies, who had offered their services, were
+stationed in strong bodies all over the city; and the rioters saw that
+their rule was ended. Beside, many of the most notorious ringleaders
+had been arrested and put in prison. A short fight occurred in Catharine
+Street between the police and mob, in which both had some of their men
+badly hurt; and an attempt was made to get up a riot in Reade Street,
+but it was promptly put down. The city was rife with rumors of bloody
+things which the mob had threatened to do; but, with the exception of
+the military in the streets, the city on Sunday presented its usual
+appearance. The lawless spirit was crushed out, and a hundred and fifty
+of the desperadoes who had been instrumental in rousing it were locked
+up to await their trial.
+
+In June of the summer of 1835 occurred the Five Points riot, which grew
+out of the feeling between Americans and foreigners. It threatened for a
+time to be a very serious matter, but was finally quelled by the police
+without the aid of the military. Dr. W. M. Caffrey was accidentally
+killed by one of the mob, and Justice Lowndes was dangerously wounded.
+
+In connection with the series of riots of 1834 and 1835, might be
+mentioned the Stonecutters' riot, though it was promptly suppressed.
+
+STONECUTTERS' RIOT.
+
+The contractors for the building of the New York University found
+that they could purchase dressed stone at Sing Sing, the work of the
+prisoners there, much cheaper than in New York, and so concluded to use
+it. This, the stonecutters of the city said, was taking the bread out of
+their mouths, and if allowed to go on would destroy their business. They
+held excited meetings on the subject, and finally got up a procession
+and paraded the streets with placards asserting their rights and
+denouncing the contractors. They even attacked the houses of some of
+the citizens, and assumed such a threatening attitude, that the
+Twenty-seventh Regiment, Colonel Stevens, was called out. Their steady,
+determined march on the rioters dispersed them and restored quiet.
+Apprehensions were felt, however, that they would reassemble in the
+night and vent their rage on the University building, and so a part
+of the regiment encamped in Washington Square in full view of it. They
+remained here four days and nights, until the excitement subsided, and
+the work could go on unmolested.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+FLOUR RIOT OF 1837.
+
+Starvation will always create a Riot.--Foreign Population easily aroused
+against the Rich.--Severe Winter of 1836.--Scarcity of Flour.--Meeting
+of Citizens called without Result.--Meeting called in the
+Park.--Speeches.--Sacking of Hart & Co.'s Flour Store, in Washington
+Street.--Strange Spectacle.--National Guards called out.--Disperse the
+Mob.--Attack on Herrick's Flour Store.--Folly of the Riot.
+
+Hunger will drive any people mad, and once let there be real suffering
+for want of food among the lower classes, while grain is piled up in
+the storehouses of the rich, and riots will surely follow. In the French
+Revolution of 1789, there was a great scarcity of provisions, which
+caused frightful outbreaks. It will never do to treat with scorn the cry
+of millions for bread. When, amid the general suffering in Paris, one
+said to Foulon, the minister of state, the people are starving for
+bread, he replied, "Let them eat hay." The next day he was hung to a
+lamp-post. The tumultuous multitude marching on Versailles, shouting
+wildly for "bread," was a fearful spectacle. One can hardly blame
+starving men from seizing food by violence, if it can be got in no other
+way; and if ever a mob could be justifiable, it would be when they see
+their families suffering and perishing around them, in the very sight of
+well-stored granaries.
+
+In the old despotisms of Europe, the poor and oppressed attribute all
+their want and suffering to the rich and powerful, so that they are not
+held back from redressing their wrongs by ignorance of their source, but
+fear of the strong hand of their rulers.
+
+These men, embittered not only by their own sufferings, but by the
+traditions of the past, when they come to this country are easily roused
+to commit acts of violence by anything that reminds them of their old
+oppressions. They have tasted the wormwood and the gall, and refuse
+to have it pressed to their lips in a country where liberty is the
+birthright of all. This is what has made, and still makes, the foreign
+population among us so dangerous. The vast proportion of them are from
+this very class. Ignorant of everything but their wrongs, they rise in
+angry rebellion at any attempt, or fancied attempt, to renew them here.
+Unfortunately there are Americans among us, who, knowing this, work upon
+this sensitive, suspicious feeling, to accomplish their own ends. The
+politician does it to secure votes; but the worst class is composed of
+those who edit papers that circulate only among the scum of society, and
+embittered by the sight of luxuries beyond their reach, are always ready
+to denounce the rich and excite the lower classes against what they call
+the oppression of the aristocracy.
+
+It is doubtful whether the frightful riot of 1863 would ever have taken
+place, but for this tone assumed by many of the city papers. So of this
+flour riot, it probably would never have happened, but for demagogues,
+who lashed the ignorant foreign population into fury against their
+rich oppressors. Starvation, which as we said may be a justification
+of violence, did not exist--it was only the high price of provisions,
+growing out of scarcity, that caused it, but which scarcity, they were
+told, was created solely by the cupidity of the rich.
+
+The year in which the great fire occurred, was a disastrous one to the
+crops of the country. The mighty West, that great granary of the nation,
+was not then open as now, and the main supply of grain came from east of
+the Alleghanies. Hence the cause which would create a short crop in one
+section, would be apt to prevail more or less over all the grain region.
+We imported wheat at this time very largely; not only from England, but
+from the Black Sea.
+
+In September, flour was about seven dollars a barrel, but this, as the
+winter came on, went up to twelve dollars--a great rise at that time.
+
+From Virginia, a great wheat State, came disastrous tidings; not only
+was the crop short and the price of flour high, but it was said that the
+latter would probably go up to fifteen or twenty dollars a barrel. In
+Troy, a great depot for State flour, it was stated that there were
+only four thousand barrels against thirty thousand at the same time the
+previous year. As February came on, a report circulated in the city that
+there were only three or four weeks' supply on hand. This was repeated
+in the penny papers, with the information added, that in certain stores
+were hoarded vast amounts of grain and flour, kept out of the market
+to compel a still greater advance in the price. This was very probably
+true, as it is a rule with merchants, when they have a large stock of
+anything on hand, of which there threatens to be a scarcity, to hold on
+in order to make the scarcity greater--thus forcing higher prices. This
+will always prove a dangerous experiment in this country in the article
+of flour. It is the prime necessary of life, and the right to make it
+scarce for the sake of gain, and at the expense of human suffering, will
+always be questioned by the poorer classes.
+
+Although the stock of grain on hand at this time was small, there was
+no danger of starvation, nor was it to the instinct of self-preservation
+that demagogues appealed. They talked of the rich oppressing the poor
+by their extortions--of monopolists, caring only to increase their gains
+without regard to the distress they occasioned.
+
+There was, doubtless, much suffering among the poorer classes, not only
+on account of the high price of flour, but also of all the necessary
+articles of living. Meat advanced materially, while from some strange
+fatality, coal went up to ten dollars a ton. There seemed no reason for
+this, as the amount sent to market was said to be largely in excess
+of the previous year. In Canada, coal was so scarce, that the line of
+steamers between Montreal and Quebec was suspended before winter set in.
+
+This state of things excited the attention of the people generally,
+and in the fore-part of this month, a public meeting was called at the
+Tabernacle to consider what could be done. It amounted to nothing.
+Some speeches were made, resolutions offered, but nothing practical was
+proposed. The temperance people attempted to make a little capital out
+of it, by asserting that the high price of grain was owing to the amount
+used by the distilleries--rye being sold as high as one dollar and
+seventy cents per bushel.
+
+But a different class of people were now discussing the subject, and
+in a different spirit. Their attention was directed to _men_, not
+_theories_--the individual oppressors, not the general causes.
+
+Chief among those against whom the popular feeling was now directed, was
+Hart & Co., large commission merchants in Washington Street, between Dey
+and Cortlandt Streets. Their store was packed with flour and wheat, and
+every day men passed it with sinister looks. Sometimes a little knot
+of men would stop opposite it, and talk of the loads of grain stored up
+there, while their own families were pinched for bread. They would
+gaze savagely on its heavy iron doors, that seemed to defy the weak and
+helpless, and then walk on, muttering threats and curses. These signs
+of a gathering storm were, however, unheeded by the proprietors. Others,
+better informed, were not so tranquil; and by anonymous letters tried
+to arouse Mr. Hart to take precautionary measures. An anonymous letter
+addressed to Mr. W. Lenox was picked up in the Park, in which the writer
+stated that a conspiracy was formed for breaking open and plundering Mr.
+Hart's store, and gave the following plan of action. On some dark night,
+two alarms of fire were to be given, one near the Battery, and the other
+up town, in order to draw off the watchmen and police, when a large
+crowd already assembled in the neighborhood would make a sudden rush
+for the building, and sack it before help could arrive. This letter was
+handed to the High Constable Hays, who showed it to Hart & Co., but they
+seemed to regard it as an attempt to frighten them. This was followed by
+anonymous letters from other parties, that reached the Mayor, insisting
+on it that danger was hanging over this house. He sent them to Hart &
+Co., but they, thinking it was only a trick to put down the price of
+flour, paid no attention to them. They locked their three massive iron
+doors at night as usual, and went to their homes without fear, and the
+underground swell kept on increasing in volume.
+
+The first plan of operation, if it ever existed, was either abandoned by
+the mob or deferred till after other measures were tried.
+
+At length, on the afternoon of the 10th of February, the following
+placard was posted up all over the city:
+
+BREAD, MEAT, RENT, FUEL!
+
+_The voice of the people shall be heard and will prevail._
+
+The people will meet in the PARK, _rain or shine_, at four o'clock on
+
+MONDAY AFTERNOON,
+
+to inquire into the cause of the present unexampled distress, and to
+devise a suitable remedy. All friends of humanity, determined to resist
+monopolists and extortioners, are invited to attend.
+
+Moses Jacques. Daniel Graham. Paulus Hedle. John Windt. Daniel A.
+Robertson. Alexander Ming, Jr. Warden Hayward. Elijah F. Crane.
+
+NEW YORK, _Feb_. 10_th_, 1837.
+
+The idle crowd had all day Sunday to talk over this call. Everywhere
+knots of men were seen gathered before these placards--some spelling
+out slowly, and with great difficulty, the words for themselves--others
+reading the call to those unable to read it. The groggeries were filled
+with excited men, talking over the meeting, and interspersing their
+oaths with copious draughts of liquor, and threatening openly to teach
+these rich oppressors a lesson they would not soon forget.
+
+There was something ominous in the hour selected for the meeting; four
+o'clock in February meant night, before it would get under full headway.
+It was evident that the leaders did not mean the meeting to be one of
+mere speech-making. They knew that under cover of darkness, men could be
+incited to do what in broad daylight they would be afraid to undertake.
+
+Before the time appointed, a crowd began to assemble, the character of
+which boded no good. Dirty, ragged, and rough-looking, as they flowed
+from different quarters together into the inclosure, those who composed
+it were evidently a mob already made to hand.
+
+At length, four or five thousand shivering wretches were gathered in
+front of the City Hall. Moses Jacques, a man who would make a good
+French Communist to-day, was chosen chairman. But this motley multitude
+had no idea or respect for order, or regular proceedings, and they broke
+up into different groups, each pushing forward its favorite orator.
+
+One of the strangest freaks of this meeting, was an address to a
+collection of Democrats by Alexander Ming, Jr. He forgot all about the
+object of the meeting, and being a strong Bentonian, launched out into
+the currency question, attributing all the evils of the Republic, past,
+present, and to come, to the issue of bank-notes; and advising his
+hearers to refuse to take the trash altogether, and receive nothing but
+specie. This was the more comical, as not one out of ten of the poor
+wretches he addressed had the chance to refuse either. Half starving,
+they would have been glad to receive anything in the shape of money that
+would help them through the hard winter. Yet when Mr. Ming offered a
+resolution, proposing a memorial to the Legislature, requiring a law to
+be passed, forbidding any bank to issue a note under the denomination
+of a hundred dollars, the deluded people, who had been listening
+with gaping mouths, rent the air with acclamations. It was a curious
+exhibition of the wisdom of the sovereign people--this verdict of a
+ragged mob on the currency question. They were so delighted with this
+lucid exposition of the cause of the scarcity of flour, that they seized
+the orator bodily, and elevating him on their shoulders, bore him across
+the street to Tammany Hall, where something beside specie was received
+from behind the bar to reward their devotion.
+
+There was, however, some excuse for him. He had been several times
+candidate for city register, and hence was more anxious to secure votes
+than flour--be a popular demagogue rather than a public benefactor.
+
+But there were other speakers who kept more directly to the point. They
+launched at once into a bitter tirade against landlords for their high
+rents, and against monopolists for holding on to flour at the expense
+of the poor and suffering. Knowing the character of the audience before
+them, and their bitter hatred of the rich that had grown with their
+growth, and strengthened with their strength in the old country, it was
+not difficult to lash them into a tempest of passion. They depicted
+the aristocrats around them rolling in wealth, wrung from their
+necessities--laughing at their sufferings while rioting in luxury--nay,
+hoarding up the very bread without which they must starve, in order to
+realize a few dollars more on a barrel of flour. Loud oaths and deep
+muttered curses followed these appeals, and the excited multitude became
+agitated with passion. One of the speakers closed his bitter harangue
+with "Fellow-citizens, Mr. Eli Hart has now 53,000 barrels of flour in
+his store; let us go and offer him eight dollars a barrel for it, and
+if he will not take it--" It was not difficult to know how he meant to
+close the sentence; but just then, a friend shrewder than he, seeing
+the legal consequences to themselves of an open proposition to resort to
+violence, touched him on the shoulder, when in a lower tone of voice
+he concluded: "_we shall depart in peace_." In the excitement of the
+moment, he had evidently forgotten the guarded language he intended to
+use, and was about to utter that which would have consigned him to a
+prisoner's cell, but checked himself in time. He was willing others
+should suffer the consequence of violating the law, to which his appeals
+urged them; but his love for the poor did not prompt him to share their
+fate.
+
+It was bitterly cold, and it was a wonder that the crowd had listened
+patiently so long. The proposition to go to Hart's store with a demand
+for flour, was instantly seized, and those around the speaker started
+off with a shout, and streaming down Broadway, poured in one dark living
+stream along Cortlandt Street into Washington Street. The clerks in
+the store heard the turmoil, and suspecting the object of the rioters,
+rushed to the doors and windows, and began to close and bolt them.
+There were three large iron doors opening on the sidewalk, and they
+had succeeded in bolting and barring all but one, when the mob arrived.
+Forcing their way through this middle door, the latter seized the
+barrels, and began to roll them out into the street. Mr. Hart, who,
+either from curiosity to hear what the meeting would propose to do, or
+from his suspicions being aroused from what he had previously heard,
+was on the spot, and as soon as he saw the crowd stream out of the
+Park, down Broadway, he hurried to the police, and obtaining a posse of
+officers, made all haste for his store. But as they were going down Dey
+Street, the mob, which blocked the farther end, rushed on them with such
+fury, that before they had time to defend themselves, their clubs, or
+staves as they were then called, were wrenched from their hands and
+broken into fragments. The crowd was not yet very great, and the
+disarmed officers forced their way into Washington Street and into
+the store. Their presence frightened the few inside, and they hastily
+decamped. The Mayor, who was in his room at the City Hall, had been
+speedily notified of the riot, and hurried to the spot. The crowd
+remaining in the Park had also been informed of what was going on, and
+dashing madly down Broadway, and through Cortlandt Street, joined with
+loud shouts their companions in front of the store. The Mayor mounted a
+flight of steps, and began to harangue the mob, urging them to desist,
+and warning them of the consequences of their unlawful action. He had
+not proceeded far, however, before brick-bats, and sticks, and pieces of
+ice came raining around him in such a dangerous shower, that he had to
+give it up, and make his way to a place of safety. The street was now
+black with the momentarily increasing throng, and emboldened by their
+numbers, they made a rush at the entrance of the store. Driving the
+police-officers before them, they wrenched by main force one of the
+heavy iron doors from its hinges. A half a score of men at once seized
+it, and using it as a battering-ram, hurled it with such force against
+the others, that after a few thundering blows, they one after another
+gave way, and the crowd poured in. The clerks fled, and the rioters went
+to work without hindrance. Mounting to the upper lofts, they first broke
+in all the doors and windows, and then began to roll and heave out the
+flour. The barrels on the ground-floor were rolled, swift as one could
+follow another, into the street, when they were at once seized by those
+waiting without, and their heads knocked in, and their contents strewn
+over the pavement. On the upper lofts, they were rolled to the broken
+windows, and lifted on to the sill, and tumbled below. Warned by their
+descent, the crowd backed to the farther side of the street. Part would
+be staved in by their fall; those that were not, were seized as they
+rolled off the sidewalk, and the heads knocked out. One fellow, as he
+stood by the window-sill and pitched the barrels below, shouted as
+each one went with a crash to the flagging: "_Here goes flour at eight
+dollars a barrel!_"
+
+The scene which now presented itself was a most strange, extraordinary
+one. The night was clear and cold, and the wintry moon was sailing
+tranquilly through the blue and starlit heavens, flooding here and there
+the sea of upturned faces with its mellow light, or casting the deep
+shadow of intervening houses over the black mass, while the street
+looked as if a sudden snow-storm had carpeted it with white. The men in
+the windows and those below were white with flour that had sifted over
+their garments; while, to give a still wilder aspect to the scene,
+women, some bareheaded, some in rags, were roaming around like
+camp-followers after plunder. Here a group had seized empty boxes; there
+others pressed forward with baskets on their arms; and others still,
+empty-handed, pushed along, with their aprons gathered up like a sack.
+These all knelt amid the flour, and scooped it up with an eagerness
+that contrasted strangely with the equal eagerness of those who were
+scattering it like sand over the street. The heavy thud of the barrels
+as they struck almost momentarily on the sidewalk, could be distinctly
+heard above the shouts of the men. Some of the mob found their way into
+Mr. Hart's counting-room, and tore up his papers and scattered them over
+the floor. It was evident they were bent on utter destruction; but when
+about five hundred barrels of flour had been destroyed, together with
+a thousand bushels of wheat in sacks, a heavy force of police came
+marching along the street. These were soon after followed by detachments
+of the National Guards from Colonel Smith's and Hele's regiments. The
+flashing of the moonbeams on the burnished barrels and bayonets of their
+muskets, struck terror into the hearts of the rioters. The cry of "The
+soldiers are coming!" flew from lip to lip, causing a sudden
+cessation of the work of destruction, and each one thought only of
+self-preservation. Many, however, were arrested, and sent off to
+Bridewell under the charge of Officer Bowyer, with a squad of police.
+The latter were assailed, however, on the way, by a portion of the mob
+that pursued them, and a fierce fight followed. In the struggle, Bowyer
+and his assistants had their clothes torn from their backs, and some of
+the prisoners were rescued.
+
+In the meantime, the military paraded the street, clearing it of the
+mob, and preventing their return. In front of the store, and far beyond
+it, the flour lay half-knee deep--a sad spectacle, in view of the daily
+increasing scarcity of grain.
+
+Just before the military and police reached the ground, some one in the
+crowd shouted "Meeches." This was another flour store at Coenties Slip,
+on the other side of the city, nearly opposite. A portion of the mob
+on the outside, that could not get to the store, and aid in the work of
+destruction, at once hurried away to this new field of operations. On
+the way over, they passed Herrick & Co.'s flour store, and stopped to
+demolish it. They were loaded down with brick-bats, which they hurled
+at the windows, smashing them in. The doors followed, and the crowd,
+rushing through, began to roll out the barrels of flour. But when some
+twenty or thirty were tumbled into the street, and about half of them
+staved in, they, for some cause or other, stopped. Some said that they
+ceased because the owner promised, if they did, he would give it all
+away to the poor the next day. At all events, they would soon have been
+compelled to abandon the work of destruction, for the police hastened to
+the spot, accompanied by a large body of citizens, who had volunteered
+their help. Some were arrested, but most of the ringleaders escaped.
+
+How many of those who attended the meeting in the Park anticipated a mob
+and its action, it is impossible to say; but that a great number of them
+did, there can be no doubt.
+
+By nine o'clock the riot was over, and those who had engaged in it were
+either arrested or dispersed.
+
+The next day, Mr. Hart issued a card, denying that the exorbitant price
+of flour was owing to his having purchased a large quantity for the sake
+of monopolizing it, but to its scarcity alone.
+
+It was certainly a very original way to bring down the price, by
+attempting to destroy all there was in the city. Complaining of
+suffering from the want of provisions, they attempted to relieve
+themselves by putting its possession out of their power altogether. With
+little to eat, they attempted to make it impossible to eat at all. A
+better illustration of the insensate character of a mob could not be
+given.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+ASTOR-PLACE RIOTS, 1849.
+
+Rivalry between Forrest and Macready.--Macready's Arrival in this
+Country.--The Announcement of his Appearance at the Astor-place Opera
+House, and Forrest at the Broadway Theatre the same Night posted Side
+by Side.--Bowery Boys crowd the Opera House.--Anxiety of
+the Managers.--Consultations and Dramatic Scenes behind the
+Curtain.--Stamping of the People.--Scene on raising the Curtain.--Stormy
+Reception of Macready.--Howled down.--Mrs. Pope driven from the Stage by
+the Outrageous Language of the Mob.--Macready not allowed to go
+on.--His foolish Anger.--Flees for his Life.--His Appearance the
+Second Night.--Preparations to put down the Mob.--Exciting Scene in the
+Theatre.--Terrific Scenes without.--Military arrive.--Attacked by the
+Mob.--Patience of the Troops.--Effort to avoid Firing.--The Order
+to Fire.--Terrific Scene.--Strange Conduct of Forrest.--Unpublished
+Anecdote of General Scott.
+
+Probably there never was a great and bloody riot, moving a mighty city
+to its profoundest depths, that originated in so absurd, insignificant
+a cause as the Astor-place riot. A personal quarrel between two men
+growing out of professional jealousy, neither of whom had any hold on
+the affections of the people, were able to create a tumult, that ended
+only by strewing the street with the dead and wounded.
+
+Mr. Forrest, it is true, had a certain professional popularity, but
+nothing to awaken a personal enthusiasm for him. Viewing the matter
+in this light, some have thought, there was a mysterious underground
+influence at work, that has never yet been discovered. But one needs not
+to go far to find the causes that produced it.
+
+In the first place, ever since our revolt from England, especially since
+the second war with her, in which the contest for the supremacy of the
+seas was decided, the spirit of rivalry between the two countries has
+been intense and often bitter. No matter what the contest was, whether
+between two boats, or two bullies in the ring, it at once assumed the
+magnitude of a national one, and no matter how conducted, the winner was
+always charged with unfairness. It so happened that Forrest and Macready
+were the two popular tragic actors on either side of the Atlantic. If
+they had stayed at home, nothing would have been thought of it, but
+each invaded the domain of the other, and laid claim to his laurels.
+Of course criticism followed, national prejudices were aroused, and
+national peculiarities ridiculed. The press took sides, and fanned the
+excitement. Among other things, it was currently reported that when
+Forrest was in London, Macready went to see him act, and publicly hissed
+him. This was generally believed, and of course it alone would insure
+the latter an unwelcome reception from Forrest's admirers here, should
+he ever appear on our stage.
+
+Apparently unconscious of this hostility toward him, Macready came over
+in the spring of 1849, and at once made an engagement at the Astor-place
+Opera House, corner of Eighth Street and Lafayette Place. He was to
+appear as Macbeth; and the play was announced sometime beforehand.
+Forrest at the same time had an engagement at the Broadway Theatre. On
+the 7th of May, the following two significant placards appeared side by
+side in all the streets.
+
+ASTOR PLACE OPERA HOUSE.
+
+_This evening will be performed_
+
+MACBETH.
+
+MACBETH ... Macready. LADY MACBETH ... Mrs. Pope.
+
+BROADWAY THEATRE.
+
+_This evening will be performed_
+
+MACBETH.
+
+MACBETH ... Mr. Forrest. LADY MACBETH ... Mrs. Wallack.
+
+This public exhibition of rivalry stimulated the hostility of those
+opposed to Macready, and there were some fears of disturbance;
+but nothing serious was anticipated--in fact, it was rather a good
+advertisement, and promised full houses. Niblo, one of the managers
+of the Opera House, unwisely gave out tickets for more people than the
+building would hold, and when, before evening, he found they were taken,
+he was alarmed. It looked as if they had been so eagerly bought up for
+other purposes than merely to hear Macready. He therefore went to the
+Chief of Police, and requested the presence of a force in case any
+disturbance should be attempted. It was promised, but as it turned out,
+most of it came too late to be of any service.
+
+A tremendous crowd assembled in front of the building long before dark,
+and the moment the doors were open, a rush was made, and the human tide
+poured in, and flowing swiftly over the house, soon filled every part of
+it, except the boxes. These filled up more slowly; but long before the
+curtain rose, the house was packed to repletion, while the amphitheatre
+and parquette were crowded with hard-looking men--a dense mass of bone
+and muscle. The fashionable portion of the audience in the boxes began
+to feel anxious, for not only were all the seats occupied, but all
+the aisles and every foot of standing room. Some were in their
+shirt-sleeves, others were ragged and dirty, while all had their hats
+on. Such an audience had never before been seen in the Opera House, and
+it boded no good. Still, this heterogeneous mass was orderly, but it was
+noticed that at short intervals telegraphic signals were made by
+those nearest the stage to those in the wings of the amphitheatre, and
+answered, indicating a thoroughly arranged plan. The time before the
+play was to commence passed slowly, but the hard-looking crowd seemed
+very patient. Occasionally, to vary the monotony, some joke would be
+passed around, and once a man who was above called out to those below,
+imitating the English pronunciation: "I say, Jim, come 'hup 'ere! 'ere's
+some of Macready's hangels--'haint they sweet 'uns?" If a lorgnette was
+levelled from one of the boxes, those noticing it below would put their
+thumbs to their noses and gyrate with their fingers in return. On the
+whole, however, the strange-looking crowd were orderly, although the
+quiet had an ominous look.
+
+But at half-past seven, the hour for the play to commence, that regular
+stamping, common to most theatres, began. But in this case, it did not
+continue for a little while and then die away, but beginning in a low
+rumble, every moment gathered strength and grew louder, till it rolled
+like thunder through the building, shaking the very walls, and making
+the glasses in the great central chandelier jingle, as though knocked
+together by invisible hands. As the mighty sound echoed through the
+recesses and dressing-rooms behind the scenes, Niblo became agitated,
+and stepping forward on the stage, peered behind the edge of the
+curtain, and surveyed the strange scene. Turning to Mr. Bowyer, of
+the chief's bureau, who was by his side, he said: "This looks rather
+dubious, Mr. Bowyer." "Yes," he replied, "the 'Boy's' are here
+certainly. What made you sell so many tickets? People are making a
+tremendous rush at the doors yet, and the house is full; over full
+already." Niblo then turned to his partner, and said: "What do you
+think, Mr. Hackett. Is there going to be a disturbance?" "I don't know,"
+he replied; "you must ask Mr. Bowyer."
+
+The latter, putting his eye to the crack, took a careful survey of
+the audience, and remarked: "There is mischief in the parquette and
+amphitheatre, but probably no actual violence will be attempted;
+the 'boys' will make a noise, and endeavor to prevent the play from
+proceeding, but possibly they will do nothing further; they seem to
+be patient and good-natured, but Mr. Macready may expect a rough
+reception."
+
+Macready, who had been dressing, now approached and also took a peep
+from behind the curtain. His gaze was long and searching. The scrutiny
+did not satisfy him, and he turned away and began to pace backward and
+forward in one of the wings, moody and thoughtful. The stamping had
+ceased while the orchestra was playing, but it now commenced again,
+apparently louder than ever. Lady Macbeth in full dress now came on the
+stage, pale and agitated. She also took a peep from behind the curtain.
+The spectacle frightened her, and turning to Mr. Hackett, she whispered,
+rather than exclaimed, "My God! Mr. Hackett, what is the matter? Are we
+to be murdered to-night?" "My dear Madam," he replied, "keep calm, there
+is no cause for alarm; everything will go on smoothly;" but his pale
+face and anxious look belied his words. It seemed now as if the house
+would come down under the continuous, furious stamping. Hackett turned
+to Bowyer, and asked if the chief had come. The latter replied he did
+not know; and another silence followed in the group behind the curtain,
+while they stood and listened to the thundering tramp, tramp, that rose
+like muffled thunder. At length Hackett asked: "How many policemen are
+there in the house?" "I don't know," replied Bowyer. "But the chief
+should have known," retorted the former. "What do you want the police
+to do, Mr. Niblo?" quietly asked Bowyer. The latter hesitated a moment,
+when the attaches of the theatre came crowding forward in alarm, and
+asking by their scared looks what it all meant.
+
+Macready and Mrs. Pope, in full costume, were at this time standing
+apart, talking together, evidently discussing the best course to be
+pursued. The uproar seemed to grow louder, and prudence dictated a
+suspension of the play; but Macready, after a moment's hesitation,
+determined to risk it, and suddenly gave the signal to raise the
+curtain. The bell tinkled, and the curtain slowly rose, revealing the
+gorgeous scene and the actors standing in a blaze of light. Instantly
+the tumult ceased, and a deep sudden hush succeeded. Those roughs were
+evidently taken aback by the dazzling splendor that burst upon them. It
+was a new revelation to them, and for the moment they seemed to forget
+the object of their coming, and to be wholly absorbed in the vision
+before them.
+
+The first scene passed off quietly, and the fears of a disturbance were
+allayed. In the second, taking Duncan for Macbeth, the crowd began to
+hiss, but soon finding their mistake ceased. It was evident that some
+one better posted than the mass had control of this wild element, so
+eager to be let loose. At length Macbeth came on, and was received with
+deafening cheers by those in the boxes. As these died away, a hiss
+ran through the amphitheatre and parquette, followed by cat-calls,
+cock-crowing, and sounds of every imaginable description. Macready had
+hardly uttered a single sentence, before his voice was totally drowned
+in the uproar. Forced to stop; he quietly folded his arms and faced the
+storm, expecting it would soon blow over. Finding himself mistaken--that
+if anything it grew louder and fiercer, his disdain turned into foolish
+anger, and advancing to the footlights, and throwing all the contempt
+and scorn into his face that he was master of, he deliberately walked
+the entire breadth of the stage, gazing haughtily as he did so, into the
+faces of the roughs nearest him, who were bawling their throats hoarse.
+This did not mend matters any, as he easily could have foreseen, had he
+known this type of American character better. He then attempted to go on
+and outbellow, if possible, the audience. But it was like shouting amid
+the roar of breakers. Nobody heard a word he said, still he stuck to it
+till he got through that portion of the act. It was now Lady Macbeth's
+turn, and the appearance of a woman, it was thought, would command
+that respect which in America is almost always accorded to one. But her
+reception was worse than that of Macready, for not content with shouts
+and yells they heaped disgusting epithets on her, and were so vulgar in
+their ribaldry that she flew in affright from the stage, "blushing,"
+it was said, "even through the rouge on her face." Macready, however,
+showing, if nothing else, good English pluck, determined to go on. But
+he had scarcely finished the first sentence, when some potatoes struck
+the stage at his feet; then rotten eggs, breaking and spattering their
+sickening contents over his royal robes; while howls that seemed to come
+from the lower regions arose on every side. It was Pandemonium broke
+loose, and those in the boxes, thoroughly alarmed, jumped to their
+feet and stood as if paralyzed, gazing on the strange spectacle below.
+Macready's passions were now thoroughly aroused, and he stubbornly stood
+his ground. Suddenly a chair hurled from above, and evidently aimed
+at his head, struck the stage at his feet and broke into fragments,
+followed by the shout, "Go off the stage, you English fool! Hoo! Three
+cheers for Ned Forrest!" which were given with a will. Then came another
+chair, narrowly missing Macready's head, who, now alarmed for his
+personal safety, fled from the stage, and the curtain fell. But the
+bedlam that had been let loose did not stop. Hoots, curses, threats
+of vengeance, and the confused sounds of a mob given wholly over to
+passion, struck terror into all hearts; and Macready, fearing a rush
+would be made for him behind the scenes, left the theatre by a private
+door, and jumping into a carriage was rapidly driven to his hotel. The
+manager, alarmed for the safety of the building, attempted to announce
+his departure to the audience, but in vain. They would not listen
+to him, and as a last resort he chalked in large letters on a board,
+"_Macready has left the theatre_" and hoisted it before the footlights.
+This had the desired effect, and the headlong crowd, with shouts and
+laughter, began to tumble out. Once in the street, they sent up a loud
+hurrah, and dispersed in groups to their various drinking places, to
+talk over their victory and damn all Englishmen.
+
+The fact that the mob refrained from damaging the theatre, shows that
+they did not desire destruction; they had only done in their rough way
+what other men deemed respectable, and even legislators, have often
+done, and almost as boisterously, to prevent an obnoxious person from
+being heard. They certainly had many respectable precedents for
+their course, and Mr. Macready should have done what others have been
+compelled to do--given up the attempt and waited for a more propitious
+time. That a man has a right to play or speak, is true; but men of all
+grades have always asserted the right to show their displeasure of the
+acting of the one or the sentiments of the other. Not that there is
+any excuse for such conduct as we have described, but it can be
+hardly called a serious riot, although by whomsoever committed is
+unquestionably riotous in its character.
+
+Of this contemptible, disgraceful interference of his friends in his
+quarrel, Forrest had nothing to say--he kept a studied silence. How a
+man with any self-respect could have refrained from denouncing it, and
+repudiating all sympathy and connection with it by a public card, it
+will be difficult for men of ordinary sensibility to imagine.
+
+Macready now determined to throw up his engagement altogether, but
+after much consultation and deliberation changed his mind. A letter was
+addressed to him by many of the most wealthy and prominent citizens of
+the city, in which they expressed their regret at the treatment he had
+received, and urged him not to yield to such a lawless spirit. They
+promised that he should be protected in his rights, and hoped he would
+give the city an opportunity to wipe out the stain that had been put
+upon its character. This he unwisely consented to do, and the next
+Thursday was fixed for his appearance in the same play. When the
+placards announcing it were pasted up, there appeared immediately
+alongside of them another, announcing the appearance on the same
+evening of Forrest, in the Broadway Theatre, in the character of the
+"Gladiator."
+
+In the meantime other posters appeared, and among them the following in
+startling capitals:
+
+"WORKINGMEN!
+
+SHALL AMERICANS OR ENGLISH RULE IN THIS CITY?
+
+The crew of the British steamer have threatened all Americans who shall
+dare to offer their opinions this night at the
+
+ENGLISH ARISTOCRATIC OPERA HOUSE.
+
+WORKINGMEN! FREEMEN! STAND UP TO YOUR LAWFUL RIGHTS."
+
+It will be observed, that this artful appeal was like a two-edged sword,
+cutting both ways. It aimed at the same time to stir up the hatred of
+the lower classes against the upper, by the word aristocratic; and the
+national hatred of the English, by calling it the _English aristocratic_
+Opera House to be guarded by English sailors. Both parties now began
+active preparations for the eventful night--the rioters by increasing
+and organizing their forces, and setting on foot plans to get possession
+of the house; the friends of Macready, to prevent this from being done,
+and at the same time secure sufficient aid from the authorities to
+suppress all open violence. To keep the rowdies from occupying the
+house, tickets were sold or given away only to those known to be
+friendly to Macready; while to suppress violence, three hundred
+police were promised, to be supported if necessary by two regiments of
+soldiers, who were ordered to be under arms at their quarters, ready to
+march at a moment's notice.
+
+As the day advertised for the play approached, the excitement deepened,
+and serious trouble seemed unavoidable. On the appointed evening, a
+strong body of police was quietly placed inside of the house, with
+definite instructions how to act. In the meantime, an immense crowd had
+assembled in front of the building, and, when at last the doors opened,
+a rush was made for them. But the police kept the crowd back, and only
+those who had tickets were admitted. When the house was fairly filled,
+the doors were closed and fastened. In the meantime the windows had been
+barricaded, with the exception of one, which was overlooked. This the
+now disappointed rabble assailed with stones, sending them through it,
+in among the startled audience. They tried also to break down one of the
+doors, but the policemen's clubs stopped them. Then commenced a series
+of yells and shouts, mingled with horrid oaths and threats as the
+baffled wretches surged around the building. Finding nothing else
+to vent their rage on, they attacked the lamps in the neighborhood,
+breaking them to pieces, and putting out the lights.
+
+In the meantime, the play inside, with this wild accompaniment without,
+commenced. Notwithstanding all the care that had been taken, a large
+number of roughs had succeeded in procuring tickets, showing that some
+professedly respectable men had been in collusion with them. Although
+the rioters inside were in a minority, they were not daunted, and
+being determined that the play should not go on, commenced stamping
+and yelling so, that Macready's voice from the outset was completely
+drowned.
+
+The police in disguise had mingled all day with the rioters, and
+ascertained what the mode of action inside the house was to be. At a
+certain point in the play, a signal was to be given, on seeing which
+the entire body was to make a rush for the stage and seize Macready. The
+Chief of Police arranged his plans accordingly, and imparted them to
+the force under him. He therefore made no effort to stop the noise, but
+waited for the expected signal. At length it was given, and the entire
+body of rioters rose with a yell and sprang forward. But at that moment,
+the chief gave _his_ signal, which was lifting his hat from his head.
+Every eye of those determined policemen had been intently watching it,
+and as it now rose, they sprang with a single bound upon the astonished
+rowdies, and before they could recover from their surprise, most of them
+were outside of the building, while the ringleaders were kept back and
+caged inside.
+
+The play now went on, but it was a spiritless affair. Every ear was
+turned to hear the muffled roar of the voices outside, which every
+moment increased in power as the mighty multitude kept swelling in
+numbers.
+
+The afterpiece was omitted, and Macready escaping through a private
+door, hastened to his hotel. It seemed for a time that the building
+would be torn down; but at length, a regiment of the National Guard,
+preceded by a body of cavalry, was seen marching steadily up Broadway.
+The crowd parted as it advanced, and as it turned into Eighth Street,
+the sharp word of command, "right wheel," rang out distinct and clear
+over the uproar. The rioters, instead of being intimidated, rushed to a
+pile of paving-stones that unfortunately happened to be near, and arming
+themselves with these, began to pelt the horses, which soon became
+unmanageable, so that the cavalry force had to retire.
+
+The infantry then advanced, but were received with such a deluge of
+stones that they, too, fell back to Broadway. Here they rallied, and at
+the order forward, moved steadily on the mob, and forced their way to
+the front of the Opera House. While forming line here on the sidewalk,
+they were assailed so fiercely with paving-stones, that the soldiers
+fell rapidly. The rioters were in close quarters, and the heavy stones,
+hurled at such a short distance, were almost as deadly as musket-balls.
+Captain Pond soon fell wounded, when the second in command told the
+sheriff that if he did not give the order to fire, the troops would be
+withdrawn, for they couldn't stand it. Recorder Talmadge, unwilling to
+resort to such a desperate measure, attempted to harangue the mob. He
+begged them, in God's name, to disperse and go home--if they did not,
+the soldiers would certainly fire on them, etc. The only reply was hoots
+and yells of defiance, and paving-stones. The Recorder then forced his
+way up to General Hall, standing at the right of the battalion, and
+said: "You must order your men to fire; it is a terrible alternative,
+but there is no other." The General asked for the Mayor, for he was
+doubtful of his authority to do so, without his order. "He won't be
+here," replied Talmadge. General Sandford then said: "Well, the National
+Guards will not stand and be pounded to death with stones; nearly
+one-third of the force is already disabled." After a little more hurried
+conversation, the sheriff said, "If that be so, you have permission to
+fire." The uproar all this time was deafening, and the order, "Ready!"
+of General Sandford, could hardly be heard; but the sharp, quick rattle
+of steel rose distinctly over the discord. Still terribly repugnant
+to shoot down citizens, General Hall and Colonel Duryea made another
+attempt to address the crowd, and begged them to cease these attacks.
+"Fire and be d--ned!" shouted a burly fellow. "Fire, if you dare--take
+the life of a freeborn American for a bloody British actor! D--n it, you
+dassent fire!" and he boldly bared his breast to the levelled muskets.
+"Fire, will you?" yelled another, as he hurled a paving-stone at General
+Sandford, wounding his sword arm. "Hit 'em again!" shouted a third, who
+saw the well-directed aim. Still averse to shedding blood, General Hall
+told the soldiers to elevate their pieces over the heads of the people,
+and fire at the blank wall of Mr. Langton's house opposite, hoping thus
+to frighten the mob. But this only awakened derision, and the leaders
+shouted, "Come on, boys! they have blank cartridges and leather flints!"
+In the meantime, the police, who had mingled with the mob, and were
+making arrests, began to force their way out, in order to escape the
+fire that now seemed inevitable. The troops moved across the street,
+and faced toward the Bowery, obeying the word of command promptly, and
+marching with great steadiness, although the pelting they received was
+murderous. To retreat would be pusillanimous, to stand there and be
+pelted to death worse still; and General Hall finally gave the order to
+fire point blank, but to aim low, so that men would be wounded, rather
+than killed. The command fell clear and distinct, "Fire!"
+
+A single musket shot on the extreme left was the only response. They
+were too near--their muzzles almost touching the hearts of the men, and
+it seemed terribly murderous to fire. "Fire!" shouted General Sandford.
+
+Three more musket-shots, only, followed. "Fire!" Duryea then cried
+out, in ringing tones. A swift volley ran along the line, shedding a
+momentary glare on the wild faces of the mob, the streets, and adjoining
+houses, and then came the report. This time the dead in their midst told
+the rioters that it was child's play no longer, and they fell back.
+But getting a new supply of paving-stones, they rallied, and once more
+advanced on the troops. A second volley, more murderous than the first,
+sent them crowding back on each other in terror. The troops now wheeled,
+and formed line again in front of the Opera House. It had got to be
+eleven o'clock, and more troops were ordered up, with two cannon. The
+mob, though dismayed, still refused to retire, and hung sullen and
+threatening as a thunder-cloud on the skirts of the military, and a
+third volley was poured into them. The rioters now separated, and fell
+back into the darkness, when the troops were ordered to fire the fourth
+time, in different directions--one wing down Eighth Street, and the
+other into Lafayette Place. This last volley, judging from the testimony
+of reliable witnesses, was altogether needless. The conflict was over.
+
+A lawyer of Wall Street, noted for his philanthropy and kindness,
+resided in Fourth Avenue, and being informed by a friend, late in
+the evening, that men were lying dead and wounded in Astor Place,
+he hastened down to see if he could be of any assistance to the poor
+creatures. Reaching Lafayette Place, he saw in the dim light a line of
+soldiers drawn up, though he saw no mob, only a few scattered men, who
+seemed to be spectators. Suddenly he heard the order to fire, and the
+next moment came a flash and report. He could not imagine what they were
+firing at; but suddenly he felt his arm numb, and the next moment he
+grew faint and dropped on the sidewalk, his arm broken to shivers. The
+brother of a well-known banker was shot in Broadway by a random bullet;
+and a man, while stepping out of a car in Third Avenue, was shot dead.
+Other innocent persons fell victims, as they always must, if they will
+hang on the skirts of a mob from curiosity. Men anxious to witness a
+fight must take the chances of getting hurt.
+
+Great excitement followed; an indignation meeting was called in the
+Park, coroners' juries stultified themselves, and a senseless outcry
+was made generally. Twenty-two were killed and thirty wounded. It was a
+terrible sacrifice to make for a paltry quarrel between two actors about
+whom nobody cared; and in this light alone many viewed it, forgetting
+that when the public peace is broken, it matters not how great or
+insignificant the cause, it must be preserved; and if the police or
+military are called out to do it, and are attacked, they must defend
+themselves, and uphold the laws, or be false to their trust. The
+authorities have to do with riots, not their causes; put them down, not
+deprecate their existence, or argue their justice.
+
+If public indignation had been turned against Forrest, it would have
+been more sensible. He knew perfectly well that if his friends persisted
+in their determination to attack Macready, the second night, blood would
+be spilt. It was _his_ quarrel, and yet he deliberately kept his lips
+closed. He neither begged them for their own sake, nor for his, or as
+good citizens, to forbear, and let his rival alone; nor after it was
+known that many had been killed, did he express a single word of regret;
+apparently having no feeling but gratification, that even at such a
+fearful sacrifice his hated rival had been driven from the field. But
+responsibility is not so easily shaken off, and in real life as well as
+in tragedy, conscience will force a man to cry:
+
+"Out! damned blood spot! Out, I say!"
+
+Macready left the country, and the excitement died away; but the painful
+memories of this absurd yet deadly riot will remain till the present
+generation has passed from the stage.
+
+We cannot close this account more fitly than by relating an anecdote of
+General Scott connected with it, that has never been made public. He was
+living at the time in Second Avenue, nearly opposite Astor Place. He
+was occupying the upper part of the house that evening, and his wife the
+lower. When the first volley over the heads of the people was fired, he
+hastened down, and sent off a servant to ascertain what it meant.
+Before the latter returned, he heard a second volley. Hurrying below, he
+despatched a second servant to find out what was going on, and went back
+to his room. A third volley smote on his ear, and deeply agitated he
+hurried below, and began to pace the room in an excited manner. His
+wife, observing how much he was moved, remarked pleasantly: "Why,
+General, you are frightened!" This was rather a staggerer to the old
+hero, and he turned and exclaimed: "Am I a man to be frightened, madam?
+It is _volley_ firing, madam--_volley_ firing. They are shooting down
+American citizens!" The old chieftain had heard that firing too often on
+the field of battle, to be ignorant of its meaning. He had seen ranks
+of living men reel and fall before it; nay, stood amid the curling smoke
+when his staff was swept down by his side, calm and unmoved, but here
+he was unmanned. Over the ploughed and blood-stained field, he had moved
+with nerves as steady as steel, and pulse beating evenly; but now he
+paced his safe and quiet room with his strong nature painfully agitated,
+and all because American citizens were being shot down by American
+citizens. The fact speaks volumes for the nobleness of his nature, and
+that unsullied patriotism which sheds tenfold lustre on his well-earned
+laurels.
+
+[Illustration: HEADQUARTERS METROPOLITAN FIRE DEPARTMENT.]
+
+[Illustration: HEADQUARTERS METROPOLITAN POLICE, 300 Mulberry Street.]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+POLICE RIOT--DEAD-RABBITS' RIOT--BREAD RIOT.
+
+Creation of the Metropolitan District.--Collision between Mayor
+Wood's Police and the Metropolitan Police.--Seventh Regiment called
+out.--Dead-Rabbits' Riot.--Severe Fight between the Roach Guards and
+Dead Rabbits.--Police driven back.--Barricades erected.--Military called
+out.--Killed and Wounded.--Bread Riot.--Financial Distress.
+
+The year 1857 was a remarkable one in the history of New York City, and
+indeed of the whole country. The year previous had been characterized
+by intense political excitement, for the presidential campaign had
+been carried on as a sectional fight or a war between the upholders
+and enemies of the institution of slavery as it existed at the South.
+Pennsylvania alone by her vote defeated the antislavery party, and
+the South, seeing the danger that threatened it, had already begun to
+prepare for that tremendous struggle, that afterwards tested to the
+utmost the resources and strength of the North; while a financial storm
+overwhelmed the entire country in disaster. To these were added local
+causes, which affected New York City particularly, and made it a year of
+uncommon disturbance.
+
+The Republican party being largely in the ascendant in the State,
+determined to revolutionize the municipal government, and place the
+Democratic city partially under Republican rule. Many bills were passed
+during the session of Legislature, peculiarly obnoxious to the city
+authorities, but that which excited the most bitter opposition was
+called the Metropolitan Police Act, by which the counties of New York,
+Kings, Westchester, and Richmond were made one police district, to
+be controlled by a board of commissioners, consisting of five members
+appointed by the Governor and Senate, and to hold office for five years.
+This board having organized, proceeded to create a police department.
+Mayor Wood denied the constitutionality of the act and retained the old
+police--so that there were two police departments existing at the same
+time in the city. The Mayor resorted to all kinds of legal measures to
+defeat the action of the board, and the question was finally referred to
+the Court of Appeals for decision.
+
+In the mean time the death of a street commissioner left a vacancy to be
+filled. Governor King, acting under the recent law, appointed Daniel D.
+Conover to fill it, while the Mayor appointed Charles Devlin. A third
+claimant for the place appeared in the deputy, who asserted his right to
+act until the decision of the Court of Appeals was rendered. Conover had
+no idea of waiting for this, and proceeded to assume the duties of his
+office. The Mayor of course resisted, and so Conover got out a warrant
+from the Recorder to arrest the former on the charge of inciting a riot,
+and another on the charge of personal violence. Armed with these papers,
+and backed by fifty of the new policemen, he proceeded to the City Hall.
+The Mayor, aware of the movement, had packed the building with his own
+police, who refused him admittance. The new police attempted to force an
+entrance, when a fight followed, in which twelve policemen were severely
+injured. While things were in this critical condition, the Seventh
+Regiment passed down Broadway on its way to the boat for Boston, whither
+it was going to receive an ovation. A request for its interference was
+promptly granted, and marching into the Park they quickly quelled the
+riot, and the writs were served on the Mayor.
+
+Intense excitement followed, and so great was the fear of a terrible
+outbreak, that nine regiments were put under arms, ready to march at a
+moment's notice.
+
+But on the 1st of July the Court of Appeals decided the act to be
+constitutional, and the disturbance ended. But of course, while this
+strife was going on between the police, but little was done to arrest
+disorder in the city. The lawless became emboldened, and in the evening
+before the 4th of July a disturbance began, which for a time threatened
+the most serious consequences.
+
+DEAD-RABBITS' RIOT.
+
+The origin of the term "Dead Rabbits," which became so well known this
+year from being identified with a serious riot, is not certainly known.
+It is said that an organization known as the "Roach Guards," called
+after a liquor dealer by that name, became split into two factions, and
+in one of their stormy meetings some one threw a dead rabbit into the
+room, and one party suddenly proposed to assume the name.
+
+These two factions became bitterly hostile to each other; and on the day
+before the 4th of July came in collision, but finally separated without
+doing much damage. They were mostly young men, some of them being mere
+boys.
+
+The next day, the fight was renewed at Nos. 40 and 42 Bowery Street,
+and clubs, stones, and even pistols were freely used. The "Dead Rabbits"
+were beaten and retired, yelling and firing revolvers in the air, and
+attacking everybody that came in their way. Their uniform was a blue
+stripe on their pantaloons, while that of the Roach Guards was a red
+stripe. People in the neighborhood were frightened, and fastened their
+doors and windows. No serious damage was done, however.
+
+About ten o'clock, a policeman in Worth Street, while endeavoring to
+clear the sidewalk, was knocked down and severely beaten. At length,
+breaking away from his assailants, he hastened to the central office in
+White Street, and reported the state of things. A squad of police was
+immediately dispatched to arrest the ringleaders. On reaching Centre
+Street they found a desperate fight going on, and immediately rushed in,
+to put a stop to it. The belligerents at once made common cause against
+them. A bloody hand-to-hand conflict followed, but the police at length
+forced the mob to retreat. The latter, however, did not give up
+the contest, but mounting to the upper stories and roofs of the
+tenement-houses, rained down clubs and stones so fiercely, that the
+police were driven off with only two prisoners.
+
+Comparative quiet was now restored, though the excitement spread in
+every direction. It lasted, however, only an hour or two, when suddenly
+a loud yell was heard near the Tombs, accompanied with the report of
+fire-arms, and crowds of people came pouring down Baxter and Leonard
+Streets, to get out of the way of bullets. Some wounded men were carried
+by, and the utmost terror and confusion prevailed. The air was filled
+with flying missiles and oaths, and shouts of defiance. Now the Dead
+Rabbits would drive their foes before them, and again be driven back.
+The bloody fight thus swayed backwards and forwards through the narrow
+streets for a long time. At length twenty-five Metropolitan Police
+appeared on the scene, while fifty more were held in reserve. Though
+assailed at every step with clubs and stones, they marched steadily on,
+clearing the crowd as they advanced, and forcing the Dead Rabbits into
+the houses, whither they followed them, mounting even to the roof, and
+clubbing them at every step. After clearing the houses, they resumed
+their march, when they were again attacked by the increasing crowd, many
+of them armed with muskets and pistols. Barricades were now erected,
+behind which the mob rallied, and the contest assumed the aspect of
+a regular battle. The notorious Captain Rynders came on the ground,
+between six and seven o'clock, and attempted to restore quiet.
+Not succeeding, however, he repaired to the office of the Police
+Commissioners, and told Commissioner Draper, if he had not police force
+enough to disperse the mob, he should call out the military. The latter
+replied that he had made a requisition on Major-General Sandford, for
+three regiments, and that they would soon be on the ground. But it was
+nine o'clock before they made their appearance. The police then formed
+in two bodies of seventy-five men each, and supported, one by the
+Seventy-first Regiment and the other by the Eighth, marched down
+White and Worth Streets. This formidable display of force overawed the
+rioters, and they fled in every direction. This ended the riot, although
+the military were kept on duty during the night.
+
+At times, the fight was close and deadly, and it was reported that eight
+were killed and some thirty wounded.
+
+BREAD RIOT.
+
+In the autumn, there came a financial crisis, that was so wide-spread
+and disastrous that the lower classes suffered for want of food. Banks
+suspended specie payment, manufactories were forced to stop work, and
+paralysis fell on the whole industry of the nation. It was estimated
+that ten thousand persons were thrown out of employment. These soon used
+up their earnings, and destitution and suffering of course followed.
+Their condition grew worse as cold weather came on, and many actually
+died of starvation. At length they became goaded to desperation, and
+determined to help themselves to food. Gaunt men and women, clad in
+tatters, gathered in the Park, and that most fearful of all cries, when
+raised by a mob, "Bread," arose on every side. Propositions were made to
+break open the stores, and get what they needed. Flour was hoarded up
+in them because so little could be got on from the West. The granaries
+there were groaning with provisions; but there was no money to pay for
+the transportation. There was money East, but kept locked up in fear. As
+this became known to the mob, their exasperation increased. To know that
+there were both food enough and money enough, while they were starving
+to death, was enough to drive them mad, and there were ominous
+mutterings. Fortunately, the authorities saw in time the threatened
+danger, and warded it off. A great many were set to work on the Central
+Park and other public works, while soup-houses were opened throughout
+the city, and private associations formed to relieve the suffering; and
+the winter passed without any outbreak, though more than five thousand
+business-houses in the country failed, with liabilities reaching three
+hundred millions of dollars.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+DRAFT RIOTS OF 1863.
+
+Cause of the Riots--The London _Times_.--Draft called a despotic
+Measure.--The despotic Power given to Washington by Congress.--Despotic
+Action sometimes Necessary, in order to save the Life of the
+Nation.--The Rights of Government.--Drafting the Legitimate Way to raise
+an Army--It is not Unequal or Oppressive.
+
+The ostensible cause of the riots of 1863 was hostility to the draft,
+because it was a tyrannical, despotic, unjust measure--an act which has
+distinguished tyrants the world over, and should never be tolerated by a
+free people. Open hostility to oppression was more than once hinted in a
+portion of the press--as not only a right, but a duty.
+
+Even the London _Times_ said, "It would have been strange, indeed, if
+the American people had submitted to a measure which is a distinctive
+mark of the most despotic governments of the Continent." As if the
+fact that a measure, because resorted to by a despotic government, was
+therefore necessarily wrong. It might as well be said, that because
+settling national difficulties by an appeal to arms has always been
+a distinctive feature of despotic governments, therefore the American
+people should refuse to sustain the government by declaring or
+prosecuting any war; or that because it has always been a distinctive
+feature of despotic governments to have naval and military schools, to
+train men to the art of war, therefore the American people should not
+submit to either. It is not of the slightest consequence to us what
+despotic governments do or not do; the simple question is, whether the
+measure is necessary for the protection of our own government, and the
+welfare of the people. To leave this untouched, and talk only about
+despotism, the right of the people, and all that, is mere demagogism,
+and shows him who utters it to be unfit to control public opinion.
+Besides, there is a great difference between measures that are despotic,
+which are put forth to save the nation's life, or honor, and those put
+forth to destroy freedom, and for selfish ends. Not that, intrinsically,
+despotic measures are always not to be deprecated and avoided, if
+possible; for if tolerated in one case, they may be exacted in another.
+
+[Illustration: FORT LAFAYETTE, NEW YORK HARBOR.]
+
+[Illustration: FORT HAMILTON, from whence U.S. Troops were sent to aid
+in suppressing the Draft Riot of 1863.]
+
+Liberty can never be guarded too carefully, or the barriers erected
+around the rights of every individual respected too scrupulously. But
+everything in this world is a choice between two evils. The greatest
+wisdom cannot avoid _all_ evils; it can only choose the least. Sound
+statesmanship regards any stretch of power better than the overthrow of
+the nation. Probably there never was a more able and wise body of men
+assembled, or more jealous of any exercise of arbitrary power, than the
+First Congress of the United States; and yet, almost in the commencement
+of our struggle for independence, when events wore such a gloomy aspect
+that failure seemed inevitable, rising above its fears of despotic
+measures, in its greater fear of total defeat, it conferred on
+Washington powers that made him to a large extent military dictator. He
+was authorized to raise sixteen battalions of infantry, three thousand
+light-horse, three regiments of artillery, together with a corps of
+engineers, and _appoint the officers himself_. He had, also, full power,
+when he deemed it necessary, to call on the several States for the
+militia; to appoint throughout _the entire army all the officers under
+brigadiers_; fill up all vacancies; to take whatever he wanted for the
+use of his troops, wherever he could find it, with no other restriction
+than that he must pay for it, which last was nullified, because he was
+empowered to _seize and lock up every man who refused to receive in pay
+Continental money_. It would seem impossible that a body of men who were
+so extremely sensitive in bestowing power on a military commander, and
+so watchful of the rights of individuals, could have committed such an
+act; and yet, who does not see that, under the circumstances, it
+was wise. Now, granting that conscription is a despotic measure, no
+truthful, candid man will deny that, in case of a war, where men must
+be had, and can be got in no other way, that it would be the duty of
+government to enforce it. It is idle to reply that the supposition is
+absurd--that in this country such a thing can never happen; for what has
+been in the world can be again. Besides, this does meet the question of
+the _right_ of the Government, that must be settled before the emergency
+comes. Now, we do not believe there is sounder principle, or one that
+every unbiassed mind does not concede with the readiness that it does an
+axiom, that, if necessary to protect and save itself, a government may
+not only order a draft, but call out _every_ able-bodied man in the
+nation. If this right does not inhere in our government, it is built on
+a foundation of sand, and the sooner it is abandoned the better.
+
+But we go farther, and deny that a draft is a despotic measure at all,
+but is a just and equitable mode of raising an army. True, if troops
+enough can be raised on a reasonable bounty, it is more expedient to
+do so; but the moment that bounty becomes so exorbitant as to tempt the
+cupidity of those in whom neither patriotism nor sense of duty have any
+power, volunteering becomes an evil. We found it so in our recent war.
+The bounty was a little fortune to a certain class, the benefit of which
+they had no idea of losing by being shot, and hence they deserted, or
+shammed sickness, so that scarce half the men ever got to the front,
+while those who did being influenced by no motive higher than cupidity,
+became worthless soldiers. A draft takes in enough men of a higher stamp
+to leaven the mass. The first Napoleon, when asked what made his first
+"army of Italy" so resistless, replied that almost every man in it was
+intelligent enough to act as a clerk. The objection that a rich man, if
+drafted, can buy a substitute, while the poor man, with a large family
+depending upon him, must go, if of any weight at all, lies against
+the whole structure of society, which gives the rich man at every step
+immunities over the poor man. When pestilence sweeps through a city, the
+rich man can flee to a healthy locality, while the poor man must stay
+and die; and when the pestilence of war sweeps over the land, must one
+attempt to reverse all this relation between wealth and poverty?
+
+When society gets in that happy state, that the rich man has no
+advantages over the poor, there will be no need either of drafting or
+volunteering. Yet, after all, it is not so unequal as it at first sight
+appears. War must have money as well as men, and the former the rich
+have to furnish; and if they do this, it is but fair that they should be
+allowed to furnish with it also the men to do their fighting. Besides,
+there must be some rule that would exempt the men that carry on the
+business of the country.
+
+We have said this much, because the riots in New York, which might have
+ended in national destruction, were brought about by preaching views
+directly the opposite of these.
+
+The military spirit is so prevalent in the nation, that in any ordinary
+war the Government can get all the troops it wants by giving a moderate
+bounty, and wages but a little greater than can be secured at any
+ordinary business or occupation. Still, the right to raise them
+differently should never be denied it.
+
+When the old militia system was given up in the State, and a certain
+number of regiments were raised and equipped and drilled for active
+duty, and for which the people paid taxes, it was thought they would
+furnish all the quota that would ever be called for from the State--and
+in any ordinary war will. The crisis, however, in which we found
+ourselves had never been anticipated, and hence not provided against,
+and when Congress attempted to do it in what seemed to it the best
+way, an outcry was raised of injustice and oppression. It was hard,
+doubtless, but there are a great many hard things in the world that have
+been and have to be borne. The feeling of hostility unquestionably would
+have been less intense, had not so many of those to be drafted been
+bitterly opposed to the war. Believing it to have been brought about by
+the reckless demagogism and fanaticism of their political opponents,
+and levied as it was against those who had been their warm political
+friends, indeed, chief dependence for political success, it was asking
+a good deal, to require them to step to the front, and fight in such a
+war. Whether this feeling was right or wrong, had nothing to do with the
+influence it actually exerted.
+
+On this feeling was based, in fact, the real hostility to the draft, in
+which a portion of the press shared. But, as we said before, we having
+nothing to do with the justice or injustice of this belief or feeling;
+we only state the fact, with our denial that it furnished any excuse for
+the denunciations uttered against the draft as a wrong use of power,
+or the refusal to submit to it on that account. The Government, whether
+wrong or right, must be supported, or abandoned and given over to
+revolution. In ordinary times, denunciation of its measures, and the
+most strenuous opposition to them, is the right and often the duty of
+every conscientious man. This right, exercised by the press, is one of
+the most effectual checks against abuses, and the most powerful lever
+to work reform and changes. But in a great crisis, to set one's self
+against a measure on which the fate of the nation hangs, is a flagrant
+abuse of that right; for the effort, if successful, will not work change
+and an improved condition of things, but immediate, irretrievable ruin,
+and put the nation beyond the reach of reform.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+Rights of Municipalities.--Interference of the Legislature with the City
+Government.--Conflict between the Governor and Police Commissioners.--A
+Wrong becomes a Practical Blessing.--Provost Marshals.--Riot not
+anticipated.--Bad time to commence the Draft.--Preparations of
+Superintendent Kennedy.--The Police System.--Attack on Provost Marshal
+Captain Erhardt.--Telegrams of the Police.--Kennedy starts on a Tour of
+Observation.
+
+The rights of municipalities have been conceded from the first dawn of
+constitutional liberty indeed municipal freedom may be said to be
+the first step in the onward progress of the race toward the full
+recognition of its rights. To interfere with a great commercial city
+like New York, except by general laws, is as a rule unwise, impolitic,
+and, indeed, unjust. Like a separate State, it had better suffer many
+and great evils, than to admit the right of outward power to regulate
+its internal affairs. To do so, in any way, is fraught with mischief;
+but to do so as a political party, is infinitely more pernicious.
+It leaves a great metropolis, on which the welfare of the commercial
+business of the nation mainly depends, a foot-ball for ambitious or
+selfish politicians to play with. But as there are exceptions to all
+rules, so there may be to this--still they should always be exceptions,
+and not claimed as a settled policy.
+
+We mention this, because the interference of the Legislature, or rather
+the dominant part of it, in the internal policy of New York, about the
+time the war commenced, was in itself a mischievous and tyrannical act,
+while, under the circumstances that soon after occurred, it proved of
+incalculable benefit.
+
+With the city stripped of its military, and the forts in the harbor
+of their garrisons, the police, under the old regime, during the
+draft riots, would have been trustless and powerless, even if the city
+government had attempted to uphold the national authority, which is
+doubtful. The Republicans established a Board of Police Commissioners,
+the majority of which were of their own political faith, who had the
+entire control of the department. Under their hands, an entire different
+set of men from those formerly selected, composed the force, and a
+regular system of drills, in fact, a thorough organization, adopted.
+
+But in 1862 the Democrats elected their governor, though they failed to
+secure the Legislature. Mr. Seymour, immediately on his inauguration,
+summoned the Commissioners to appear before him, the object of which
+was to change the character of the board. The latter understood it, and
+refused to appear. Legal proceedings were then commenced against them,
+but they were staved off, and in the meantime the Legislature had got to
+work, and took the matter in hand; and Messrs. Bowen, Acton, and Bergen,
+were made to constitute the board--John A. Kennedy being superintendent
+of police. Mr. Bowen, the president of the board, having been appointed
+brigadier-general, resigned, and Mr. Acton, under the law, became
+president. This political character of the board, so diametrically
+opposed to the feelings and wishes of the vast majority of the citizens,
+tested by the ordinary rules and principles of a Republican Government,
+was unjust; a palpable, deliberate encroachment on the right of
+self-government. But as we remarked, just now, it was fortunate for the
+country that such a state of things existed. In the extraordinary,
+not anticipated, and perilous condition in which we found ourselves,
+everything was changed. Neither constitutions nor laws had been framed
+to meet such an emergency, and both, in many cases, had to be suspended.
+What was right before, often became wrong now, and vice versa. The
+article inserted in the Constitution of the State, that the moment a
+bank refused specie payment, it became bankrupt, was a wise and just
+provision, but to enforce it now, would be financial ruin, and it was
+not done.
+
+This usurpation of the government of New York by the Republican party,
+which seemed so unjust, was, doubtless, under the circumstances, the
+salvation of the city. It was, moreover, highly important to the whole
+country, in the anomalous war which threatened our very existence, that
+the controlling power of the city should be in sympathy with the General
+Government, but it was especially, vitally so, when the latter put
+its provost marshals in it to enforce the draft. That this _mode_ of
+enforcing the draft by provost marshals, was an encroachment on the
+rights and powers of the separate States, there can be no doubt. It is
+equally clear that the proper way was to call on the separate governors
+for their quota, and let _them_ enforce the draft. If they refused to
+do it, then it was time for the General Government to take the matter in
+its own hand. This, however, was no encroachment on _individual_ rights.
+The oppressive nature of the act and the result were the same to the
+person, whether enforced by the State or General Government. Still it
+was a total departure from the practice of the General Government
+since its first organization, and it moreover established a dangerous
+precedent, which the sooner it is abandoned the better. But this had
+nothing to do with the opposition to the draft. That was a personal
+objection.
+
+With the Police Department in sympathy with the rioters, it is not
+difficult to see what the end would have been. We do not mean by that,
+that the heads of the department would not have endeavored to do their
+duty, but it would have been impossible to control the kind of element
+they would inevitably have to deal with. This even the long-tried,
+trusted leaders of the Democratic party acknowledged. In fact, the
+police force would not have been in a condition, with ever so good a
+will, to have acted with the skill and promptness it did.
+
+The draft riots, as they are called, were supposed by some to be the
+result of a deep-laid conspiracy on the part of those opposed to the
+war, and that the successful issue of Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania
+was to be the signal for open action. Whether this be so or not, it is
+evident that the outbreak in New York City on the 13th of July, not only
+from the manner of its commencement, the absence of proper organization,
+and almost total absence of leadership, was not the result of a general
+well-understood plot. It would seem from the facts that those who
+started the movement had no idea at the outset of proceeding to the
+length they did. They simply desired to break up the draft in some of
+the upper districts of the city, and destroy the registers in which
+certain names were enrolled.
+
+A general provost marshal had been appointed over the whole city, which
+was subdivided into various districts, in each of which was an assistant
+provost marshall. Although there had been no provision for a general
+assistant provost marshal or aid, yet Colonel Nugent acted in this
+capacity. The drafting was to take place in the separate districts,
+under the direction of the assistant provost marshals.
+
+Although there had been some rumors of resistance to it, they received
+very little credence, and no special provision was made for such an
+emergency. The city was almost denuded of the military; the regiments
+having been called to Pennsylvania to repel Lee's invasion; yet so
+little fear was entertained, that even the police department was not
+requested to make any special preparation. The Invalid Corps, as it was
+called, composed of the maimed and crippled soldiers who could no longer
+keep the field, were thought to be quite sufficient to preserve the
+peace.
+
+The draft commenced on Saturday in the Eleventh and Ninth Districts,
+and passed off quietly; and it was thought the same order would be
+maintained throughout, and if any force were necessary to repress
+violence, it would be when the conscripts were required to take their
+place in the ranks.
+
+Still Superintendent Kennedy of the Police Department feared there might
+be some difficulty experienced by the officers in charge of the draft,
+even if no serious resistance should be offered. Some of the enrolling
+officers, a short time previous, while taking the names of those
+subject to draft, had been assailed with very abusive language, or their
+questions received in sullen silence or answered falsely; fictitious
+names often being given instead of the true ones. In the Ninth District,
+embracing the lower part of the city, the provost marshal, Captain Joel
+T. Erhardt, came near losing his life in the performance of this duty.
+At the corner of Liberty Street and Broadway a building was being torn
+down, preparatory to the erection of another, and the workmen engaged in
+it threatened the enrolling officer who came to take down their names,
+with violence, and drove him off.
+
+Captain Erhardt, on the report being made to him, repaired to
+head-quarters, and requested of Colonel Nugent a force of soldiers to
+protect the officer in the discharge of his duty. But this the latter
+declined to do, fearing it would exasperate the men and bring on a
+collision, and requested the Captain to go himself, saying, if he did,
+there would be no difficulty. Captain Erhardt declined, on the ground
+that he was not an enrolling officer. But Colonel Nugent persisting, the
+Captain finally told him, if he ordered him, as his superior officer, to
+go, he would. Nugent replied that he might so consider it. Erhardt then
+said he would go, but only on one condition, that if he got in trouble
+and asked for help, he would send him troops. To this he agreed, and
+Captain Erhardt proceeded to the building on the corner of Broadway and
+Liberty Street, and stepping on a plank that led from the sidewalk to
+the floor, asked a man on a ladder for his name. The fellow refused to
+answer, when an altercation ensuing, he stepped down, and seizing an
+iron bar advanced on the provost marshal. The latter had nothing but a
+light Malacca cane in his hand, but as he saw the man meant murder he
+drew a pistol from his pocket, and levelled it full at his breast.
+This brought him to a halt; and after looking at Erhardt for awhile he
+dropped his bar. Erhardt then put up his pistol, and went on with his
+enrolling. The man was dogged and angry, and watching his opportunity,
+suddenly made a rush at the provost marshal. The latter had only time to
+deal him, as he sprang forward, one heavy blow with his cane, when they
+closed. In a moment both reeled from the plank and fell to the cellar
+beneath, the provost marshal on top. Covered with dirt, he arose and
+drew his pistol, and mounted to the sidewalk.
+
+The foreman sympathized with the workmen, and Erhardt could do nothing.
+Determined to arrest them for resisting the draft, he despatched a
+messenger to Colonel Nugent for the promised force. None, however, was
+sent. He, in the meantime, stood with drawn pistol facing the men, who
+dared not advance on him. Aid not arriving, he sent again, and still
+later a third time. He stood thus facing the workmen with his pistol for
+three hours, and finally had to leave without making any arrests. This
+failure of Colonel Nugent to fulfil his promise and perform his duty
+came near costing Erhardt his life, and then and there starting the
+riot. The next day he had the foreman arrested, and completed his work
+of enrolling.
+
+The time selected for commencing the draft was unfortunate. Saturday, of
+all days in the week, was the worst. It was a new thing, and one under
+any circumstances calculated to attract universal attention among the
+lower classes, and provoke great and angry discussion. Hence, to have
+the draft commence on Saturday, and allow the names to be published in
+the papers on Sunday morning, so that all could read them, and spend the
+day in talking the matter over, and lay plans for future action, was a
+most unwise, thoughtless procedure. If there had been any choice as to
+the day, one, if possible, should have been chosen that preceded the
+busiest day of the week. To have the list of twelve hundred names that
+had been drawn read over and commented on all day by men who enlivened
+their discussion with copious draughts of bad whiskey, especially when
+most of those drawn were laboring-men or poor mechanics, who were
+unable to hire a substitute, was like applying fire to gunpowder. If a
+well-known name, that of a man of wealth, was among the number, it only
+increased the exasperation, for the law exempted every one drawn who
+would pay three hundred dollars towards a substitute. This was taking
+practically the whole number of soldiers called for out of the laboring
+classes. A great proportion of these being Irish, it naturally became an
+Irish question, and eventually an Irish riot. It was in their eyes the
+game of hated England over again--oppression of Irishmen. This state
+of feeling could not be wholly concealed. Kennedy, aware of it, felt
+it necessary, on Monday morning, to take some precautionary measures.
+Still, in the main, only small squads of policemen were sent to the
+various points where the drafting was to take place, and merely to keep
+back the crowd and maintain order, in case a few disorderly persons
+should attempt to create disturbance. It was true, a rumor had been put
+in circulation that a body of men had planned to seize the arsenal, and
+Kennedy, as a matter of precaution, sent fifty policemen to occupy
+it. But during the morning, word was brought him that the
+street-contractor's men in the Nineteenth Ward were not at work. This
+looked ominous, and he began to fear trouble. Thinking that Provost
+Marshal Maniere's office, 1190 Broadway, and that of Marshal Jenkins,
+corner of Forty-sixth Street and Third Avenue, would be more likely to
+be the points attacked, he hurried off the following telegrams:
+
+July 13, 8.35 A.M. From Central Office to Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and
+Twenty-first Precincts: Send ten men and a sergeant forthwith to No. 677
+Third Avenue, and report to Captain Porter of Nineteenth Precinct for
+duty. J. A. KENNEDY.
+
+July 13, 8.50 A.M. To Twenty-ninth Precinct: Place a squad of ten of
+your men, with a competent sergeant, at No. 1190 Broadway, during the
+draft--if you want more, inform me. J. A. K.
+
+8.55 A.M. To Sixteenth and Twentieth Precincts: Send your reserve to
+Seventh Avenue Arsenal forthwith.
+
+J. A. K.
+
+Telegrams were now pouring in from different quarters, showing that
+mischief was afoot, and at nine o'clock he sent the following despatch:
+
+"To all platoons, New York and Brooklyn: Call in your reserve platoons,
+and hold them at the stations subject to further orders."
+
+It should be noted, that ordinarily one-half of the police of the
+Metropolitan District, which took in Brooklyn, is relieved from both
+patrol and reserve duty, from six o'clock in the morning till six in the
+evening. The other half is divided into two sections, which alternately
+perform patrol and reserve duty during the day. A relief from patrol
+duty of one of these sections takes place at eight o'clock A.M., when
+it goes to breakfast. Hence, the orders issued by the Superintendent to
+call in these could not reach them without a considerable delay.
+
+It now being about ten o'clock, Mr. Kennedy, having despatched an
+additional body of men to the Twenty-ninth Precinct, got into his
+light wagon, to take a drive through the districts reported to be most
+dangerous. He went up far as the arsenal, and giving such directions as
+he thought necessary, started across the town to visit Marshal Jenkins'
+quarters in the Twenty-ninth Precinct.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Commencement of the Mob.--Its Line of March.--Its immense Size.--Attacks
+a Provost-marshal's Office, in Third Avenue.--Set on Fire.--Terrible
+Struggle of Kennedy for his Life with the Mob.--Carried to Head-quarters
+unconscious.--Acton's Preparations.--The Telegraph System.--Mob cutting
+down Telegraph Poles.--Number of Despatches sent over the Wires during
+the Riot.--Superintendent of Telegraph Bureau seized and held Prisoner
+by the Mob.
+
+Meanwhile, events were assuming an alarming aspect in the western part
+of the city. Early in the morning men began to assemble here in separate
+groups, as if in accordance with a previous arrangement, and at last
+moved quietly north along the various avenues. Women, also, like camp
+followers, took the same direction in crowds. They were thus divided
+into separate gangs, apparently to take each avenue in their progress,
+and make a clean sweep. The factories and workshops were visited, and
+the men compelled to knock off work and join them, while the proprietors
+were threatened with the destruction of their property, if they made any
+opposition. The separate crowds were thus swelled at almost every step,
+and armed with sticks, and clubs, and every conceivable weapon they
+could lay hands on, they moved north towards some point which had
+evidently been selected as a place of rendezvous. This proved to be a
+vacant lot near Central Park, and soon the living streams began to flow
+into it, and a more wild, savage, and heterogeneous-looking mass could
+not be imagined. After a short consultation they again took up the
+line of march, and in two separate bodies, moved down Fifth and Sixth
+Avenues, until they reached Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh Streets, when
+they turned directly east.
+
+The number composing this first mob has been so differently estimated,
+that it would be impossible from reports merely, to approximate the
+truth. A pretty accurate idea, however, can be gained of its immense
+size, from a statement made by Mr. King, son of President King, of
+Columbia College. Struck by its magnitude, he had the curiosity to get
+some estimate of it by timing its progress, and he found that although
+it filled the broad street from curbstone to curbstone, and was moving
+rapidly, it took between twenty and twenty-five minutes for it to pass a
+single point.
+
+A ragged, coatless, heterogeneously weaponed army, it heaved
+tumultuously along toward Third Avenue. Tearing down the telegraph poles
+as it crossed the Harlem & New Haven Railroad track, it surged angrily
+up around the building where the drafting was going on. The small squad
+of police stationed there to repress disorder looked on bewildered,
+feeling they were powerless in the presence of such a host. Soon a
+stone went crashing through a window, which was the signal for a general
+assault on the doors. These giving way before the immense pressure, the
+foremost rushed in, followed by shouts and yells from those behind, and
+began to break up the furniture. The drafting officers, in an adjoining
+room, alarmed, fled precipitately through the rear of the building. The
+mob seized the wheel in which were the names, and what books, papers,
+and lists were left, and tore them up, and scattered them in every
+direction. A safe stood on one side, which was supposed to contain
+important papers, and on this they fell with clubs and stones, but in
+vain. Enraged at being thwarted, they set fire to the building, and
+hurried out of it. As the smoke began to ascend, the onlooking multitude
+without sent up a loud cheer. Though the upper part of the building
+was occupied by families, the rioters, thinking that the officers were
+concealed there, rained stones and brick-bats against the windows,
+sending terror into the hearts of the inmates. Deputy Provost Marshal
+Vanderpool, who had mingled in the crowd, fearing for the lives of the
+women and children, boldly stepped to the front, and tried to appease
+the mob, telling them the papers were all destroyed, and begged them to
+fall back, and let others help the inmates of the building, or take hold
+themselves. The reply was a heavy blow in the face. Vanderpool shoved
+the man who gave it aside, when he was assailed with a shower of blows
+and curses. Fearing for his life, he broke through the crowd, and
+hastened to the spot where the police were standing, wholly powerless in
+the midst of this vast, excited throng.
+
+In the meantime, the flames, unarrested, made rapid way, and
+communicating to the adjoining building, set it on fire. The volumes of
+smoke, rolling heavenward, and the crackling and roaring of the flames,
+seemed for a moment to awe the mob, and it looked silently on the
+ravaging of a power more terrible and destructive than its own.
+
+At this time Superintendent Kennedy was quietly making his way across
+the town toward the office of with a heavy club, endeavored to break in
+his skull, but Kennedy dodged his blows. Careful only for his head, he
+let them beat his body, while he made desperate efforts to break through
+the mass, whose demoniacal yells and oaths showed that they intended
+to take his life. In the struggle the whole crowd, swaying to and fro,
+slowly advanced toward Lexington Avenue, coming, as they did so, upon a
+wide mud-hole. "Drown him! drown, him!" arose at once on every side,
+and the next moment a heavy blow, planted under his ear, sent him
+headforemost into the water.
+
+Falling with his face amid the stones, he was kicked and trampled on,
+and pounded, till he was a mass of gore. Still struggling desperately
+for life, he managed to get to his feet again, and made a dash for the
+middle of the pond. The water was deep, and his murderers, disliking to
+get wet, did not follow him, but ran around to the other side, to meet
+him as he came out. But Kennedy was ahead of them, and springing up
+the bank into Lexington Avenue, saw a man whom he knew, and called
+out: "John Eagan, come here and save my life!" Mr. Eagan, who was a
+well-known and influential resident of that vicinity, immediately
+rushed forward to his assistance, and arrested his pursuers. But the
+Superintendent was so terribly bruised and mangled, that Eagan did not
+recognize him. He, however, succeeded in keeping the mob back, who,
+seeing the horrible condition their victim was in, doubtless thought
+they had finished him. Other citizens now coming forward, a passing feed
+wagon was secured, into which Kennedy was lifted, and driven to police
+head-quarters. Acton, who was in the street as the wagon approached, saw
+the mangled body within, did not dream who it was. The driver inquired
+where he should take him. "Around to the station," carelessly replied
+Acton. The driver hesitated, and inquired again, "Where to?" Acton,
+supposing it was some drunkard, bruised in a brawl, replied rather
+petulantly, "Around to the station." The man then told him it was
+Kennedy. Acton, scanning the features more closely, saw that it indeed
+was the Superintendent himself in this horrible condition. As the
+officers gathered around the bleeding, almost unconscious form, a murmur
+of wrath was heard, a sure premonition what work would be done when the
+hour of vengeance should come.
+
+Kennedy was carried into head-quarters, and a surgeon immediately sent
+for. After an examination had shown that no bones were broken, he was
+taken to the house of a friend, and, before the week closed, was on his
+feet again.
+
+Acton, now the legal head of the police force, soon showed he was the
+right man in the right place. Of a nervous temperament, he was quick and
+prompt, yet cool and decided, and relentless as death in the discharge
+of his duty. Holding the views of the first Napoleon respecting mobs,
+he did not believe in speech-making to them. His addresses were to
+be locust clubs and grape-shot. Taking in at once the gravity of the
+situation, he, after despatching such force as was immediately available
+to the scene of the riot, telegraphed to the different precincts to have
+the entire reserve force concentrated at head-quarters, which were in
+Mulberry Street, near Bleecker.
+
+He saw at once, to have his force effective it must be well in hand,
+so that he could send it out in any direction in sufficient strength
+to bear down all opposition. Subsequent events proved the wisdom of his
+policy, for we shall see, after it had been accomplished, the police
+never lost a battle.
+
+There being thirty-two precincts in the limits of the Metropolitan
+Police, a vast territory was covered. These were reached by a system of
+telegraph wires, called the Telegraph Bureau, of which James Crowley
+was superintendent and Eldred Polhamus deputy. There were three
+operators--Chapin, Duvall, and Lucas. A telegraph station was in
+each precinct--thus making thirty-two, all coming to a focus at
+head-quarters. These are also divided into five sections--north, south,
+east, west, and central. The Commissioners, therefore, sitting in
+the central office, can send messages almost instantaneously to every
+precinct of the city, and receive immediate answers. Hence, Mr. Acton
+was a huge Briareus, reaching out his arms to Fort Washington in the
+north, and Brooklyn in the south, and at the same time touching the
+banks of both rivers. No other system could be devised giving such
+tremendous power to the police--the power of instant information and
+rapid concentration at any desired point. That it proved itself the
+strong right arm of the Commissioners, it needs only to state, that
+during the four days of the riot, between five and six thousand messages
+passed over the wires, showing that they were worked to their utmost
+capacity, day and night. The more intelligent of the mob understood
+this, and hence at the outset attempted to break up this communication,
+by cutting down the poles on Third Avenue. This stopped all messages
+to and from the precincts at Fort Washington, Manhattanville, Harlem,
+Yorkville, and Bloomingdale, as well as with the Nineteenth Precinct.
+
+But fortunately, the orders to these had passed over the wires before
+the work was completed. Subsequently, the rioters cut down the poles
+in First Avenue, in Twenty-second Street, and Ninth Avenue, destroying
+communication between several other precincts.
+
+Mr. Crowley, the Superintendent of the Telegraph Bureau, was made
+acquainted early, Monday, by mere accident with this plan of the
+rioters. Coming to town in the Third Avenue cars from Yorkville, where
+he resided, he suddenly found the car arrested by a mob, and getting out
+with the other passengers, discovered men chopping furiously away at the
+telegraph poles; and without stopping to think, rushed up to them and
+ordered them to desist. One of the ruffians, looking up, cried out, "he
+is one of the d--d operators." Instantly yells arose, "Smash him," "Kill
+him," when those nearest seized him. By great adroitness he disarmed
+their suspicions sufficiently to prevent further violence, though they
+held him prisoner for an hour. At last, seeing an opportunity when more
+important objects attracted their attention, he quietly worked his way
+out and escaped.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+Soldiers beaten by the Mob.--Gallant Fight of Sergeant McCredie.--Mob
+Triumphant.--Beat Police Officers unmercifully.--Fearful Scenes.--Fifty
+thousand People block Third Avenue.--A whole Block of Houses
+burning.--Attack on a Gun Factory.--Defeat of the Broadway
+Squad.--Houses sacked in Lexington Avenue.--Telegraph
+Dispatches.--Bull's Head Tavern burned.--Block on Broadway
+burned.--Burning of the Negroes' Orphan Asylum.--Attack on Mayor
+Opdyke's House.--A Crisis nobly met.--Gallant Fight and Victory of
+Sergeant Carpenter.--A thrilling Spectacle.
+
+In the meantime, the mob that stood watching the spreading conflagration
+in Third Avenue increased rapidly, fed by tributaries from the
+tenement-houses, slums, and workshops in that vicinity. But they were
+soon startled from their state of comparative quietness, by the cry of
+"the soldiers are coming." The Invalid Corps, a small body sent from the
+Park, was approaching. As it came up, the soldiers fired, either blank
+cartridges, or over the heads of the crowd, doubtless thinking a single
+discharge would disperse it. The folly of such a course was instantly
+shown, for the mob, roused into sudden fury, dashed on the small body
+of soldiers before they could reload, and snatching away their muskets,
+pounded them over the head, and chased them like sheep for ten blocks.
+One soldier was left for dead on the pavement, beaten to a jelly.
+Another, breaking from the crowd, attempted to climb some rocks near
+Forty-second Street, when his pursuers grabbed him and dragged him
+to the top, where they tore off his uniform, and beat him till he was
+senseless, and then threw him down to the bottom and left him.
+
+In the meantime, Sergeant McCredie, "fighting Mac," as he was called,
+from the Fifteenth Precinct, Captain C. W. Caffrey, arrived on the scene
+with a few men. Marching down Forty-third street to Third Avenue, they
+looked up two blocks, and to their amazement beheld the broad avenue,
+as far as they could see, blocked with the mob, while before it, bearing
+swiftly down on them, and running for life, came the terror-stricken
+Invalid Corps. At this juncture, other squads sent from various
+precincts arrived, swelling this force to forty-four. It was a mere
+handful among these enraged thousands; but McCredie, who at once took
+command, determined to stand his ground, and meet as best he could the
+overwhelming numbers that came driving down like a storm, filling the
+air with yells and oaths, and brandishing their clubs over their heads.
+He thought that another police force was beyond the mob, on the north,
+and if he could press through and form a junction with it, the two
+combined would be strong enough to hold their own. He therefore quickly
+formed his men in line across the street, and awaited the shock. As the
+disorderly mass following up the fugitives drew near, McCredie ordered a
+charge, and this mere handful of men moved swiftly and steadily upon
+it. The rioters, stunned by the suddenness and strength of the blow,
+recoiled, and the police, following up their advantage, drove them back,
+step by step, as far as Forty-sixth street. Here the sergeant, instead
+of meeting another body of police, as he expected, met a heavier body
+of rioters that were blocking up Forty-sixth Street on both sides of
+the avenue. Backed by these, the main body rallied and charged on the
+exhausted police force in turn, and almost surrounded them. To render
+their already desperate situation hopeless, another mob suddenly closed
+in behind them from Forty-fifth street.
+
+Thus attacked in front and rear with clubs, iron bars, guns and pistols,
+and rained upon with stones and brick-bats from the roofs of the houses,
+they were unable longer to keep together, and broke and fled--part up
+the side streets, and some down the avenue--bruised, torn, and bleeding.
+
+The desperate nature of this first conflict can be imagined, when, out
+of the fourteen men composing Sergeant McCredie's original force, only
+five were left unwounded. At the very outset of the charge, the sergeant
+himself was struck with an iron bar on the wrist, which rendered the arm
+almost useless. In the retreat, four men assailed him at once. Knocking
+down two, he took refuge in the house of a German, when a young woman
+told him to jump between two mattresses. He did so, and she covered him
+up just as his pursuers forced their way in. Streaming through the house
+from cellar to garret, they came back, and demanded of the young woman
+where the man was hid. She quietly said he had escaped by the rear of
+the house. Believing she told the truth, they took their departure.
+Officer Bennett was knocked down three times before he ceased fighting.
+The last time he was supposed to be dead, when the wretches began to
+rob him even of his clothing, stripping him of every article except his
+drawers. He was soon after taken up and carried to St. Luke's Hospital,
+and placed in the dead-house, where he lay for several hours. When the
+sad news was brought to his wife, she hastened to the hospital, and fell
+weeping on the lifeless form of her husband. She could not believe he
+was dead, and laying her hand on his heart, found to her joy that it
+pulsated. She immediately flew to the officials of the hospital, and
+had him brought in, and restoratives applied. He revived, but remained
+unconscious for three days, while the riot raged around him. Officer
+Travis, in the flight down the avenue, saw, as he looked back, that his
+foremost pursuer had a pistol. Wheeling, he knocked him down, and seized
+the pistol, but before he could use it, a dozen clubs were raining
+blows upon him, which brought him to the ground. The infuriated men then
+jumped upon him, knocking out his teeth, breaking his jaw-bone and right
+hand, and terribly mutilating his whole body. Supposing him to be dead,
+they then stripped him stark naked and left him on the pavement, a
+ghastly spectacle to the passers-by. Officer Phillips ran the gauntlet
+almost unharmed, but was pursued block after block by a portion of the
+mob, till he reached Thirty-ninth street. Here he attempted to enter a
+house, but it was closed against him. As he turned down the steps, one
+of the pursuers, in soldier's clothes, levelled his musket at him and
+fired. Missing his aim, he clubbed his weapon, and dealt him a deadly
+blow. Phillips caught the musket as it descended, and wrenching it from
+his grasp, knocked the fellow down with it, and started and ran across
+some vacant lots to Fortieth Street. But here he was headed off by
+another portion of the mob, in which was a woman, who made a lunge at
+him with, a shoemaker's knife. The knife missed his throat, but passed
+through his ear. Drawing it back, she made another stab, piercing his
+arm. He was now bleeding profusely, and his death seemed inevitable,
+when a stranger, seeing his condition, sprang forward, and covering his
+body, declared he would kill the first man that advanced. Awed by his
+determined manner, the fiends sullenly withdrew. Officers Sutherland and
+Mingay were also badly beaten. Officer Kiernan, receiving a blow on his
+head with a stone, another on the back of his neck with a hay-bale rung,
+and two more on the knees, fell insensible, and would doubtless have
+been killed outright, but for the wife of Eagan, who saved Kennedy.
+Throwing herself over his body, she exclaimed, "for God's sake do
+not kill him." Seeing that they had got to attack this lady to get at
+Kiernan, they passed on.
+
+The scene in Third Avenue at this time was fearful and appalling. It was
+now noon, but the hot July sun was obscured by heavy clouds, that hung
+in ominous shadows over the city, while from near Cooper Institute to
+Forty-sixth Street, or about thirty blocks, the avenue was black with
+human beings,--sidewalks, house-tops, windows, and stoops all filled
+with rioters or spectators. Dividing it like a stream, horse-cars
+arrested in their course lay strung along as far as the eye could reach.
+As the glance ran along this mighty mass of men and women north, it
+rested at length on huge columns of smoke rolling heavenward from
+burning buildings, giving a still more fearful aspect to the scene. Many
+estimated the number at this time in the street at fifty thousand.
+
+In the meantime the fire-bell had brought the firemen on the ground, but
+the mob would not let them approach the burning houses. The flames
+had communicated with the adjoining block and were now making fearful
+headway. At length Engineer Decker addressed the mob, which by this time
+had grown thinner by the main mass moving farther down town, who told
+them that everything relating to the provost marshal's office was
+destroyed, and now the fire was destroying private property, some
+of which doubtless belonged to persons friendly to them, and finally
+persuaded them to let the engines work. Water was soon deluging the
+buildings, and the fire at length arrested, but not until four were
+consumed with all their contents.
+
+The drawing commenced in the Eighth District, 1190 Broadway, Captain
+Maniere provost marshal, on the same morning, and continued quietly
+until about 12 o'clock, when it was adjourned, and policemen who had
+been stationed there to guard it were sent over to the Ninth District,
+where the mob was carrying everything before it. But coming in small
+bodies, they were easily overcome and scattered. Sergeant Ellison,
+especially, got badly beaten; and Sergeant Wade, who came up soon after,
+and charged gallantly on the mob, shared the same fate, and had to be
+taken to St. Luke's Hospital. The work of destruction having commenced,
+it went on after this with the wild irregularity characteristic of
+mobs. The news of the uprising and destruction of property, as it spread
+through those portions of the city where the low Irish dwelt, stirred
+up all the inmates, and they came thronging forth, till there were
+incipient mobs on almost every corner. From this time no consecutive
+narrative can be given of the after doings. This immense mass seemed
+to split up into three or four sections, as different objects attracted
+their attention; and they came together and separated apparently without
+any concert of action. A shout and a cry in one direction would call
+off a throng, while a similar shout in another would attract a portion
+thither. Some feeling the need of arms, and remembering that a gun
+factory was at the corner of Second Avenue and Twentieth Street, called
+out to the crowd, and soon a large body was rushing in that direction.
+The Police Commissioners had also thought of this, and hastily sent off
+the Broadway squad to occupy it, and they succeeded, by going singly and
+in pairs, in reaching it--thirty-five all told. These men, selected for
+their size, being all six feet or upward, were ordered to hold the place
+at all hazards.
+
+In the meantime the mob endeavored to gain admittance, but warned off by
+Sergeant Burdick, left. But scarcely a quarter of an hour had elapsed,
+when they returned heavily reinforced, armed with all kinds of weapons,
+and yelling and hooting like fiends. Stones and bricks came crashing
+through the windows, but still the squad, though every man was armed
+with a carbine, did not fire.
+
+The mob then tried to set the factory on fire, but failed. Enraged at
+being baffled, a powerful man advanced on the door with a sledge-hammer,
+and began to pound against it. At length one of the panels gave way,
+and as a shout arose from those looking on, he boldly attempted to crawl
+through. The report of a solitary carbine was heard, and the brains of
+the man lay scattered on the floor. This staggered the mob for a moment,
+but soon fear gave way to rage, and shots and stones were rained against
+the building, smashing in the windows, and rapidly making a clean
+breach through the door. Burdick sent to Captain Cameron for aid, but he
+replied that he could not reach him.
+
+At 3:45 the following telegram was sent from the Eighteenth Precinct:
+
+"The mob have attacked the armory, Second Avenue and Twenty-first
+Street. There is danger of firing the building."
+
+Fifteen minutes later came: "It is impossible for us to protect the
+armory at Second Avenue and Twenty-first Street."
+
+_Answer_--"Draw your men off. D. C."
+
+The squad, in evacuating the building, found themselves cut off both in
+front and at the sides.
+
+The only mode of escape was through a hole in the rear wall, some
+eighteen feet from the ground, and scarcely a foot and a half in
+diameter. Piling up boxes to reach this aperture, these large men
+squeezed themselves through one by one, feet foremost, and swinging to a
+gutter-trough, dropped into the yard below. Climbing from thence over a
+wall into a stone-yard, they sped across it to the Eighteenth Precinct
+Station in Twenty-second Street. Here taking off their uniforms, they
+made their way singly, or in groups of two or three, back to the central
+office.
+
+No sooner did they leave the building than the mob entered it, and the
+work of pillage commenced. Every man armed himself with a musket. The
+stacks of weapons left, after they had taken all they wanted, were
+broken up or rendered useless. One thrown out of the window fell on a
+man's head in the street and killed him.
+
+While the armory was being attacked, another mob was sacking and burning
+houses on Lexington Avenue, near Forty-seventh Street. Within five
+minutes from the announcement of this fact, came from the Sixth Precinct
+the following dispatch: "A mob of about seven hundred attacked some
+colored people in Baxter Street, and then went to the saloon of Samuel
+Crook, in Chatham Street, and beat some colored waiters there."
+
+A few minutes later from Sixteenth came: "A crowd of about three hundred
+men have gone to the foot of Twenty-fourth Street, to stop men in the
+foundry from working."
+
+At the same time the following was received from the Twenty-first
+Precinct: "The mob avow their determination of burning this station. Our
+connection by telegram may be interrupted at any moment."
+
+Another from the Twentieth said: "A very large crowd is now going down
+Fifth Avenue, to attack the _Tribune_ building."
+
+As fast as the wires could work, followed "from the Twenty-fourth
+Precinct:"
+
+"The mob have fired the buildings corner of Broadway and Twenty-fourth
+Street."
+
+All this time, while new notes of alarm were sounded, and the police
+department was struggling to get its force in hand, the work of
+destruction was going on in the upper part of the city. Bull's Head
+Tavern, in Forty-sixth Street, attracted the attention of the mob. The
+sales of the immense herds of cattle in the adjoining yard had been
+suspended, and the hotel closed. The crowd, however, forgetting the
+draft, and intent only on pillage, streamed up around it, and shouted,
+"Fire it! fire it!" While some were calling for axes and crowbars, ten
+powerful men jumped on the stoop, and with a few heavy blows sent the
+hall door flying from its hinges. The yelling crowd then rushed in, and
+after helping themselves to what they wanted, applied the torch, and
+soon the entire building was a mass of flame.
+
+[Illustration: THE RIOT IN LEXINGTON AVENUE.]
+
+At this time another mob was sacking houses in Lexington Avenue. Elegant
+furniture and silver plate were borne away by the crowd, while the
+ladies, with their children and servants, fled in terror from the scene.
+The provost marshal's head-quarters were also set on fire, and the whole
+block on Broadway, between Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth Streets, was
+burned down, while jewelry stores and shops of all kinds were plundered
+and their contents carried off. A vast horde followed the rioters for
+the sole purpose of plunder, and loaded down with their spoils, could be
+seen hastening home in every direction.
+
+While these fires were under full headway, a new idea seemed to strike
+the mob, or at least a portion of it. Having stopped the draft in two
+districts, sacked and set on fire nearly a score of houses, and half
+killed as many men, it now, impelled by a strange logic, sought to
+destroy the Colored Orphan Asylum on Fifth Avenue, extending from
+Forty-third to Forty-fourth Street. There would have been no draft
+but for the war--there would have been no war but for slavery. But the
+slaves were black, ergo, all blacks are responsible for the war.
+This seemed to be the logic of the mob, and having reached the sage
+conclusion to which it conducted, they did not stop to consider how poor
+helpless orphans could be held responsible, but proceeded at once to
+wreak their vengeance on them. The building was four stories high, and
+besides the matrons and officers, contained over two hundred children,
+from mere infants up to twelve years of age. Around this building the
+rioters gathered with loud cries and oaths, sending terror into the
+hearts of the inmates. Superintendent William E. Davis hurriedly
+fastened the doors; but knowing they would furnish but a momentary
+resistance to the armed multitude, he, with others, collected hastily
+the terrified children, and carrying some in their arms, and leading
+others, hurried them in a confused crowd out at the rear of the
+building, just as the ruffians effected an entrance in front. Then the
+work of pillage commenced, and everything carried off that could be,
+even to the dresses and trinkets of the children, while heavy furniture
+was smashed and chopped up in the blind desire of destruction. Not
+satisfied with this, they piled the fragments in the different rooms,
+and set fire to them. At this juncture Chief Engineer Decker arrived,
+and determined, if possible, to save the building, addressed the crowd,
+as he had in the morning, hoping to induce them to forbear further
+violence, and let him extinguish the flames. But they had now got beyond
+argument of any kind, and knocking him down twice, pitched him into the
+street. But ten brave firemen at this juncture rushed to his side, and
+together fought their way through the crowd into the building, where
+they were joined by two assistant engineers, Lamb and Lewis. They at
+once began to scatter and extinguish the burning fragments, keeping back
+for a while, by their bold bearing, the rioters. The latter, however,
+soon rallied in force, and some mounting to the loft, set it on fire in
+every part. Decker and his few gallant allies, finding it impossible
+to save the building, retreated into the street, and soon the massive
+structure was a sheet of flame.
+
+The crowd now proceeded to Mayor Opdyke's house, and gathering in front
+of it, sent up shouts and calls for the Mayor. They were, however,
+deterred at that time from accomplishing their purpose by an appeal from
+Judge Barnard, who addressed them from the steps of an adjoining house.
+
+Soon after, an immense mob was reported coming down Broadway, for the
+purpose, some thought, of attacking the negro waiters in the Lafarge
+House, between Amity and Bleecker Streets, but in fact to attack police
+head-quarters in Mulberry Street, and break up the very centre of
+operations. It was a bold stroke, but the ringleaders had been drinking
+all day, and now, maddened by liquor, were ready for the most desperate
+attempts. When the news of this movement reached head-quarters, the
+commissioners saw that a crisis had come. The mob numbered at least five
+thousand, while they could not muster at that moment two hundred men.
+The clerk, Mr. Hawley, went to the commissioners' room, and said:
+"Gentlemen, the crisis has come. A battle has got to be _fought now_,
+_and won too_, or all is lost." They agreed with him. "But who," they
+asked, "will lead the comparatively small force in this fight?" He
+replied that he thought that Sergeant Carpenter should be selected, as
+one of the oldest and most experienced officers on the force. "Well,"
+they said, "will you go down to his room and see what he says about it?"
+He went, and laid before him the perilous condition of things, and that
+an immediate and successful battle _must_ be fought.
+
+Carpenter heard him through, and taking in fully the perilous condition
+of things, paused a moment, and then rising to his full height and
+lifting his hand, said, with a terrible oath, "I'll go, and I'll win
+that fight, or _Daniel Carpenter will never come back a live man_." He
+walked out and summoned the little force, and as "Fall in, men; fall
+in," was repeated, they fell into line along the street. When all was
+ready, Acton turned to Carpenter, every lineament of whose face showed
+the stern purpose that mastered him, and quietly said, "_Sergeant make
+no arrests_."
+
+It was to be a battle in which no prisoners were to be taken. "All
+_right_" replied Carpenter, as he buttoned up his coat and shouted
+"Forward." Solid, and silent save their heavy, measured tread on the
+pavement, they moved down Bleecker Street towards Broadway. As they
+turned into the latter street, only a block and a half away, they saw
+the mob, which filled the entire street far as the eye could reach,
+moving tumultuously forward. Armed with clubs, pitchforks, iron bars,
+and some with guns and pistols, and most of them in their shirt-sleeves
+and shouting as they came, they presented a wild and savage appearance.
+Pedestrians fled down the side streets, stores were hastily closed,
+stages vanished, and they had the street to themselves. A huge board, on
+which was inscribed "No Draft," was borne aloft as a banner, and beside
+it waved the Stars and Stripes.
+
+The less than two hundred policemen, compact and firm, now halted, while
+Carpenter detached two companies of fifty each up the parallel streets
+to the right and left, as far as Fourth Street. Coming down this street
+from both directions, they were to strike the mob on both flanks at
+the same time he charged them in front. He waited till they had reached
+their positions, and then shouted, "_By the right flank Company front,
+double-quick_, CHARGE." Instantaneously every club was swung in air, and
+solid as a wall and swift as a wave they swept full on the astonished
+multitude; while at the same time, to cut the monster in two, the
+two companies charged in flank. Carpenter, striding several steps in
+advance, his face fairly blazing with excitement, dealt the first blow,
+stretching on the pavement a powerful ruffian, who was rushing on him
+with a huge club. For a few minutes nothing was heard but the heavy
+thud of clubs falling on human skulls, thick and fast as hailstones on
+windows. The mob, just before so confident and bold, quailed in terror
+and would have broke and fled at once, but for the mass behind which
+kept bearing down on them. This, however, soon gave way before the
+side attacks and the panic that followed. Then the confusion and uproar
+became terrible, and the mass surged hither and thither, now rolling up
+Broadway, and again borne back or shoved up against the stores, seeking
+madly for a way of escape. At length, breaking into fragments, they
+rushed down the side streets, hotly pursued by the police, whose
+remorseless clubs never ceased to fall as long as a fugitive was within,
+reach. Broadway looked like a field of battle, for the pavement was
+strewn thick with bleeding, prostrate forms. It was a great victory and
+decisive of all future contests.
+
+Having effectually dispersed them, Carpenter, with the captured flag,
+marched up to Mayor Opdyke's house, when, finding everything quiet,
+he returned to head-quarters. This successful attack of the police was
+received with cheers by those spectators who had witnessed it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+No Military in the City.--The Mayor calls on General Wool, commanding
+Eastern Department, for Help.--Also on General Sandford.--General Wool
+sends to General Brown, commanding Garrison in the Harbor, for U. S.
+Troops.--Marines of the Navy Yard ordered up.--Eventually, West Point
+and several States appealed to for Troops.--General Brown assumes
+Command.--Attack of Mob on the _Tribune_ Building.--Its severe
+Punishment.--Government Buildings garrisoned.--Difficulty between
+Generals Brown and Wool.--Head-quarters.--Police Commissioners' Office
+Military Head-quarters.
+
+The terrible punishment the rioters received at the hands of Carpenter
+had, however, only checked their movements for a time; and, as the
+sun began to hang low in the summer heavens, men looked forward to the
+coming night with apprehension.
+
+In the meantime, however, the authorities, conscious of the perilous
+condition of the city, had resorted to every means of defence in their
+power. Unfortunately, as mentioned before, nearly the whole of its
+military force, on which it depended in any great emergency, was absent.
+Lee's brilliant flank movement around Hooker and Washington,
+terminating in the invasion of Pennsylvania, had filled the country with
+consternation. His mighty columns were moving straight on Philadelphia,
+and the Government at Washington, roused to the imminent danger, had
+called for all the troops within reach, and New York had sent forward
+nearly every one of her regiments. Ordinary prudence would have dictated
+that the draft should be postponed for a few days, till these regiments,
+now on their way back, or preparing to return, should arrive. It was
+running a needless risk to urge it in such a crisis--indeed, one of
+the follies of which the Administration at this time was so needlessly
+guilty.
+
+General Wool, at this juncture, commanded the Eastern Department, with
+his head-quarters at the corner of Bleecker and Greene Streets. Mayor
+Opdyke immediately called on him for help, and also on Major-general
+Sandford, commanding the few troops that were left in the city. The
+latter immediately issued an order requesting the Seventh Regiment to
+meet that evening, at their drill-rooms, at eight o'clock, to consult on
+the measures necessary to be taken in the present unexpected crisis, and
+another to the late two-years' volunteers then in the city, to report
+at the same hour in Grand Street, to Colonel William H. Allen, for
+temporary duty.
+
+General Wool, also, during the afternoon, while the rioters were having
+it all their own way, sent an officer to the adjutant-general of General
+Brown, commanding the troops in garrison in New York harbor, ordering up
+a force of about eighty men immediately.
+
+General Brown, on his way from his office to Fort Hamilton, was informed
+by Colonel Stinson, chief clerk, that a serious riot was raging in the
+city, and that General Wool had sent to Fort Hamilton for a detachment
+of some eighty men, and that a tug had gone for them. Surprised at
+the smallness of the number sent (he was, by special orders of the War
+Department, commandant of the city, and commander of all the forts and
+troops in the harbor except Fort Columbus), he immediately ordered the
+company at Fort Wood to the city, and sent a tug for it. He then made
+a requisition on the quartermaster for transportation of all the other
+companies, and proceeded without delay to Fort Hamilton. General Brown's
+office was close to General Wool's; but he did not think proper to
+consult him on the movement.
+
+General Brown, immediately on his arrival at Fort Hamilton, directed
+that all the troops there, as well as at Forts Lafayette and Richmond,
+be got in readiness to move at a moment's notice, and also that a
+section of artillery be organized, in case it should be wanted. Having
+taken these wise precautions he hastened up to the city, and reported to
+General Wool. The result proved the wisdom of his forecast. A new order
+was at once dispatched for the remaining troops, and just at twilight,
+Lieut. McElrath saw two steamers making directly for the fort. They were
+hardly fastened to the dock, when an officer stepped ashore and handed
+him an order from General Brown to send up at once all the efficient
+troops in the forts, and have their places supplied as best he could
+with some volunteer artillery companies.
+
+The reports coming in to police head-quarters had shown that it was no
+common uprising of a few disaffected men to be put down by a few squads
+of police or a handful of soldiers. The Mayor, after consulting with
+the Police Commissioners, felt that it was the beginning of a general
+outbreak in every part of the city, and by his representations persuaded
+General Wool to apply to Rear-admiral Paulding, commanding the Navy
+Yard, for a force of marines, and eventually to Colonel Bowman,
+Superintendent of West Point, and also to the authorities of Newark, and
+Governors of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode
+Island for troops.
+
+General Brown, after reporting to General Wool, repaired to police
+head-quarters, which he adopted as his own, and issued the following
+order:
+
+"HEAD-QUARTERS, NEW YORK, July 13, 1863.
+
+"In obedience to the orders of the Major-general commanding the Eastern
+Department, the undersigned assumes command of the United States troops
+in this city.
+
+"Lieutenant-colonel Frothingham and Captain Revolle are of the staff of
+the undersigned, and will be obeyed accordingly.
+
+"HARVEY BROWN,
+
+"_Brevet Brigadier-general_."
+
+He also sent a dispatch to General Sandford, at the arsenal, notifying
+him of his action, and requesting him to come down and consult with him
+on the course to be pursued. General Sandford, after awhile, did come
+down, and, to General Brown's amazement, insisted that all the troops
+should be sent up to the arsenal. General Brown, seeing the utter
+madness of such a disposition of his force, refused decidedly to permit
+it to be done. This was of course denying Sandford's claim to be his
+superior officer. It was well for the city that he took this ground.
+
+Mayor Opdyke also issued a proclamation, calling on the rioters to
+disperse.
+
+But while these measures were being set on foot, the rioters were not
+idle.
+
+[Illustration: THE ATTACK ON THE TRIBUNE BUILDING.]
+
+All day long a crowd had been gathering in the Park around the City
+Hall, growing more restless as night came on. The railroad-cars passing
+it were searched, to see if any negroes were on board, while eyes
+glowered savagely on the _Tribune_ building. They had sought in an
+eating-house for the editor, to wreak their vengeance on him. Not
+finding him, they determined that the building, from which was issued
+the nefarious paper, should come down, but were evidently waiting for
+help to arrive before commencing the work of destruction. The mob, which
+Carpenter had so terribly punished in Broadway, were marching for it,
+designing to burn it after they had demolished police head-quarters.
+Their dispersion delayed the attack, and doubtless broke its force, by
+the reduction of numbers it caused. There seemed enough, however, if
+properly led, to effect their purpose, for the Park and Printing-house
+Square were black with men, who, as the darkness increased, grew more
+restless; and "Down with it! burn it!" mingled with oaths and curses,
+were heard on every side.
+
+At last came the crash of a window, as a stone went through it. Another
+and another followed, when suddenly a reinforcing crowd came rushing
+down Chatham Street. This was the signal for a general assault, and,
+with shouts, the rabble poured into the lower part of the building, and
+began to destroy everything within reach. Captain Warlow, of the First
+Precinct, No. 29 Broad Street, who, with his command, was in the gallant
+fight in Broadway, after some subsequent fighting and marching, had at
+length reached his head-quarters in Broad Street, where a despatch
+met him, to proceed at once to the _Tribune_ building. He immediately
+started off on the double-quick. On reaching the upper end of Nassau
+Street, he came to a halt, and gave the club signal on the pavement,
+to form column. Captain Thorne, of the City Hall, in the meantime,
+had joined his force to him, with the gallant Sergeant Devoursney.
+Everything being ready, the order to "Charge" was given, and the entire
+force, perhaps a hundred and fifty strong, fell in one solid mass on the
+mob, knocking men over right and left, and laying heads open at every
+blow. The panic-stricken crowd fled up Chatham Street, across the Park,
+and down Spruce and Frankfort Streets, punished terribly at every step.
+The space around the building being cleared, a portion of the police
+rushed inside, where the work of destruction was going on. The sight
+of the blue-coats in their midst, with their uplifted clubs, took the
+rioters by surprise, and they rushed frantically for the doors and
+windows, and escaped the best way they could. In the meantime, those
+who had taken refuge in the Park found themselves in the lion's jaws.
+Carpenter had hardly rested from his march up Fifth Avenue to Mayor
+Opdyke's house, when he, too, received orders to hasten to the
+protection of the _Tribune_ building. Taking one hundred of his own men,
+and one hundred under Inspector Folk, of Brooklyn, who had been early
+ordered over, and been doing good service in the city, he marched down
+Broadway, and was just entering the Park, when the frightened crowd came
+rushing pell-mell across it. Immediately forming "company front," he
+swept the Park like a storm, clearing everything before him. Order being
+restored, Folk returned with his force to Brooklyn, where things began
+to wear a threatening aspect, and Carpenter took up his station at City
+Hall for the night.
+
+This ended the heavy fighting of the day, though minor disturbances
+occurred at various points during the evening. Negroes had been hunted
+down all day, as though they were so many wild beasts, and one, after
+dark, was caught, and after being severely beaten and hanged to a tree,
+left suspended there till Acton sent a force to take the body down. Many
+had sought refuge in police-stations and elsewhere, and all were filled
+with terror.
+
+The demonstrations in the lower part of the city excited the greatest
+anxiety about the Government buildings in that section--the Custom House
+and Sub-treasury were tempting prizes to the rioters. General Sandford,
+commanding the city military, had sent such force as he could collect
+early in the day to the arsenal, to defend it; for, should the mob once
+get possession of the arms and ammunition stored there, no one could
+tell what the end would be. United States troops also were placed in
+Government buildings to protect them. Almost the last act of the
+mob this evening was the burning of Postmaster Wakeman's house, in
+Eighty-sixth Street. Mrs. Wakeman was noted for her kindness to the poor
+and wretched, who now repaid her by sacking and burning her house. The
+precinct station near by was also destroyed.
+
+In the meanwhile, an event happened which threatened to disarrange all
+the plans that had been laid. Military etiquette often overrides the
+public good, and here, at this critical moment, General Wool chose to
+consider that, as General Sandford was Major-general, though not in the
+United States service, he, therefore, ranked Brigadier-general Brown
+of the regular army, and required him to act under the other's orders.
+This, Brown promptly refused to do, and asked to be relieved, telling
+General Wool that such a proceeding was an unheard-of thing. That he was
+right the order below will show [Footnote: [GENERAL ORDER No. 36.] WAR
+DEPARTMENT,
+
+_Adjutant-general's Office, Washington_, April 7th, 1863.
+
+6. The military commander's duties in reference to all troops and
+enlisted men who happen to serve within the limits of his command will
+be _precisely those of a commanding officer of a military post_.
+
+The duties of military commanders above defined, will devolve in the
+_City of New York, and the military posts in that vicinity_, on Brevet
+Brigadier-general H. Brown, Colonel Fifth U. S. Artillery.
+
+By order of the Secretary of War, (Signed) L. THOMAS,
+_Adjutant-general_.] that his troops must be under his own command, as
+he was responsible for their action to the Government, and Sandford was
+not. Wool, however, continued obstinate, and a total disruption seemed
+inevitable. Mayor Opdyke, President Acton, Governor Seymour, with
+several prominent American citizens, were present, and witnessed
+this disagreement with painful feelings. They knew that it would work
+mischief, if not paralyze the combined action they hoped to put forth
+in the morning. General Brown, finding Wool inflexible, turned away,
+determined to retire altogether. The Mayor and others followed him, and
+begged him not to abandon them in the desperate strait they were in--to
+think of nothing but saving the city. General Brown had been too hasty,
+sticking on a point of mere etiquette, with, perhaps, too much tenacity.
+True, an officer must insist on his rank as a rule, but there
+are emergencies when everything of a personal nature must be
+forgotten--crises where it may be an officer's duty to serve in any
+capacity, however subordinate, and trust to being righted afterwards.
+Luckily, General Brown, on a sober second thought, took the proper view,
+and returned to General Wool, and asked to be reinstated in his command,
+but giving him to understand that, though he would co-operate in every
+possible way with General Sandford, he still must retain distinct and
+separate command of his own troops. This was right, and whether General
+Wool perfectly understood the arrangement, or seeing how deeply the
+gentlemen present felt on the subject, chose not to press a mere point
+of etiquette, does not appear. We only know that if General Brown had
+given up the command of his troops, the results to the city would have
+been disastrous.
+
+While these events were passing in the St. Nicholas Hotel, the streets
+were comparatively quiet. It had been a hard day for the rioters, as
+well as for the police, and they were glad of a little rest. Besides,
+they had become more or less scattered by a terrific thunderstorm that
+broke over the city, deluging the streets with water. In the midst of
+it, there came a telegraphic dispatch to the commissioners, calling
+for assistance. The tired police were stretched around on the floor or
+boxes, seeking a little rest, when they were aroused, and summoned to
+fall in; and the next moment they plunged into the darkness and rain.
+They were drenched to the skin before they had gone a block, but they
+did not heed it--and then, as to the end, and under all circumstances,
+answered promptly and nobly to every call.
+
+Acton had now gathered a large force at head-quarters, and felt ready to
+strike at any moment.
+
+While the men flung themselves on the hard floor, like soldiers on
+the field of battle, ready to start on duty at the first call, Acting
+Superintendent Acton and his assistants never closed their eyes, but
+spent the night in telegraphing, organizing, and preparing for the
+fiercer fights of next day. Much was to be done to cover and protect
+a district that reached from Brooklyn to Westchester, and it was an
+anxious night. They had one consolation, however: though taken unawares,
+they had at the close of the day come out victors, which gave them
+confidence in the future, especially as now Brown and his trained
+soldiers were with them.
+
+Some fifteen or twenty policemen had been more or less severely injured,
+while the number of the killed and wounded of the mob was wholly
+unknown. Both the dead and maimed were left by the police where they
+fell, and were almost immediately hurried away by their friends.
+
+The destruction of property on this first day, consisted of four
+buildings on Third Avenue burned, also a block on Broadway between
+Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth Streets; two brown-stone dwellings in
+Lexington Avenue; Allerton's Hotel near Bull's Head; a cottage, corner
+of Forty-fifth Street and Fifth Avenue; the Colored Orphan Asylum, and
+the armory corner of Twenty-first Street and Second Avenue.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+Telegraph Bureau.--Its Work.--Skill and Daring and Success of its
+Force.--Interesting Incidents.--Hairbreadth Escapes.--Detective
+Force.--Its arduous Labors.--Its Disguises.--Shrewdness, Tact, and
+Courage.--Narrow Escapes.--Hawley, the Chief Clerk.--His exhausting
+Labors.
+
+One thing Commissioners Acton and Bergen in their consultation settled
+must be done at all hazards--telegraphic communication must be kept
+open with the different precincts. Otherwise it would be impossible
+to concentrate men at any given point, quick enough to arrest the mob
+before they spread devastation and conflagration far and wide. Every
+hour gained by a mob in accumulating or organizing its forces, increases
+the difficulty of dispersing it. The rioters understood this partially,
+and had acted accordingly; but the rich spoils they had come across
+during the day, had driven, for the time being, all other thoughts
+but plunder out of their heads. Some communications had already been
+destroyed, and the rioters would evidently by morning have their eyes
+open to the importance of doing this everywhere, and their efforts
+must be foiled, no matter what the risk or sacrifice might be. They had
+already cut down over sixty poles, and rendered upwards of twelve miles
+of wire useless; and how much more would share the same fate the next
+day, no one could tell.
+
+The superintendent and deputy of the Telegraph Bureau, Messrs. Crowley
+and Polhamus, with the operators mentioned before, were, therefore, set
+at work this very evening in the storm, to restore the broken lines.
+
+This was a perilous undertaking, for if once discovered, their lives
+would be instantly sacrificed.
+
+The details of their operations, their disguises, ingenious
+contrivances, deceptions, and boldness in carrying out their object,
+would make an attractive chapter in itself. Often compelled to mingle
+with the mob, always obliged to conceal what they were about, not daring
+to raise a pole or handle a wire unless cautiously or secretly, they
+yet restored the lines in the north section by morning, and those in
+the south by Wednesday evening. Sometimes they were compelled to carry
+a wire over the top of a house, sometimes round it, through a back-yard;
+in short, every device and expedient was resorted to by these daring,
+sharp-witted men. Once Polhamus had his boots burned off in tramping
+through the burning ruins of a building after the wires. Once he and Mr.
+Crowley came near being clubbed to death by the police, who mistook them
+for rioters, so ingeniously and like them were they at work among the
+ruins. Captain Brower rescued them, or their services might have ended
+on the spot.
+
+This work was kept steadily up during the continuation of the riots. On
+one occasion, Mr. Crowley, hearing that the wires were down in the Ninth
+and Tenth Avenues, hastened thither alone, when he encountered a large
+mob. Fearing to pass through it he hesitated a moment, when he noticed
+a carriage driving in the direction he wished to go, in which was a
+Catholic priest. He immediately hailed it and was taken in. As the
+carriage entered the mob, the latter surrounded it, and supposing the
+inmates were reporters, began to yell "Down with the d--d reporters;"
+but the moment they recognized the priest, they allowed it to pass.
+Often the two would take a hack; and passing themselves off as drivers,
+go through infected districts, and search points to which they otherwise
+could not have gone. One time they were returning from an expedition
+through Third Avenue, and had reached Houston Street, when they were
+hailed by a gang of rioters, who demanded to be taken downtown. They had
+to comply, for the men were armed with pistols, and so took them in
+and kept along Houston Street, under the pretence of going down through
+Broadway, knowing that when they reached Mulberry Street they would
+be in hailing distance of the head-quarters of the police. It was just
+after daybreak, and Crowley and Polhamus urged on the horses, expecting
+in a few minutes to have their load safely locked up. The fellows
+evidently not liking the vicinity to which the drivers were taking them,
+ordered them to wheel about, which they were compelled to do, and drive
+under their direction to an old house in the Tenth Ward. There they got
+out, and offering the drivers a drink and fifty cents, let them go. On
+one occasion, Crowley, while examining the wires in Second Avenue, was
+suspected by the mob, who fell upon him, and it was only by the greatest
+coolness and adroitness he convinced them he was a rioter himself, and
+so escaped. At another time they were going along in a common wagon,
+when they were hemmed in by a crowd, and escaped by passing themselves
+off as farmers from Westchester. Had they been discovered, they would
+have been killed on the spot.
+
+DETECTIVE FORCE.
+
+The duties of this force are well known, but during the riots they had
+something more important to do than to work up individual cases. The
+force, with John Young as chief, and M. B. Morse as clerk, consisted
+in all of seventeen persons. These men are selected for their superior
+intelligence, shrewdness, sagacity, and undoubted courage. Full of
+resources, they must also be cool, collected, and fearless. During the
+riots they were kept at work day and night, obtaining knowledge of facts
+that no others could get, and thus supplying the different precincts
+and head-quarters with invaluable information. Their duty was a most
+perilous one, for it called them to go into the very heart of the
+turbulent districts; nay, into the very midst of the mob, where
+detection would have been followed by death, and that of the
+most horrible kind. Chief Young, with his clerk, was engaged at
+head-quarters, so that fifteen men had to perform the required work for
+the whole city. Sometimes alone, sometimes two or three together, they
+seemed omnipresent. In all sorts of disguises, feigning all sorts of
+employments and characters, sometimes on horseback and again driving an
+old cart or a hack, they pressed with the most imperturbable effrontery
+into the very vortex of danger. Ever on the watch, and accustomed to
+notice every expression of the countenance, they would discover at a
+single glance when they were suspected, and remove the suspicion at once
+by some clever device. Sometimes one of them, seeing himself watched,
+would quietly ascend the steps of a residence, and ringing the bell,
+make some inquiry as though he were on business, and then deliberately
+walk off; or if he thought it would not do to have his face too
+closely scanned, he would step inside and wait till the crowd moved on.
+Sometimes, with a stone or club in their hands, they would shout
+with the loudest, and engaging in conversation with the ringleaders
+themselves, ascertain their next move; then quietly slip away to the
+nearest station, and telegraph to head-quarters the information. When
+the telegraph had been cut off, they had to take the place of the
+wires, and carry through the very heart of the crowd their news to the
+department.
+
+On their ears again and again would ring the fearful cry, "There
+goes Kennedy's spies;" and it required the most consummate acting and
+self-possession to allay the suspicion. Often on a single word or act
+hinged their very lives. Some of these men were in the mob that made the
+first attack on Mayor Opdyke's house, and while apparently acting with
+it, learned of the intended movement down to police head-quarters, and
+at once telegraphed the fact, which enabled Carpenter to prepare for
+them, and give them the terrible beating we have described. At the
+burning and sacking of different buildings they were present, and often
+would follow unnoticed the ringleaders for hours, tracking them with the
+tireless tenacity of a sleuth hound, until they got them separate from
+the crowd, and then pounce suddenly upon them, and run them into the
+nearest station. The lawlessness that prevailed not only let loose all
+the thieves and burglars of the city, but attracted those from other
+places, who practised their vocation with impunity. To lessen this
+evil, the detectives one night quietly made visits to some half a dozen
+"lushing cribs," as they are called, in Eighth and Fourteenth Streets,
+and seized about thirty noted thieves, burglars, and garroters, and
+locked them up for safe-keeping. They also warned the negroes of
+threatened danger, and directed them, to places of safety; and in case
+of emergency acted as guides to the military in their operations. In
+short, they were ubiquitous, indefatigable, and of immense service. They
+played the part of unerring pointers to the commissioners, telling them
+when and where to strike; yet strange to say, such was their skill,
+their ingenuity, and exhaustless resources, that they all escaped being
+assaulted, save one named Slowly. He was passing through the very
+heart of the riotous district, in Second Avenue, when some one who had
+evidently been once in his clutches, recognized him, and pointing him
+out, shouted "Detective!" Instantly a rush was made for him, and he was
+knocked down, and kicked and stamped upon. Regaining, with a desperate
+effort, his feet, he sprang up the steps of a house, and fought his
+assailants fiercely, till the lady of the house, seeing his perilous
+situation, courageously opened the door and let him in, and then bolted
+and barred it in the face of the mob. Through some strange apprehension,
+the baffled wretches, though they howled, and swore, and threatened, did
+not force an entrance, and he escaped.
+
+In this connection, while speaking of those whose duties were uniform
+and running through the whole period of the riots, might be mentioned
+Seth C. Hawley, the chief clerk. Like Acton, he has a nervous, wiry
+temperament. This often makes a man rash and headlong, and hence not
+reliable; but when combined, as in him, with perfect self-possession
+and self-control, imparts enormous power. It matters not how nervous and
+excitable a man is, if danger and responsibility instead of confusing
+and unsettling him, only winds him up to a higher tension, till he
+becomes like a tightly-drawn steel spring. Excitement then not only
+steadies him, but it quickens his perceptions, clears his judgment,
+gives rapidity to his decisions, and terrible force to his blow. Mr.
+Hawley's duties were of a various and exhausting kind, so that during
+all the riots, he allowed himself only one hours' rest out of every
+twenty-four. Besides his ordinary supervisory duties over the clerks,
+etc., he had to see to the execution of the almost incessant orders
+of the commissioners, provide and issue arms, see to the refugees and
+prisoners, and act as commissary to over four thousand men on duty in
+and around head-quarters. Two men more perfectly fitted to work together
+in such a crisis as this, than he and Acton, could not well be found.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+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]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+DRAFT RIOT--THIRD DAY.
+
+Scenes in the City and at Head-quarters.--Fight in Eighth
+Avenue.--Cannon sweep the Streets.--Narrow Escape of Captain Howell
+and Colonel Mott.--Battle for Jackson's Foundry.--Howitzers clear
+the Street.--State of Things shown by Telegraph Despatches.--General
+Sandford sends out a Force against a Mob, at Corner of Twenty-ninth
+Street and Seventh Avenue.--Colonel Gardin's Fight with the Mob.--Is
+Wounded.--Mob Victorious.--Dead and Wounded Soldiers left in the
+Street.--Captain Putnam sent to bring them away.--Disperses the
+Mob.--Terrific Night.
+
+Tuesday had been a day of constant success to the police and military,
+and many thought that the rioters were thoroughly disheartened, and
+but little more hard fighting would be done. There had been two days
+of exhausting work, and both parties were well tired out. The
+commissioners, certainly, could not stand this terrible strain much
+longer. Forty-eight hours without sleep or rest, and all the time under
+the intensest mental strain, was telling on even the wiry Acton, though
+he would confess to no fatigue.
+
+To one who could take in all that was passing in New York on this
+morning, the city would have presented a strange appearance.
+
+The magnitude and demonstrations of the mob had aroused great fear for
+the Navy Yard and the naval property of the Government, and the marine
+company that had been on duty with the police was recalled by Admiral
+Paulding for their protection; and this morning six war-vessels,
+carrying in all over ninety guns, shotted and trained, could be seen
+drawn up, so as to command every avenue to the yard, while the iron-clad
+battery _Passaic_ and a gun-boat lay off the Battery to protect Fort
+Columbus during the absence of its garrison. Marines armed to the teeth,
+and howitzers, guarded all the entrances to the Navy Yard. Broadway
+was almost deserted--no stages were running, street-cars had
+disappeared--only here and there shutters were taken down from the
+stores, and it looked like Sabbath day in the city. But at police
+head-quarters all was activity. The African church nearly opposite was
+filled with soldiers stretched on the seats and floor of the building.
+Another house, a few doors from the police building, was also crowded
+with soldiers. The owner of this empty house, having sent a flat refusal
+to Acton's request for the use of it, the latter quietly told the
+policemen to stave in the door. It took but a few minutes to send it
+from its hinges; and now the troops were quartered in it also; for all
+those in the service of the United States, under General Brown, had
+their head-quarters here.
+
+In the basement of the police building was the telegraph, with the wires
+running like nerves to every part of the city, over which inquiries
+and answers were continually passing. Rooms all around were filled with
+rations obtained from a neighboring grocery and meatmarket, taken with
+or without leave. On the main floor, on one side, in their office sat
+the weary commissioners; on the other, were Inspectors Carpenter, Dilks,
+and Leonard, fit, each one to be a general, while scattered around were
+police captains, detectives, and patrolmen. On the second story were
+the clerks, copyists, etc.; while the top floor was crowded with colored
+refugees, who had fled thither for protection. Some were standing and
+conversing, others sitting in groups on boxes, or walking from room
+to room; many of these sad and serious, as they thought of missing
+relatives and friends, while the colored man placed over them, with
+his shirt sleeves rolled up, was, with his assistants, dealing out
+provisions.
+
+But soon it was announced that a vast crowd, numbering some five
+thousand, was assembled near Eighth Avenue and Thirty-second Street,
+sacking houses and hanging negroes. General Dodge and Colonel Mott,
+with Captain Howell, commanding Eighth Regiment Artillery, were at
+once despatched thither. As they marched up the avenue, they saw
+three negroes hanging dead, while the crowd around filled the air with
+fiendish shouts. As the firm, compact head of the column moved forward,
+the mob fell back, but did not scatter. Colonel Mott dashed forward on
+horseback and cut down one of the negroes with his sword. This seemed
+to be the signal for the mob to commence the attack, and the next
+moment they rushed forward on the soldiers with stones, brick-bats, and
+slung-shots. Colonel Mott then told Captain Howell to bring two pieces
+into battery on the corner of Thirty-second Street and Seventh Avenue,
+so as to sweep the streets; but he could not get through the dense crowd
+to do so. The infantry and cavalry were then ordered up and told to
+clear the way. The former, with level bayonets, and the latter with
+drawn sabres, charged on the mass, which parted and fell back some
+distance, and then halted. Captain Howell then advanced alone, and
+ordered the rioters to disperse, or he should fire on them. To this they
+replied in sullen silence. The apparent unwillingness of the captain to
+fire emboldened them to believe that he would not fire at all. Although
+they refused to disperse, the officers, as long as they made no assault,
+declined to give the word to fire. This delay encouraged the rioters
+still more; and either believing the guns, whose muzzles pointed so
+threateningly on them, were loaded with blank cartridges, or grown
+desperate and reckless with rage, they suddenly, as though moved by a
+common impulse, rushed forward and rained stones and missiles of every
+kind on the soldiers. Seeing that their object was to seize the guns and
+turn them on the troops, the word to fire was given. The next moment
+a puff of smoke rolled out, followed with a report that shook the
+buildings. As the murderous shot tore through the crowded mass, they
+stopped, and swayed heavily back for a moment, when the pieces were
+quickly reloaded, and again sent their deadly contents into their midst,
+strewing the pavements with the dead and dying. Those, however, in the
+rear, being protected by the mass in front, refused to give way, and it
+was not till five or six rounds had been fired that they finally broke
+and fled down the side streets. The military then broke into columns and
+marched up and down the streets, scattering everything before them, and
+arresting many of the rioters.
+
+Having finished their work, they returned to head-quarters. As they left
+the district, the mob, or a portion of it, gathered together again, and
+strung up afresh the lifeless bodies of the negroes.
+
+A few hours later, Captain Brower, with a police force, was sent
+thither, to take down and remove the bodies of any negroes that might be
+still hanging. He did so without molestation.
+
+Captain Howell's murderous fire on the mob came very near causing his
+death two days after. Having the curiosity to witness the scene of his
+struggle with the mob, he took his carriage, and drove over to it. A
+gang of seven or eight ruffians, seeing his uniform, cried out, "There's
+the man who fired on us here--let us hang him." Their shouts called
+others to the spot, and almost before the captain was aware of his
+danger, some fifty men were assembled, and at once made a dash at the
+driver, and ordered him to stop. Captain Howell, quickly drawing
+his revolver, pointed it at the driver, and ordered him to turn down
+Thirty-first Street, and give his horses the whip, or he would shoot
+him on the spot. The man obeying, lashed his horses into a run. At this
+moment the crowd was all around the carriage, and one man was climbing
+up behind, when he fell and was run over. A shower of stones and
+brick-bats followed, breaking in the panels of the carriage, and
+narrowly missing the captain's head.
+
+One stone struck an old wound in his side, and for a moment paralyzed
+his arm. The crowd with yells and shouts followed after, when he turned
+and emptied his revolver at them through the back window, which brought
+them to a halt. Colonel Mott had a similar escape the day before.
+Passing down one of the avenues in a carriage, he was recognized by some
+of the rioters, who immediately assailed him with stones, and fired
+at him. One of the bullets passed through the cushion on which he was
+sitting.
+
+Soon after this affair in Seventh Avenue, word was telegraphed that
+Jackson's foundry, corner of Twenty-eighth Street, First and Second
+Avenues, was threatened. A military force was despatched forthwith to
+it, piloted by four policemen. At Twenty-first Street and First Avenue,
+they were fired on by the mob. The attack was continued through the
+street to Second Avenue, and up this to Twenty-fifth Street, without
+any notice being taken of it by the troops. Made reckless by this
+forbearance, the rioters began to close up in more dangerous proximity,
+when the howitzer was unlimbered and pointed down the avenue. The mob
+not liking the looks of this, scattered, when the column resumed its
+march. The mob then rallied, and followed after, with shouts and distant
+shots, till the foundry on Twenty-eighth Street was reached. Here
+another mob came up from First Avenue, and the two made a simultaneous
+attack. The command was then given to fire, and a volley was poured into
+the crowd. Rapidly loading and firing, the troops soon stretched so many
+on the pavement, that the rest broke and fled. The military then entered
+the building and held it. The mob gathered around it, threatening to
+storm it, but could not pluck up courage to make the attempt. They
+seemed especially exasperated against the policemen, and had the
+effrontery to send a committee to the officer in command, demanding
+their surrender. If their request was refused, they declared they would
+storm the building at all hazards; but if complied with, they would
+disperse. The committee had to shout out their demands from the street.
+In reply, the officer told them if they did not take themselves off
+instantly, he would fire upon them; upon which they incontinently took
+to their heels.
+
+As the day wore on, things began to wear a still more threatening
+aspect. Despatches came in from every quarter, announcing the activity
+of the mob. To a question sent to the Thirteenth Precinct, a little past
+twelve, inquiring how things were going on in Grand Street, was returned
+the following reply: "Lively; store-keepers have fired into the mob; no
+force there yet."
+
+12.20. From Twenty-first. Building corner Thirty-third Street, Second
+Avenue, is set on fire by the mob.
+
+12.50. From Fifteenth. Send assistance to Twenty-first Precinct; they
+are about attacking it.
+
+12.55. From Twenty-sixth. It is reported that Government stores in
+Greenwich, near Liberty, are on fire; fired by mob.
+
+1.10. From Twenty-seventh. Send more men here forthwith.
+
+1.25. From Fourth. Fire corner of Catharine Street and East Broadway.
+
+1.45. A man just in from Eleventh Precinct, reports a number of bands of
+robbers, numbering from fifty to one hundred each, breaking into stores
+in Houston, near Attorney Street.
+
+1.47 P.M. From Twenty-ninth. The mob have cleared Twenty-first Precinct
+station-house.
+
+2 P.M. From Twenty-ninth. A large mob surrounded Captain Green's house,
+Twenty-eighth Street, Third Avenue. He escaped out of the back window;
+they threatened to hang him.
+
+3.10 P.M. To Eleventh. Send to foot of Fourteenth Street, East River,
+and if military is there, send word here forthwith.
+
+3.15. From Twenty-fourth. Mob are firing the building on Second Avenue,
+near Twenty-eighth Street. Immediate assistance is required. Houses
+occupied by negroes, who are fleeing for their lives.
+
+3.25. From Twentieth. The mob are sacking houses at Twenty-seventh
+Street and Seventh Avenue. We have no force to send.
+
+3.30. From Twenty-first. There is an attack on the colored people in
+Second Avenue, between Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth Streets.
+
+3.40. From Eleventh. Send to 242 Stanton Street, and take possession of
+cavalry swords forthwith.
+
+There were five thousand cavalry swords there, and the mob were
+assembling to capture them; and the telegram announcing the fact, and
+the one ordering a force to seize them, were received and answered the
+same minute.
+
+3.55. To Twenty-first. How do things look?
+
+_Ans_. Very bad; large crowd in Thirty-fifth Street, near Third Avenue,
+and no assistance from adjoining precinct.
+
+4 o'clock. To Twenty-first. What is going on?
+
+_Ans_. The mob have captured some five or six negroes, and are preparing
+to hang them; be quick with reinforcements.
+
+4.43. From Twentieth. News have just come in that the mob are about to
+attack the Twenty-second Precinct station-house.
+
+5.15. From Sixteenth. Send us one hundred special shields and clubs; the
+citizens are arming up well.
+
+5.15. From Twenty-ninth. Who feeds the special men?
+
+_Ans_. You must, far as able.
+
+_Reply_. No money.
+
+_Ans_. It makes no difference; they must be fed; we are responsible.
+
+5.20. From Twenty-ninth. The rioters are now on Seventh Avenue and
+Twenty-eighth Street. They have just killed a negro; say they are going
+to cut off the Croton; they have pickaxes and crowbars; and also say
+they will cut off the gas; so reported by one of our men, who has been
+in the crowd; they were about to fire corner of Twenty-eighth Street and
+Seventh Avenue, when he came away.
+
+To have cut off the water and extinguished the gas, would have been
+master-strokes; but the military arrived in time to prevent it.
+
+5.25. From First. Riot at Pier 4, North River; they have killed negroes
+there.
+
+Thus, at the same moment, from the two extreme ends of the city, came
+the news of riots and calls for help. From points five miles apart,
+the wires would bring simultaneously tidings that showed the mob
+omnipresent.
+
+In the midst of all these incessant exhausting labors, the following
+telegram came from the Twentieth Precinct:
+
+"General Sandford says he has so many negroes at the arsenal, that he
+must get rid of them."
+
+Acton's answer was characteristic. He had no time for formalities or
+courteous exchange of views. In an instant there flashed back over the
+wires the curt reply:
+
+"Tell General Sandford he must do the best he can with them there."
+
+General Sandford had at this time about the same number of men under his
+command at the arsenal that General Brown had at police head-quarters;
+yet the former, up to this morning, had not sent out a single company to
+assist the police to arrest the devastations of the mob. He apparently
+did not know what was going on, had hardly kept up any communication
+with the Police Commissioners or Governor Seymour, but now begs the
+former to relieve him of some colored refugees, as if the overworked
+commissioners had not enough on their hands already. This request is
+especially noteworthy, when taken in connection with his after report,
+in which he states that on this morning the riot was substantially over;
+so much so, at least, that the police could do all that was necessary
+without the aid of the military. It would seem that if he really thought
+that the rest of the work should be left to them, he might have sent off
+some of his troops, and made room for the negroes in the arsenal.
+
+At about two o'clock in the afternoon word was received that a
+large number of muskets were secreted in a store on Broadway, near
+Thirty-third Street; and Colonel Meyer was ordered to proceed thither,
+with thirty-three soldiers belonging to Hawkins' Zouaves, and take
+possession of them. Reaching the place, he found a large mob gathered,
+which was momentarily increasing. He, however, succeeded in entering the
+building, and brought out the arms. An Irishman happening to pass by in
+his cart, the colonel seized it, and pitching in the guns, closed around
+it, and moved off.
+
+Citizens offering their services were coming in all day, and a company
+was formed and placed under the command of Charles A. Lamont, and did
+good service. Others also were enrolled and placed on duty.
+
+Colonel Sherwood's battery of rifled cannon arrived in the afternoon,
+and was put in position in front of the arsenal, where the firing of
+pickets all day would indicate that an attack was momentarily expected.
+This did not look as if General Sandford thought the riot substantially
+over.
+
+At about five o'clock, it was ordered by Sandford, with an infantry
+force of one hundred and fifty, to corner of Twenty-seventh Street and
+Seventh Avenue, to quell a mob assembled in large numbers at that point,
+and which were gutting, and plundering, and firing houses. As they
+approached, they saw flames bursting from windows, while, to complete
+the terror of the scene, the body of a negro hung suspended from a
+lamp-post, his last struggle just ended. At the same time that the
+military arrived, firemen, who had come to put out the fire, reached
+the spot in another direction. One portion of the mob immediately took
+shelter behind the latter, so that the troops dared not fire and clear
+the streets, while another ran up to the house-tops, armed with guns
+and pistols, for the purpose of firing into the ranks below. The colonel
+told his men to keep a sharp lookout, and at the first shot fire. Scores
+of guns were immediately pointed towards the roofs of the houses. In the
+meantime, from some cause not fully explained, the imposing force, after
+this demonstration, marched away, leaving the mob in full possession of
+the field. It had hardly reached the protection of the arsenal again,
+when the plundering and violence recommenced; and in a short time two
+more negroes were amusing the spectators with their death throes, as
+they hung by the neck from lamp-posts. This was the second expedition
+sent out by Sandford, the commander-in-chief of the military, during the
+riot.
+
+Towards evening word was brought to the Seventh Regiment armory that the
+mob had gathered in great force in First Avenue, between Eighteenth and
+Nineteenth Streets.
+
+Colonel Winston, in command, immediately ordered out a force, composed
+in part of the military, and in part of enrolled citizens, and with a
+battery of two howitzers, under command of Colonel Jardine, of Hawkins'
+Zouaves, marched rapidly to the scene of disturbance. Passing down
+Nineteenth Street to the avenue, it halted, and unlimbering the pieces,
+trained them so as to command the avenue, while the infantry formed in
+line to support them. As soon as the rioters saw the guns bearing on
+them, they dodged into basements, and mounted to the windows and roofs
+of the tenement buildings that abounded in that vicinity. A number
+of them armed with muskets and pistols, and the rest with stones and
+brick-bats, began a fierce and determined attack on the troops. The
+howitzers, loaded with grape and canister, at once swept the street.
+After the first discharge, but few ventured to show themselves in the
+avenue, until after they heard the report, when they would dodge
+from behind corners and fire back. But from the tops of the houses an
+incessant fusillade was kept up. The soldiers endeavored to pick them
+off, but the rioters presented a small mark compared to that which the
+troops, massed in the open streets, furnished; and it was soon apparent
+that the fight was unequal. If they had only had a police force to enter
+the buildings, and hunt the men from the roofs, the fight would soon
+have been over. But the commander, thinking he could not spare a
+sufficient number to do this work, or that the soldiers, cumbered
+with their muskets, which, after the first discharge, would have to be
+clubbed, could make no headway in such a hand-to-hand fight, made no
+effort to dislodge the wretches, who loaded and fired with the most
+imperturbable coolness. One man was seen to step round the corner, after
+the discharge of the battery, and resting his gun on the shoulder of a
+fellow-rioter, take as deliberate aim at Colonel Jardine as he would at
+a squirrel on the limb of a tree, and fire. The ball struck the colonel
+in the thigh, and brought him to the pavement. Other officers shared
+his fate, while at every discharge, men would drop in the ranks. The
+howitzers rattled their shot on the deserted pavements and walls of the
+houses, but did no damage to the only portion of the enemy they had to
+fear, while the fight between the infantry and the rioters was like
+that between soldiers in the open field and Indians in ambush. Colonel
+Winston soon saw that it was madness to keep his men there, to be picked
+off in detail, and ordered a retreat. At the first sign of a retrograde
+movement, a cry rang along the avenue; and from the side streets, and
+basements, and houses, the mob swarmed forth so furiously, that it
+assumed huge proportions at once, and chased the retiring soldiers with
+yells and taunts, and pressed them so hotly that they could not bring
+off all their killed and wounded. Among those left behind was Colonel
+Jardine. He took refuge in a basement, where the mob found him, and
+would have killed him on the spot, had not one of them recognized him
+as an old acquaintance, and for some reason or other protected him
+from further violence; and he was eventually carried to the house of a
+surgeon near by.
+
+The mob were left masters of the field, and soon began their
+depredations. The state of things was at length reported to police
+head-quarters, and General Brown sent off Captain Putman, with Captain
+Shelby and a hundred and fifty regulars and two field-pieces, to
+disperse the mob and bring away the dead and wounded of Winston's force
+that might remain. They reached the spot between ten and eleven o'clock
+at night. The dimly lighted streets were black with men, while many,
+apprised of the approach of the military, mounted again to the roofs
+as before. Putnam immediately charged on the crowd in the street,
+scattering them like a whirlwind. He then turned his guns on the
+buildings, and opened such a deadly fire on them that they were soon
+cleared. Having restored order, he halted his command, and remained on
+the ground till half-past twelve.
+
+At the same time a mob was pulling down the negro houses in York Street,
+which they soon left a heap of ruins. Houses plundered or set on fire
+in various parts of the city, combined with the ringing of fire-bells,
+thunder of cannon, and marching of troops, made this night like its
+predecessor--one of horror.
+
+There was also a disturbance in Brooklyn. Shaw's and Fancher's
+elevators, and Wheeler's store on the docks, were set on fire, and a
+force ordered to put them out.
+
+The illumination of the windows from the _Times_ building this evening
+shed a brilliant glow over Printing-house Square, and flooded the Park
+to the City Hall with light, while an armed force within was ready to
+fire on any mob that should dare expose itself in the circle of its
+influence.
+
+At 12.15 the following telegram was sent:
+
+"To all stations. How are things in your precinct?"
+
+_Answer_. "All quiet."
+
+Thus the third night of this terrible riot passed away still unsubdued,
+and still Acton sat at his post, awake, while others slept, and kept
+feeling through the telegraph wires the pulse of the huge, fevered city.
+The regiments coming back from Pennsylvania might arrive at any time,
+and he was anxious to know the moment they reached the New York docks.
+The Seventh Regiment, especially, he knew was expected to reach the city
+that night by special train. Policemen were therefore kept on the watch;
+but the regiment did not arrive till after daylight. About half-past
+four in the morning, the steady ranks were seen marching along Canal
+Street towards Broadway, and soon drew up in front of St. Nicholas
+Hotel.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+FOURTH DAY.
+
+Proclamations by the Governor and Mayor.--City districted.--Appearance
+of the East Side of the City.--A small Squad of Soldiers chased into
+a Foundry by the Mob.--Fierce Fight between the Mob and Military in
+Twenty-ninth Street.--Soldiers driven from the Ground, leaving a dead
+Sergeant behind.--Captain Putnam sent to bring the Body away.--Mows
+down the Rioters with Canister.--Storms the Houses.--Utter Rout of
+the Mob.--Colored Orphans and Negroes taken by Police to
+Blackwell's Island.--Touching Scene.--Coming on of Night and a
+Thunderstorm.--Returning Regiments.--Increased Force in the City to put
+down Violence.--Archbishop Hughes offers to address the
+Irish.--Curious Account of an Interview of a Lady with him and Governor
+Seymour.--Strange Conduct of the Prelate.
+
+Only the principal disturbances of the third day were given, and of
+these the accounts were very succinct. The movements of the mobs and
+the conflicts with them were so similar in character, that a detailed
+description of them would be a mere repetition of what had gone before.
+After the police force, and the troops under General Brown had become
+organized so as to move and act together, each fight with the rioters
+was almost a repetition of its predecessor. Having adopted a plan of
+procedure, they seldom deviated from it, and the story of one fight
+became the story of all--a short struggle and a quick victory.
+
+It was hoped this morning that the rioters would conclude that they
+could not carry out their mad designs; for the enrolment of large
+bodies of citizens, and the announcement of the speedy return of several
+regiments, showed that all the force necessary to subdue them was,
+or soon would be, on hand. The day before, the Governor had issued a
+proclamation, declaring the city to be in a state of insurrection; but
+this morning appeared a proclamation from Mayor Opdyke, announcing that
+the insurrection was practically ended. It is true he called on the
+citizens to form voluntary associations, with competent leaders, to
+patrol their separate districts, to protect themselves from roaming
+gangs of plunderers, and so spare the exhausted police and military. Yet
+he called on the citizens to resume their usual avocations, and directed
+the railroad and stage lines to resume their routes. This opinion of the
+Mayor was strengthened by the positive announcement that the draft had
+been suspended, and the passage of an ordinance by the City Council,
+appropriating $2,500,000 towards paying $300 exemption money to the poor
+who might be drafted. It was plain, if the draft was the cause of the
+continued riot, it would now cease. But in spite of all this, bad news
+came from Harlem, and Yorkville, and other sections. In fact, it
+was evident that the Police Commissioners did not share fully in the
+pleasant anticipations of the Mayor. Having ascertained that the leaders
+of the mob, learning from experience, had organized more intelligently,
+and designed to act in several distinct and separate bodies in
+different sections, they, with General Brown, divided the city into four
+districts, in each one of which were to be stationed strong bodies of
+the police and military, so that they could act with more expedition and
+efficiency than if they were sent out from the common head-quarters in
+Mulberry Street. It would, beside, save the fatigue of long marches.
+Those separate stations were in Harlem, Eighteenth, Twenty-ninth, and
+Twenty-sixth Precincts. A good deal was also expected by an invitation
+given by Archbishop Hughes, that appeared in the morning papers, to the
+Irish to meet him next day in front of his house, where, though crippled
+from rheumatism, he would address them from the balcony. The Eighth
+Avenue cars had been started, as well as those of the Third; and
+many stores were opened. Still, on the east side of the city, in the
+neighborhood of First Avenue, most of the shops were closed.
+
+It should be here remarked to the credit of the German population, which
+were very numerous in certain localities on this side of the city, that
+they had no sympathy with the rioters; on the contrary, sent word to the
+Police Commissioners not to be concerned about their locality; they
+had organized, and would see that order was maintained there. No better
+title to American citizenship than this could be shown.
+
+[Illustration: THE RIOTERS DRAGGING COL. O'BRIEN'S BODY THROUGH THE
+STREET.]
+
+Though early in the morning, it was comparatively quiet on the east side
+of the city; yet near First Avenue knots of men could be seen here and
+there, engaged in loud and angry conversation. They looked exhausted and
+haggard, but talked defiant as ever, swearing terrible vengeance
+against the military; for, though hidden from sight, in the miserable
+tenement-houses near by, lay their dead, dying, and wounded friends by
+scores. Near Nineteenth Street, the scene of the conflict the evening
+previous, there were stones, brick-bats, shivered awning-posts, and
+other wrecks of the fight. The grog-shops were open, in which men with
+bloody noses, and bruised and battered faces, obtained the necessary
+stimulus to continue the desperate struggle. Dirty, slovenly-dressed
+women stood in the door-ways or on the steps, swearing and denouncing
+both police and military in the coarsest language. Though the immense
+gatherings of the preceding days were not witnessed, yet there was a
+ground-swell of passion that showed the lawless spirit was not subdued,
+though overawed. But the Police Commissioners were now prepared for
+whatever might occur. The Seventh Regiment had been stationed on the
+west side of the city, with a wide district to keep in order, thus
+enabling them to concentrate larger forces in other directions. But,
+although everything wore this favorable aspect to the authorities,
+it was evident towards noon, from the steadily increasing size of the
+groups observed in the morning, that they had resolved to try again
+their strength with the military. The state of things was telegraphed to
+police head-quarters, but the report making the mob not formidable, only
+a company of about twenty-five men were sent out. Finding the rioters
+numbered about two hundred or more, and not daring to fire their
+howitzer, lest, before it could be reloaded, the former would rush
+forward and seize it, they concluded to retire. The mob at once set
+furiously on them, and forced them to take refuge in Jackson's foundry.
+The following telegram to head-quarters announced the fact:
+
+"1.25. From Twenty-first. The mob has charged our military, about
+twenty-five in number, and driven them into Jackson's foundry, First
+Avenue and Twenty-eighth Street. The mob are armed, and every time a
+regular shows himself they fire. A few good skirmishers would pick off
+these riflemen and relieve the military."
+
+This was soon succeeded by the following:
+
+"1.54. From Twenty-first. Send military assistance immediately to First
+Avenue and Twenty-eighth Street. The mob increases, and will murder the
+military force."
+
+_Ans_. "They are on their way up."
+
+They soon arrived, and were at once furiously attacked by the mob. The
+soldiers fired into them, but they boldly held their ground, and were
+evidently bent on a desperate fight.
+
+The former now took up their stations at the junction of the streets,
+and were about to sweep them with canister, when from some cause a delay
+was ordered. This increased the boldness of the mob, and they taunted
+and derided the soldiers. But in a few minutes a reinforcement of
+regulars arrived on the ground and charged bayonets. The rioters fell
+back, but rallying, forced the soldiers to retire in turn. The latter,
+however, returned to the charge, when the mob again gave way, but still
+stubbornly refused to disperse.
+
+News of the magnitude of the struggle reached the Seventh Regiment, and
+they rapidly marched to the spot. Their steady tramp along the pavement,
+and well-set ranks, discouraged the crowd, and they marched and
+counter-marched through the streets without molestation.
+
+The mob, however, dispersed only to reassemble again in Twenty-ninth
+Street, and began to plunder the stores in the vicinity, and spread
+devastation on every side.
+
+This being reported to head-quarters, a military force was despatched
+to disperse them. The rioters, however, instead of retreating, attacked
+them with the greatest fury. Almost every house was filled with them,
+and they lined the roofs with muskets and pistols, from which they
+poured down a deadly fire. For nearly a half an hour the fire was kept
+up without cessation, and many were killed. A sergeant was knocked down
+by a brick-bat, and then seized and beaten to death. The troops finding
+themselves unable to dislodge the assailants, retreated, leaving the
+body of the sergeant in the street, where it lay for three hours.
+General Brown not having a sufficient number of troops on hand, the mob
+all this time had it their own way. It was nine o'clock before he
+could despatch Captain Putnam with a strong force to put an end to the
+disgraceful scene. Arriving on the spot, the latter addressed the crowd,
+saying that he had come to carry away the dead body of the sergeant,
+and should do it at all hazards. But he had hardly placed it in a wagon,
+when the crowd began to assail his troops. He immediately unlimbered
+his pieces, when it scattered in every direction. But the rioters came
+together again at the corner of Thirty-first Street and Second Avenue,
+where they were met by reinforcements, and made a stand. They filled the
+houses, and mounted to the roofs, armed with muskets and revolvers,
+and as Putnam appeared, commenced a rapid fire. Placing his pieces in
+position, this gallant officer swept the street with canister, which
+soon cleared it. Eleven of the ringleaders were shot down, and bodies
+lay thick on the pavement. But this did not intimidate those in the
+windows, or on the roofs, and they kept up a steady fire. Putnam, who
+showed by his cool courage that the fighting stock from which he came
+had not degenerated, now ordered his men to turn their fire on the
+buildings. At each discharge, the heavy volleys brought down many of the
+wretches, some pitching headlong from the roof, and dashing out their
+brains on the pavement and flagging below. But the fight was very
+unequal, for the assailants would expose their bodies as little as
+possible; Putnam saw that the houses must be stormed, and gave the order
+to do it. The fight was now transferred to the inside, and became close
+and murderous. In the narrow halls and on the stairways, numbers were of
+no avail, and the rioters fought with a desperation they had not before
+exhibited. There was no way of escape, and they seemed to prefer death
+to being taken prisoners, and for a half an hour maintained the conflict
+in the darkened rooms and passages with a ferocity that was appalling.
+At last, however, with their numbers sadly thinned, they were forced to
+yield, and took refuge in flight. Many, unable to get away, hid under
+beds and in closets, but the soldiers ferreted them out, and carried
+them to police head-quarters.
+
+The arsenal had not been attacked, as Sandford seemed every day to think
+it would be. Many colored people, as before stated, took refuge in it;
+and about noon on this day, a body of police arrived before it, with the
+children of the Colored Orphan Asylum that had been burned on Monday, in
+charge. They had since that time been scattered round in station-houses,
+but were now to be escorted to Blackwell's Island, for better security.
+It was an impressive spectacle this army of children presented, as they
+drew up in line in front of the arsenal to wait for those within to join
+them. The block was filled with them. The frightened little fugitives,
+fleeing from they scarce knew what, looked bewildered at their novel
+position. It seemed impossible that they ever could have been the
+objects of any one's vengeance. With a strong body of police in front
+and rear, and a detachment of soldiers on either side, they toddled
+slowly down to the foot of Thirty-fifth Street, from whence they were
+taken by boats to the Island.
+
+The Sixty-fifth New York Regiment arrived from Harrisburg in the
+afternoon, and just before midnight the One Hundred and Fifty-second
+also reached the city, and marched up Broadway to police head-quarters,
+where they were stowed away to get some rest.
+
+A heavy storm that set in during the evening, helped to scatter the
+crowd that would otherwise have gathered on this warm July night, but it
+at the same time gave a sombre aspect to the city. The crescent moon was
+veiled in black, and thunderous clouds that swept heavily over the city,
+deepened the gloom, and seemed portentous of greater evil. The closing
+of all the stores and shop-windows at nightfall, through fear, left the
+streets lighted only by the scattering lamps. This unusual stretch of
+blank dead walls, emitting no ray of light, rendered the darkness made
+by the overhanging storm still more impenetrable. Flashes of lightning
+would reveal small groups of men bent on plunder, in sections where
+the military and police were not stationed, but no open violence was
+attempted. In other directions, the bayonets of the soldiers would gleam
+out of the dense shadows, as they silently held the posts assigned them,
+ready to march at a moment's notice. This was the fourth night, and the
+cannon planted in the streets, and the increased military force,
+showed that peace was not yet fully restored. The Seventh Regiment
+was quartered in Thirty-fourth Street, part of the soldiers within
+a building, and crowding every window to catch the first sign of
+disturbance, and part stationed below, or marching back and forth in the
+street. Other troops and policemen were massed at head-quarters, ready
+to move, at the word of command, to any point threatened by the mob.
+
+The fourth night was passing away, and still Acton clung to his post,
+and refused to take even a moment's rest. His whole nature had been
+keyed up to meet the grave responsibilities that lay upon him, and
+through the wires he still watched every threatened point in the city,
+with sleepless vigilance. In the meantime, over a thousand special
+policemen had been sworn in, and five hundred or more citizens had
+voluntered their services, while the steady arrival of returning
+regiments swelled the military force into formidable proportions.
+
+During the day, Senators Connolly and O'Brien had waited on General
+Brown, and asked him to remove the military from their ward, as their
+presence excited the people. The General very bluntly refused, saying he
+should not permit his troops to retire from before an armed mob. He was
+asked also to order the troops to leave Jackson's foundry for the same
+reason, and gave an equally emphatic refusal. There was now to be no
+compromise with the rioters, no agreement entered into. They had got
+beyond the character of citizens with rights to be respected--they were
+assassins and murderers, to whom was submitted the simple question of
+subjection to law and authority, or death.
+
+The fighting through the day had been severe, but the disturbance had
+not been so wide-spread and general. Outside of the city, there had been
+threatening rumors. It was reported that there was danger of an uprising
+in Westchester, where some leading Democrats had taken open opposition
+to the draft, and a gun-boat had gone up as far as Tarrytown; but
+nothing serious occurred.
+
+The rioters being almost exclusively Irish, it was thought that an
+address from Archbishop Hughes would go far to quiet the ringleaders,
+and he had therefore issued the following call, already referred to:
+
+To the men of New York, who are now called in many of the papers
+rioters.
+
+MEN!
+
+I am not able, owing to rheumatism in my limbs, to visit you, but
+that is not a reason why you should not pay me a visit in your whole
+strength. Come, then, tomorrow (Friday) at two o'clock, to my residence,
+north-west corner of Madison Avenue and Thirty-sixth street. There is
+abundant space for the meeting, around my house. I can address you from
+the corner of the balcony. If I should not be able to stand during its
+delivery, you will permit me to address you sitting; my voice is
+much stronger than my limbs. I take upon myself the responsibility of
+assuring you, that in paying me this visit or in retiring from it,
+you shall not be disturbed by any exhibition of municipal or military
+presence. You who are Catholics, or as many of you as are, have a right
+to visit your bishop without molestation.
+
+JOHN HUGHES, Archbishop of New York.
+
+NEW YORK, _July_ 16, 1863.
+
+A curious incident was related subsequently in one of the New York
+papers, respecting the manner in which an interview was brought about
+between him and Governor Seymour, and which resulted in the resolution
+of the Archbishop to address the rioters. The substance of the account
+was, that a young widow of high culture, formerly the wife of a
+well-known lawyer of this city--a woman living in an atmosphere of art,
+and refinement, and spending her time in study, became so excited
+over the violence and bloodshed that the authorities seemed unable to
+suppress, and finding that the Irish were at the bottom of the trouble,
+determined to appeal to Archbishop Hughes personally, to use his high
+authority and influence to bring these terrible scenes to a close.
+
+Acting on this determination, she set out this morning for the
+Archbishop's residence, but on arriving was told that he was at the
+residence of Vicar-general Starrs, in Mulberry Street. Hastening
+thither, she asked for an interview. Her request was denied, when she
+repeated it; and though again refused, would not be repelled, and sent
+word that her business was urgent, and that she would not detain him ten
+minutes. The Archbishop finally consented to see her. As she entered
+the library, her manner and bearing--both said to be remarkably
+impressive--arrested the attention of the prelate. Without any
+explanation or apology, she told him at once her errand--that it was one
+of mercy and charity. She had been educated in a Roman Catholic convent
+herself, in which her father was a professor, and she urged him, in
+the name of God, to get on horseback, and go forth into the streets
+and quell the excitement of his flock. She told him he must, like Mark
+Antony, address the people; and in rescuing this great metropolis from
+vandalism, would become a second Constantine, an immortal hero. It was
+his duty, she boldly declared; and though she did not profess to be a
+Jeanne d'Arc or Madame Roland, but a plain woman of the present day,
+she would ride fearlessly by his side, and if he were threatened, would
+place her body between him and danger, and take the blow aimed at
+him. The cautious and crafty prelate was almost carried away by the
+impassioned and dramatic force of this woman, but he told her it would
+be presumption in him to do so; in fact, impossible, as he was so
+crippled with rheumatism and gout, that he could not walk. She then
+asked him to call the crowd, and address them from the balcony of his
+house. He replied that he was just then busy in writing an answer to an
+attack on him in the _Tribune_. She assured him that such a controversy
+was worse than useless--that another and higher duty rested on him.
+She pressed him with such importunity and enthusiasm, that he finally
+consented; but as a last effort to get rid of her, said he feared the
+military would interfere and attack the mob. She assured him they would
+not, and hurried off to the St. Nicholas to see Governor Seymour about
+it. She found the ante-room filled with officials and other personages
+on important business, waiting their turn to be admitted. But her
+determined, earnest manner so impressed every one with the importance of
+her mission, that precedence was granted her, and she found herself at
+once beside the astonished Governor. Without any preliminaries, she
+told him she had just come from the head of the church, and wanted
+his excellency to visit him immediately. No business was of such vital
+importance as this. The self-possessed Governor coolly replied that he
+should be glad to see the Archbishop, but business was too pressing to
+allow him to be absent even a half an hour from his duties. She hastened
+back to Archbishop Hughes, and prevailed on him to write a note to
+Governor Seymour, asking him to call and see him, as he was unable
+to get out. Fortified with this, she now took a priest with her, and
+providing herself with a carriage, returned to head-quarters, and
+absolutely forced, by her energy and determination and persuasive
+manner, the Governor to leave his business, and go to the Archbishop's.
+The invitation to the Irish to meet him was the result of this
+interview.
+
+Why Archbishop Hughes took no more active part than he did in quelling
+this insurrection, when there was scarcely a man in it except members of
+his own flock, seems strange. It is true he had published an address
+to them, urging them to keep the peace; but it was prefaced by a long,
+undignified, and angry attack on Mr. Greeley, of the _Tribune_, and
+showed that he was in sympathy with the rioters, at least in their
+condemnation of the draft. The pretence that it would be unsafe for him
+to pass through the streets, is absurd; for on three different occasions
+common priests had mingled with the mob, not only with impunity, but
+with good effect. He could not, therefore, have thought himself to be in
+any great danger. One thing, at any rate, is evident: had an Irish mob
+threatened to burn down a Roman Catholic church, or a Roman Catholic
+orphan asylum, or threatened any of the institutions or property of the
+Roman Church, he would have shown no such backwardness or fear. The
+mob would have been confronted with the most terrible anathemas of the
+church, and those lawless bands quailed before the maledictions of the
+representative of "God's vicegerent on earth." It is unjust to suppose
+that he wished this plunder and robbery to continue, or desired to
+see Irishmen shot down in the streets; it must, therefore, be left to
+conjecture, why he could not be moved to any interference except by
+outside pressure, and then show so much lukewarmness in his manner--in
+fact, condemning their opponents almost as much as themselves.
+
+The excitement consequent on the draft, exhibited in outbreaks in
+various parts of the country, and in the vicinity of New York, was
+increased by the reports of violence and fighting in the latter city. In
+Troy there was a riot, and the mob, imitating the insane conduct of
+the rioters in New York, proceeded to attack an African church. But a
+priest, more bold or more patriotic than Archbishop Hughes, interfered
+and saved it. That the latter, armed with nothing but the crucifix,
+could have effected as much as the police and military together, there
+can be but little doubt. This open and decided sympathy with law
+and order, and bitter anathemas against the vandals who sought the
+destruction of the city, were the more demanded, as such a large
+proportion of the police force were Roman Catholics, and in their noble
+devotion to duty, even to shooting down their own countrymen and men
+of a similar faith, deserved this encouragement from the head of the
+church.
+
+[Illustration: BURNING OF THE SECOND AVENUE ARMORY.]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+CLOSING SCENES.
+
+Tranquil Morning.--Proclamation of the Mayor.--Mob cowed.--Plunderers
+afraid of Detection.--Dirty Cellars crowded with rich Apparel,
+Furniture, and Works of Art.--Archbishop Hughes' Address.--Useless
+Efforts.--Acton's Forty-eight Hours without Sleep over.--Change in
+Military Commanders in the City.--General Brown relinquishes his
+Command.--True Words.--Noble Character and Behavior of the Troops and
+Police.--General Brown's invaluable Services.
+
+This week of horrors--a week unparalleled in the history of New
+York--was drawing to a close. It had been one of terror and dismay to
+the inhabitants, who thought only of the immediate effects on themselves
+of the triumph of the mob. A great city laid in ashes, given, up to
+robbers and cut-throats, is at any time a terrible spectacle; but New
+York in ruins at this time was a republic gone--a nation, uncrowned and
+left desolate; but the battle, both for the nation and city, had been
+nobly fought and won; and Friday, the fifth day of this protracted
+struggle, dawned bright and tranquil. The storm of the night before had
+passed away, and the streets, thoroughly washed by the drenching rain,
+stretched clean and quiet between the long rows of buildings, emblematic
+of the tranquillity that had returned to the city.
+
+The cars were seen once more speeding down to the business centres,
+loaded with passengers. Broadway shook to the rumbling of the heavy
+omnibuses; shutters were taken down, and the windows again shone
+with their rich adornments. The anxious look had departed from the
+pedestrians, for the heavy cloud, so full of present woe and future
+forebodings, had lifted and passed away.
+
+The following proclamation of Mayor Opdyke will show the true state of
+things on this morning, and what the people had most to fear:
+
+"The riotous assemblages have been dispersed. Business is running in its
+usual channels. The various lines of omnibuses, railway, and telegraph
+have resumed their ordinary operations. Few symptoms of disorder remain,
+except in a small district in the eastern part of the city, comprising a
+part of the Eighteenth and Twenty-first Wards. The police is everywhere
+alert. A sufficient military force is now here to suppress any illegal
+movement, however formidable.
+
+"Let me exhort you, therefore, to pursue your ordinary business. Avoid
+especially all crowds. Remain quietly at your homes, except when engaged
+in business, or assisting the authorities in some organized force. When
+the military appear in the street, do not gather about it, being
+sure that it is doing its duty in obedience to orders from superior
+authority. Your homes and your places of business you have a right to
+defend, and it is your duty to defend them, at all hazards. Yield to no
+intimidation, and to no demand for money as the price of your safety.
+If any person warns you to desist from your accustomed business, give
+no heed to the warning, but arrest him and bring him to the nearest
+station-house as a conspirator.
+
+"Be assured that the public authorities have the ability and the will
+to protect you from those who have conspired alike against your peace,
+against the government of your choice, and against the laws which your
+representatives have enacted.
+
+"GEORGE OPDYKE, Mayor."
+
+Down-town there was scarcely anything to show that New York had for
+nearly a week been swept by one of the most frightful storms that ever
+desolated a city. Even in the disaffected districts, no crowds were
+assembled. In the corner groggeries, small groups of men might be seen,
+discussing the past, and uttering curses and threats; and ruined houses
+and battered walls and hanging blinds here and there arrested the eye,
+showing what wild work had been wrought; but it was evident that the
+struggle was over. The mob was thoroughly subdued, and the law-breakers
+now thought more of escaping future punishment than of further acts of
+violence. Bruised heads and battered forms were scattered through the
+low tenement-houses in every direction, which friends were anxious to
+keep concealed from the notice of the authorities. In dirty cellars and
+squalid apartments were piled away the richest stuffs--brocaded silks,
+cashmere shawls, elegant chairs, vases, bronzes, and articles of virtu,
+huddled promiscuously together, damning evidences of guilt, which were
+sure not to escape, in the end, the searching eye of the police, who had
+already begun to gather up the plunder. Thus the objects mostly coveted
+but a few hours ago now awakened the greatest solicitude and fear.
+
+Even if the military under General Brown and the police had not shown
+the mob that they were its masters, the arrival of so many regiments,
+occupying all the infected districts, was overwhelming evidence that the
+day of lawless triumph was over, and that of retribution had come. Some
+acts of individual hostility were witnessed, but nothing more.
+
+Archbishop Hughes had his meeting, and some five thousand assembled to
+hear him. They were on the whole a peaceable-looking crowd, and it was
+evidently composed chiefly, if not wholly, of those who had taken no
+part in the riot. None of the bloody heads and gashed faces, of which
+there were so many at that moment in the city, appeared. The address was
+well enough, but it came too late to be of any service. It might have
+saved many lives and much destruction, had it been delivered two days
+before, but now it was like the bombardment of a fortress after it had
+surrendered--a mere waste of ammunition. The fight was over, and to use
+his own not very refined illustration, he "spak' too late." The reports
+that came in to Acton from all the precincts convinced him of this, and
+he began to think of rest.
+
+The strain was off, and overtasked nature made her demand, and he was
+compelled to yield to it. The tremendous work that had been laid
+upon him had been right nobly accomplished. Had he been a weak and
+vacillating man, the rioters would have acquired a headway that could
+not have been stopped, without a more terrible sacrifice of life and
+property--perhaps even of half the city. Comprehending intuitively
+the gravity of the situation, and the danger of procrastination or
+temporizing, he sprang at once for the enemy's throat, and never ceased
+his hold until he had strangled him to death. If he had waited to
+consult authorities about the legality of his action, or listened to
+the voice of pity, or yielded to the clamors of leading politicians
+or threats of enemies, both he and the city, in all human probability,
+would have been swept away in the hurricane of popular fury.
+
+On this day a most remarkable announcement was published: that a sudden
+change had been made in the military command of the troops of the city
+and harbor. General Dix superseded General Wool, and Canby, General
+Brown. That Wool should have been removed at any time, might have been
+expected; not from incapacity, but on account of his age, and because
+any one could perform the mere nominal duties that devolved on him. But
+why General Brown should have been removed at this critical moment, when
+he and the Police Commissioners were performing their herculean task so
+faithfully and well, is not so plain; unless it was the result of one of
+those freaks of passion or despotic impulse, for which the Secretary of
+War was so ignobly distinguished. But unlike many other blunders which
+the War Department committed at this time, it did not result in any evil
+consequences, for the fight was over. But of this fact the Secretary of
+War was ignorant when he made out the order.
+
+General Brown, in relinquishing his command, spoke warmly of the noble
+behavior of the troops during the riots, saying: "Engaged night and day
+in constant conflict with the mob, they have in some fifteen or twenty
+severe contests--in most of them outnumbered more than ten to one, many
+of the mob being armed--whipped and effectually dispersed them, and have
+been uniformly successful. In not a single instance has assistance been
+required by the police, when it has not been promptly rendered; and all
+property, public and private, which has been under their protection, has
+been perfectly and efficiently protected; and with pride he desires
+to record, that in this city, surrounded by grog-shops, but one single
+instance of drunkenness has fallen under his observation.
+
+"To Lieutenant-colonel Frothingham, his able and efficient
+adjutant-general, he tenders his thanks for his untiring assistance.
+
+"Having during the present insurrection been in immediate and constant
+co-operation with police department of this city, he desires the
+privilege of expressing his unbounded admiration of it. Never in civil
+or military life has he seen such untiring devotion and such efficient
+service.
+
+"To President Acton and Commissioner Bergen he offers his thanks for
+their courtesy to him and their kindness to his command.
+
+"HARVEY BROWN, _Brigadier-general_."
+
+The praise he bestows both on the police and soldiers was richly
+deserved; and he may well say that "with pride he desires to record that
+in this city, surrounded with grog-shops, but one single instance of
+drunkenness has fallen under his observation." With all a soldier's
+tendency to indulge in spirituous liquor, to be thrown right amid
+drinking-places, which by harboring rioters had lost all claim to
+protection--part of the time suffering from want of food, and often
+drenched to the skin, and weary from hard fighting and want of
+sleep--not to step away occasionally in the confusion and darkness
+of night, and solace himself with stimulating drinks, was something
+marvellous. After hard fighting, and long marching, and short rations, a
+soldier feels he has a right to indulge in liquor, if he can get it; and
+their abstinence from it in such lawless times, not only speaks well
+for their discipline, but their character. A single instance shows under
+what perfect control the troops were. One day Colonel Ladue, seeing that
+his men were exhausted and hungry, desired to let them have a little
+beer to refresh them, and the following telegram was sent from the
+precinct where they were on duty:
+
+"5.45 P.M. From 9th. Colonel Ladue wishes his men allowed to have beer
+in station-house."
+
+_Answer_. "Mr. Acton says he is opposed to beer, but the colonel can
+give his men as much as he pleases."
+
+"Acton is opposed to beer," but the troops are not under his command,
+and he has no heart to deny the poor fellows the station-house in which
+to refresh themselves after their hard day's work. This incident also
+shows the strict discipline maintained in the police department.
+
+General Brown had done a noble work. Taking his place beside the Police
+Commissioners, he bent all his energies to the single task of carrying
+out their plans, and save the city from the hands of the rioters. He
+never thought what deference might be due him on the score of etiquette,
+or on account of his military rank; he thought only of putting down
+the mob at all hazards. His refusal, at first, to serve under General
+Sandford was not merely that it was an improper thing to place a
+general of the regular army under the orders of a mere militia general,
+[Footnote: Because he was especially assigned to the command of the city
+by the Secretary of War.] having no rank whatever in the United States
+army, but he knew it would paralyze his influence, and in all human
+probability result in the useless sacrifice of his troops. The absurdity
+of not moving until he received orders from his superior officer, cooped
+up in the arsenal, where he remained practically in a state of siege,
+was so apparent that he refused to countenance it. He was willing that
+President Acton should be his superior officer, and give his orders, and
+he would carry them out; for thus he could act efficiently and make his
+disciplined battalion tell in the struggle; but for the sake of his
+own reputation and that of his troops, he would not consent to hold a
+position that would only bring disgrace on both. His views are clearly
+expressed in his reply to a highly complimentary letter addressed to him
+by the mayor and a large number of prominent citizens, for the signal
+services he had rendered. He says: "I never for a moment forgot that to
+the police was confided the conservation of the peace of the city;
+and that only in conjunction with the city authorities, and on their
+requisition, could the United States forces be lawfully and properly
+employed in suppressing the riot, and in restoring that peace and good
+order which had been so lawlessly broken. Acting in accordance with
+this principle, and as aids to the gallant city police, the officers and
+soldiers of my command performed the most unpleasant and arduous duty,
+with that prompt energy and fearless patriotism which may ever be
+expected from the soldiers of the Republic."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+Continued Tranquillity.--Strange Assortment of Plunder gathered in the
+Cellars and Shanties of the Rioters.--Search for it exasperates
+the Irish.--Noble Conduct of the Sanitary Police.--Sergeant
+Copeland.--Prisoners tried.--Damages claimed from the City.--Number
+of Police killed.--Twelve hundred Rioters killed.--The Riot Relief
+Fund.--List of Colored People killed.--Generals Wool and Sandford's
+Reports.--Their Truthfulness denied.--General Brown vindicated.
+
+On Saturday morning it was announced that the authorities at Washington
+had resolved to enforce the draft. It had been repeatedly asserted
+during the riot that it was abandoned, and the report received
+very general credence. Still, the official denial of it produced no
+disturbance. The spirit of insurrection was effectually laid.
+
+It is a little singular, that, in all these tremendous gatherings and
+movements, no prominent recognized leaders could be found. A man by the
+name of Andrews had been arrested and imprisoned as one, but the charge
+rested wholly on some exciting harangues he had made, not from any
+_active_ leadership he had assumed.
+
+There were, perhaps, in the city this morning not far from ten thousand
+troops--quite enough to preserve the peace, if the riot should break out
+afresh; and orders therefore were given to arrest the march of regiments
+hastening from various sections to the city, under the requisition of
+the Governor. Still, the terror that had taken possession of men could
+not be allayed in an hour, and although the police had resumed their
+patrols, and dared to be seen alone in the streets, there was constant
+dread of personal violence among the citizens. Especially was this true
+of the negro population. Although many sought their ruined homes, yet
+aware of the intense hatred entertained toward them by the mob, they
+felt unsafe, and began to organize in self-defence. But the day wore
+away without disturbance, and the Sabbath dawned peaceably, and order
+reigned from the Battery to Harlem. The military did not show themselves
+in the street, and thousands thronged without fear the avenues in which
+the fighting had taken place, to look at the ruins it had left behind.
+On Monday there was more or less rebellious feeling exhibited by the
+rioters, on account of the general search of the police for stolen
+goods, and the arrest of suspected persons. It exhibited itself,
+however, only in threats and curses--not a policemen was assaulted. It
+was amusing, sometimes, to see what strange articles the poor wretches
+had stowed away in their dirty cellars. There was everything from
+barrels of sugar and starch to tobacco and bird-seed. Said a morning
+paper: "Mahogany and rosewood chairs with brocade upholstering,
+marble-top tables and stands, costly paintings, and hundreds of delicate
+and valuable mantel ornaments, are daily found in low hovels up-town.
+Every person in whose possession these articles are discovered disclaims
+all knowledge of the same, except that they found them in the street,
+and took them in to prevent them being burned. The entire city will be
+searched, and it is expected that the greatest portion of the property
+taken from the buildings sacked by the mob will be recovered." The
+rivers and outlets to the city were closely watched, to prevent its
+being carried off. In the meantime, arrests were constantly made.
+
+It would be invidious to single out any portion of the police for
+special commendation, where all did their duty so nobly; but it is not
+improper to speak of the sanitary police, whose specific duties do not
+lead them to take part in quelling mobs.
+
+They have to report all nuisances, examine tenement-houses and unsafe
+buildings, look after the public schools, but more especially examine
+steam-boilers, and license persons qualified to run steam-engines.
+Hence, it is composed of men of considerable scientific knowledge. But
+all such business being suspended during the riot, they at once, with
+their Captain, B. G. Lord, assumed the duties of the common policemen,
+and from Monday night till order was restored, were on constant duty,
+participating in the fights, and enduring the fatigues with unflinching
+firmness, and did not return to their regular duties till Monday
+morning.
+
+The drill-officer also, Sergeant T. S. Copeland, became, instead of a
+drill-officer, a gallant, active leader of his men in some of the most
+desperate fights that occurred. His military knowledge enabled him to
+form commands ordered hastily off, with great despatch. But not content
+with this, he led them, when formed, to the charge, and gave such
+lessons in drill, in the midst of the fight, as the police will never
+forget.
+
+With the details of what followed we have nothing to do. The Grand Jury
+indicted many of the prisoners, and in the term of the court that
+met the 3d of August, twenty were tried and nineteen convicted, and
+sentenced to a longer or shorter term of imprisonment. Of course a
+large number on preliminary examinations got off, sometimes from want
+of sufficient evidence, and sometimes from the venality of the judges
+before whom they were brought. Claims for damages were brought in, the
+examination of which was long and tedious. The details are published in
+two large volumes, and the entire cost to the city was probably three
+millions of dollars. Some of the claims went before the courts, where
+they lingered along indefinitely. The number of rioters killed, or
+died from the effects of their wounds, was put down by the Police
+Commissioners at about twelve hundred. Of course this estimate is not
+made up from any detailed reports. The dead and wounded were hurried
+away, even in the midst of the fight, and hidden in obscure streets, or
+taken out of the city for fear of future arrests or complications. Hence
+there was no direct way of getting at the exact number of those who
+fell victims to the riot. The loss of life, therefore, could only be
+approximated by taking the regular report of the number of deaths in the
+city for a few weeks before the riots, and that for the same length
+of time after. As there was no epidemic, or any report of increased
+sickness from any disease, the inference naturally was, that the excess
+for the period after the riots was owing to the victims of them. Many of
+these were reported as sunstrokes, owing to men exposing themselves to
+the sun with pounded and battered heads. The Police Commissioners took
+great care to keep all the wounded policemen indoors until perfectly
+cured. Only one ventured to neglect their orders, and he died of a
+sunstroke.
+
+The difference of mortality in the city for the month previous to the
+riots, and the month during and subsequent, was about twelve hundred,
+which excess Mr. Acton thought should be put down to the deaths caused
+directly and indirectly by the riots. Although many policemen were
+wounded, only three were killed or died from the injuries they received.
+
+Immediately after the riot, Mr. Leonard W. Jerome and others interested
+themselves in raising a fund for the relief of members of the Police,
+Militia, and Fire Departments who had sustained injuries in the
+discharge of their duty in suppressing the riots. Subscriptions to
+the amount of $54,980 were paid in, and $22,721.53 distributed by the
+Trustees of the Riot Relief Fund, in sums from $50 to $1,000, each,
+through Isaac Bell, Treasurer, to 101 policemen, 16 militiamen, and 7
+firemen.
+
+The balance was securely invested, to meet future emergencies, a portion
+of which was paid to sufferers by the Orange Riot of 1871.
+
+The following is the list of colored people known to be killed by the
+mob, together with the circumstances attending their murder, as given
+by David Barnes, in his Metropolitan record, to which reference has
+heretofore been made.
+
+COLORED VICTIMS OF THE RIOT.
+
+WILLIAM HENRY NICHOLS (colored). Nichols resided at No. 147 East
+Twenty-eighth Street. Mrs. Staat, his mother, was visiting him. On
+Wednesday, July 15th, at 3 o'clock, the house was attacked by a mob with
+showers of bricks and stones. In one of the rooms was a woman with a
+child but three days old. The rioters broke open the door with axes and
+rushed in. Nichols and his mother fled to the basement; in a few moments
+the babe referred to was dashed by the rioters from the upper window to
+the yard, and instantly killed. The mob cut the waterpipes above, and
+the basement was being deluged; ten persons, mostly women and children,
+were there, and they fled to the yard; in attempting to climb the fence,
+Mrs. Staat fell back from exhaustion; the rioters were instantly upon
+her; her son sprang to her rescue, exclaiming, "Save my mother, if you
+kill me." Two ruffians instantly seized him, each taking hold of an arm,
+while a third, armed with a crowbar, calling upon them to hold his arms
+apart, deliberately struck him a savage blow on the head, felling him
+like a bullock. He died in the N. Y. Hospital two days after.
+
+JAMES COSTELLO (colored).--James Costello, No. 97 West Thirty-third
+Street, killed on Tuesday morning, July 14th. Costello was a shoemaker,
+an active man in his business, industrious and sober. He went out early
+in the morning upon an errand, was accosted, and finally was pursued by
+a powerful man. He ran down the street; endeavored to make his escape;
+was nearly overtaken by his pursuer; in self-defence he turned and shot
+the rioter with a revolver. The shot proved to be mortal; he died two
+days after. Costello was immediately set upon by the mob. They first
+mangled his body, then hanged it. They then cut down his body and
+dragged it through the gutters, smashing it with stones, and finally
+burnt it. The mob then attempted to kill Mrs. Costello and her children,
+but she escaped by climbing fences and taking refuge in a police
+station-house.
+
+ABRAHAM FRANKLIN (colored).--This young man, who was murdered by the mob
+on the corner of Twenty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue, was a quiet,
+inoffensive man, of unexceptionable character. He was a cripple, but
+supported himself and his mother, being employed as a coachman. A
+short time previous to the assault, he called upon his mother to see
+if anything could be done by him for her safety. The old lady said she
+considered herself perfectly safe; but if her time to die had come, she
+was ready to die. Her son then knelt down by her side, and implored the
+protection of Heaven in behalf of his mother. The old lady said that it
+seemed to her that good angels were present in the room. Scarcely had
+the supplicant risen from his knees, when the mob broke down the door,
+seized him, beat him over the head and face with fists and clubs, and
+then hanged him in the presence of his parent. While they were thus
+engaged, the military came and drove them away, cutting down the body of
+Franklin, who raised his arm once slightly and gave a few signs of life.
+The military then moved on to quell other riots, when the mob returned
+and again suspended the now probably lifeless body of Franklin, cutting
+out pieces of flesh, and otherwise shockingly mutilating it.
+
+AUGUSTUS STUART (colored).--Died at Hospital, Blackwell's Island, July
+22, from the effects of a blow received at the hands of the mob, on
+Wednesday evening of the Riot Week. He had been badly beaten previously
+by a band of rioters, and was frightened and insane from the effects
+of the blows which he had received. He was running toward the arsenal
+(State), Seventh Avenue and Thirty-seventh Street, for safety, when he
+was overtaken by the mob, from whom he received his death-blow.
+
+PETER HEUSTON.--Peter Heuston, sixty-three years of age, a Mohawk
+Indian, dark complexion, but straight hair, and for several years a
+resident of New York, proved a victim to the riots. Heuston served with
+the New York Volunteers in the Mexican war. He was brutally attacked
+and shockingly beaten, on the 13th of July, by a gang of ruffians, who
+thought him to be of the African race because of his dark complexion. He
+died within four days, at Bellevue Hospital, from his injuries.
+
+JEREMIAH ROBINSON (colored).--He was killed in Madison near Catharine
+Street. His widow stated that her husband, in order to escape, dressed
+himself in some of her clothes, and, in company with herself and one
+other woman, left their residence and went toward one of the Brooklyn
+ferries. Robinson wore a hood, which failed to hide his beard. Some
+boys, seeing his beard, lifted up the skirts of his dress, which exposed
+his heavy boots. Immediately the mob set upon him, and the atrocities
+they perpetrated are so revolting that they are unfit for publication.
+They finally killed him and threw his body into the river. His wife and
+her companion ran up Madison Street, and escaped across the Grand Street
+Ferry to Brooklyn.
+
+WILLIAM JONES (colored).--A crowd of rioters in Clarkson Street, in
+pursuit of a negro, who in self-defence had fired on some rowdies, met
+an inoffensive colored man returning from a bakery with a loaf of bread
+under his arm. They instantly set upon and beat him and, after nearly
+killing him, hung him to a lamppost. His body was left suspended for
+several hours. A fire was made underneath him, and he was literally
+roasted as he hung, the mob revelling in their demoniac act. Recognition
+of the remains, on their being recovered, was impossible; and two women,
+mourned for upwards of two weeks, in the case of this man, for the loss
+of their husbands. At the end of that time, the husband of one of the
+mourners, to her great joy, returned like one recovered from the grave.
+The principal evidence which the widow, Mary Jones, had to identify the
+murdered man as her husband, was the fact of his having a loaf of bread
+under his arm, he having left the house to get a loaf of bread a few
+minutes before the attack.
+
+JOSEPH REED (colored).--This was a lad of seven years of age, residing
+at No. 147 East Twenty-eighth Street, with an aged grandmother and
+widowed mother. On Wednesday morning of the fearful week, a crowd of
+ruffians gathered in the neighborhood, determined on a week of plunder
+and death. They attacked the house, stole everything they could carry
+with them, and, after threatening the inmates, set fire to it. The
+colored people who had the sole occupancy of the building, fled in
+confusion into the midst of the gathering crowd. And then the child was
+separated from his guardians. His youth and evident illness, even from
+the devils around him, it would be thought, should have insured
+his safety. But no sooner did they see his unprotected, defenceless
+condition, than a gang of fiendish men seized him, beat him with sticks,
+and bruised him with heavy cobblestones. But one, tenfold more the
+servant of Satan than the rest, rushed at the child, and with the stock
+of a pistol struck him on the temple and felled him to the ground.
+A noble young fireman, by the name of John F. Govern, of No. 39 Hose
+Company, instantly came to the rescue, and, single-handed, held the
+crowd at bay. Taking the wounded and unconscious boy in his arms, he
+carried him to a place of safety. The terrible beating and the great
+fright the poor lad had undergone was too much for his feeble frame; he
+died on the following Tuesday.
+
+JOSEPH JACKSON (colored), aged nineteen years, living in West
+Fifty-third Street, near Sixth Avenue, was in the industrious pursuit of
+his humble occupation of gathering provender for a herd of cattle, and
+when near the foot of Thirty-fourth Street, East River, July 15, was set
+upon by the mob, killed, and his body thrown into the river.
+
+SAMUEL JOHNSON (colored).--On Tuesday night Johnson was attacked near
+Fulton Ferry by a gang who mercilessly beat and left him for dead. A
+proposition was made to throw him into the river, but for some reason
+the murderers took fright and fled. He was taken by some citizens to his
+home, and died the next day.
+
+---- WILLIAMS (colored).--He was attacked on the corner of Le Roy and
+Washington Streets, on Tuesday morning, July 14th, knocked down,
+a number of men jumped upon, kicked, and stamped upon him until
+insensible. One of the murderers knelt on the body and drove a knife
+into it; the blade being too small, he threw it away and resorted to
+his fists. Another seized a huge stone, weighing near twenty pounds,
+and deliberately crushed it again and again on to the victim. A force
+of police, under Captain Dickson, arrived and rescued the man, who
+was conveyed to the New York Hospital. He was only able to articulate
+"Williams" in response to a question as to his name, and remained
+insensible thereafter, dying in a few days.
+
+ANN DERRICKSON.--This was a white woman, the wife of a colored man, and
+lived at No. 11 York Street. On Wednesday, July 15th, the rioters seized
+a son of deceased, a lad of about twelve years, saturated his clothes
+and hair with camphene, and then procuring a rope, fastened one end to a
+lamp-post, the other around his neck, and were about to set him on fire,
+and hang him; they were interfered with by some citizens and by the
+police of the First Ward, and their diabolical attempt at murder
+frustrated. While Mrs. Derrickson was attempting to save the life of her
+son she was horribly bruised and beaten, with a cart-rung. The victim,
+after lingering three or four weeks, died from the effects of her
+injuries.
+
+Reports from the captains of the several precincts, with all the details
+of their operations, were made out--also from the subordinate military
+officers to their immediate superiors. The final reports of General
+Wool, commanding the Eastern Department, and Major-general Sandford,
+commanding the city troops, caused much remark in the city papers, and
+called forth a reply from General Brown, who considered himself unjustly
+assailed in them. Explanation of the disagreement between him and
+General Wool having been fully given, it is not necessary to repeat it
+here. The same may be said of the statement of General Wool, regarding
+his orders on Monday the 13th, respecting the troops in the harbor.
+But in this report of General Wool to Governor Seymour, there are other
+statements which General Brown felt it his duty to correct. General Wool
+says, that finding there was a want of harmony between Generals Sandford
+and Brown in the disposition of troops, he issued the following order:
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL SANDFORD, BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL BROWN.
+
+GENTLEMEN:--It is indispensable to collect your troops not stationed,
+and have them divided into suitable parties, with a due proportion of
+police to each, and to patrol in such parts of the city as may be in
+the greatest danger from the rioters. This ought to be done as soon as
+practicable.
+
+JOHN E. WOOL, _Major-general_.
+
+After this had been issued, General Sandford reporting to me that his
+orders were not obeyed by General Brown, I issued the following order:
+
+"All the troops called out for the protection of the city are placed
+under the command of General Sandford."
+
+General Brown in his reply says, that he "_never saw or heard of
+this first order_." The only explanation of this, consistent with the
+character of both, is that General Wool sent this order to General
+Sandford alone--either forgetting to transmit it to General Brown, or
+expecting General Sandford to do it.
+
+At all events, sent or not, it was a foolish order. One would infer
+from it that the whole task of putting down the riots belonged to the
+military, the commanders of which were to order out what co-operating
+force of police they deemed necessary and march up and down the
+disaffected districts, trampling out the lawlessness according to rule.
+This might be all well enough, but the question was, how were these
+troops, strangers to the city, to find out where "_such parts of the
+city_" were in which was "_the greatest danger from the rioters_?" It
+showed a lamentable ignorance of mobs; they don't stay in one spot and
+fight it out, nor keep in one mass, nor give notice beforehand where
+they will strike next. Such knowledge could only be obtained from police
+head-quarters, the focus of the telegraph system, and _there_ the troops
+should have been ordered to concentrate at once, and put themselves
+under the direction of the Police Commissioners. Again, General Wool
+says he issued the following order to General Brown, on Tuesday:
+
+"SIR:--It is reported that the rioters have already recommenced their
+work of destruction. To-day there must be no child's play. Some of the
+troops under your command should be sent immediately to attack and
+stop those who have commenced their infernal rascality in Yorkville and
+Harlem."
+
+This order, too, General Brown says he never received. Thinking
+it strange, he addressed a note to General Wool's assistant
+adjutant-general, respecting both these orders, which had thus strangely
+wandered out of the way. The latter, Major Christensen, replied as
+follows:
+
+"The orders of General Wool published in his report to Governor Seymour,
+viz.: 'That patrols of military and police should be sent through the
+disaffected districts;' and the one July 14th, 'To-day there must be no
+child's play,' etc., were not issued by me, and I cannot therefore say
+whether copies were sent to you or not. They were certainly _not_ sent
+by me.
+
+"C.F. CHRISTENSEN,
+
+"Major, Assistant Adjutant-general."
+
+We have explained how the error may have occurred with regard to the
+first order. But there is no explanation of this, except on the ground
+that General Wool perhaps sketched out this order, without sending it,
+and afterwards seeing it amid his papers, thought it was a copy of one
+he had sent. He was well advanced in years, and might easily fall into
+some such error.
+
+It is not necessary to go into detailed account of all the statements
+contained in General Wool's letter which General Brown emphatically
+denies; but the following is worthy of notice. He says that General
+Brown issued orders that General Sandford countermanded, and that
+General Brown acted through the riots under his (Wool's) orders; whereas
+the latter says, he never received but three orders from Wool during the
+whole time, and only _one_ of those referred to any action towards the
+rioters, and that was to bring off some killed and wounded men left by
+a military force sent out either by Sandford or Wool, and which had been
+chased from the field by the mob.
+
+But the statements of General Wool are entirely thrown into the shade
+by the following assertion of General Sandford, in his report. He says:
+"With the remnant of the [his] division (left in the city), and the
+first reinforcements from General Wool, detachments were sent to all
+parts of the city, and the rioters everywhere beaten and dispersed on
+Monday afternoon, Monday night, and Tuesday morning. In a few hours, but
+for the interference of Brigadier-general Brown, who, in disobedience of
+orders," etc.
+
+The perfect gravity with which this assertion is made is something
+marvellous. One would infer that the police was of no account, except
+to maintain order after it was fully restored by the military on Tuesday
+morning. General Sandford might well be ignorant of the state of things
+in the city, for he was cooped up in the arsenal, intent only on holding
+his fortress. So far as he was concerned, the whole city might have
+been burned up before Tuesday noon, and he would scarcely have known it,
+except as he saw the smoke and flames from the roof of the arsenal. He
+never sent out a detachment until after the Tuesday afternoon, when,
+as he says, but for General Brown's action, the riot would have been
+virtually over. The simple truth is, these reports of Generals Wool and
+Sandford are both mere after-thoughts, growing out of the annoyance they
+felt on knowing that their _martinetism_ was a total failure, and the
+whole work had been done by General Brown and the Police Commissioners
+from their head-quarters in Mulberry Street. Acton and Brown had no time
+to grumble or dispute about etiquette. They had something more serious
+on hand, and they bent their entire energies to their accomplishment.
+General Sandford held the arsenal, an important point, indeed a vital
+one, and let him claim and receive all the credit due that achievement;
+but to assume any special merit in quelling the riots in the streets
+is simply ridiculous. That was the work of the police and the military
+under the commissioners and General Brown.
+
+The statement of the Police Commissioners, Acton and Bergen, on this
+point is conclusive. They say that General Sandford's error consisted
+in "not choosing to be in close communication with this department, when
+alone through the police telegraph, and other certain means, trustworthy
+information of the movements of the mob could be promptly had."
+
+That single statement is enough to overthrow all of General Sandford's
+assertions about the riot. It was hardly necessary for them to declare
+further in their letter to General Brown:
+
+"So far from your action having had the effect supposed by General
+Sandford, we are of the opinion, already expressed in our address to
+the police force, that through your prompt, vigorous, and intelligent
+action, the intrepidity and steady valor of the small military force
+under you, acting with the police force, the riotous proceedings were
+arrested on Thursday night, and that without such aid mob violence would
+have continued much longer."
+
+WELL-EARNED PRAISE.
+
+On the week after the riot the Board of Police Commissioners issued the
+following address to the force, in which a well-earned tribute is paid
+to the military:
+
+_To the Metropolitan Police Force._
+
+On the morning of Monday, the 13th inst., the peace and good order of
+the city were broken by a mob collected in several quarters of the city,
+for the avowed purpose of resisting the process of drafting names to
+recruit the armies of the Union.
+
+Vast crowds of men collected and fired the offices where drafting was in
+progress, beating and driving the officers from duty.
+
+From the beginning, these violent proceedings were accompanied by arson,
+robbery, and murder.
+
+Private property, unofficial persons of all ages, sexes, and conditions,
+were indiscriminately assailed--none were spared, except those who were
+supposed by the mob to sympathize with their proceedings.
+
+Early in the day the Superintendent was assaulted, cruelly beaten,
+robbed, and disabled by the mob which was engaged in burning the provost
+marshal's office in Third Avenue, thus in a manner disarranging the
+organization at the Central Department, throwing new, unwonted, and
+responsible duties upon the Board.
+
+At this juncture the telegraph wires of the department were cut, and the
+movement of the railroads and stages violently interrupted, interfering
+seriously with our accustomed means of transmitting orders and
+concentrating forces.
+
+The militia of the city were absent at the seat of war, fighting the
+battles of the nation against treason and secession, and there was no
+adequate force in the city for the first twelve hours to resist at all
+points the vast and infuriated mob. The police force was not strong
+enough in any precinct to make head, unaided, against the overwhelming
+force. No course was left but to concentrate the whole force at the
+Central Department, and thence send detachments able to encounter and
+conquer the rioters. This course was promptly adopted on Monday morning.
+The military were called upon to act in aid of the civil force to subdue
+the treasonable mob, protect life and property, and restore public
+order.
+
+Under such, adverse circumstances you were called upon to encounter a
+mob of such strength as have never before been seen, in this country.
+The force of militia under General Sandford, who were called into
+service by the authority of this Board, were concentrated by him at and
+held the arsenal in Seventh Avenue, throughout the contest. The military
+forces in command of Brevet Brigadier-general Harvey Brown reported
+at the Central Department, and there General Brown established his
+head-quarters, and from there expeditions, combined of police and
+military force, were sent out that in all cases conquered, defeated, or
+dispersed the mob force, and subjected them to severe chastisement. In
+no instance did these detachments from the Central Department, whether
+of police alone or police and military combined, meet with defeat or
+serious check.
+
+In all cases they achieved prompt and decisive victories. The contest
+continued through Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and till 11
+o'clock on Thursday night, like a continuous battle, when it ended by a
+total and sanguinary rout of the insurgents.
+
+During the whole of those anxious days and nights, Brigadier-general
+Brown remained at the Central Department, ordering the movements of the
+military in carefully considered combinations with the police force, and
+throughout the struggle, and until its close, commanded the admiration
+and gratitude of the Police Department and all who witnessed his firm
+intelligence and soldierly conduct.
+
+It is understood that he had at no time under his immediate command more
+than three hundred troops, but they were of the highest order, and were
+commanded by officers of courage and ability. They cordially acted
+with, supported, and were supported by, the police, and victory in
+every contest against fearful odds, was the result of brave fighting and
+intelligent command.
+
+In the judgment of this Board, the escape of the city from the power
+of an infuriated mob is due to the aid furnished the police by
+Brigadier-general Brown and the small military force under his command.
+No one can doubt, who saw him, as we did, that during those anxious and
+eventful days and nights Brigadier-general Harvey Brown was equal to the
+situation, and was the right man in the right place.
+
+We avail ourselves of this occasion to tender to him, in the most
+earnest and public manner, the thanks of the department and our own.
+
+To the soldiers under his command we are grateful as to brave men
+who perilled all to save the city from a reign of terror. To Captains
+Putnam, Franklin, and Shelley, Lieutenant Ryer, and Lieutenant-colonel
+Berens, officers of corps under the command of Brigadier-general Brown,
+we are especially indebted, and we only discharge a duty when we commend
+them to their superiors in rank and to the War Department for their
+courageous and effective service.
+
+Of the Inspectors, Captains, and Sergeants of police who led parties in
+the fearful contest, we are proud to say that none faltered or failed.
+Each was equal to the hour and the emergency. Not one failed to overcome
+the danger, however imminent, or to defeat the enemy, however numerous.
+Especial commendation is due to Drill-sergeant Copeland for his most
+valuable aid in commanding the movements of larger detachments of the
+police.
+
+The patrolmen who were on duty fought through the numerous and fierce
+conflicts with the steady courage of veteran soldiers, and have won, as
+they deserve, the highest commendations from the public and from this
+Board. In their ranks there was neither faltering nor straggling.
+Devotion to duty and courage in the performance of it were universal.
+
+The public and the department owe a debt of gratitude to the citizens
+who voluntarily became special patrolmen, some three thousand of whom,
+for several days and nights, did regular patrolmen's duty with great
+effect.
+
+In the name of the public, and of the department in which they were
+volunteers, we thank them.
+
+Mr. Crowley, the superintendent of the police telegraph, and the
+attaches of his department, by untiring and sleepless vigilance in
+transmitting information by telegraph unceasingly through more than ten
+days and nights, have more than sustained the high reputation they have
+always possessed.
+
+Through all these bloody contests, through all the wearing fatigue and
+wasting labor, you have demeaned yourselves like worthy members of the
+Metropolitan Police.
+
+The public judgment will commend and reward you. A kind Providence
+has permitted you to escape with less casualties than could have been
+expected. You have lost one comrade, whom you have buried with honor.
+Your wounded will, it is hoped, all recover, to join you and share
+honor. It is hoped that the severe but just chastisement which has been
+inflicted upon those guilty of riot, pillage, arson, and murder,
+will deter further attempts of that character. But if, arising out of
+political or other causes, there should be another attempt to interrupt
+public order, we shall call on you again to crush its authors, confident
+that you will respond like brave men, as you ever have, to the calls of
+duty; and in future, whenever the attempt may be made, you will have to
+aid you large forces of military, ably commanded, and thus be enabled to
+crush in the bud any attempted riot or revolution.
+
+To General Canby, who, on the morning of Friday, the 17th inst., took
+command of the military, relieving Brigadier-general Brown, and to Gen.
+Dix, who succeeded General Wool, the public are indebted for prompt,
+vigorous, and willing aid to the police force in all the expeditions
+which have been called for since they assumed their commands. Charged
+particularly with the protection of the immense amount of Federal
+property and interests in the Metropolitan district, and the police
+force charged with the maintenance of public order, the duties of the
+two forces are always coincident.
+
+Whatever menaces or disturbs one equally menaces and disturbs the other.
+
+We are happy to know that at all times the several authorities have
+co-operated with that concert and harmony which is necessary to secure
+vigor and efficiency in action.
+
+Sergeant Young, of the detective force, aided by Mr. Newcomb and other
+special patrolmen, rendered most effective service in arranging the
+commissary supplies for the large number of police, military, special
+patrolmen, and destitute colored refugees, whose subsistence was thrown
+unexpectedly on the department. The duty was arduous and responsible,
+and was performed with vigor and fidelity. All the clerks of the
+department, each in his sphere, performed a manly share of the heavy
+duties growing out of these extraordinary circumstances. The Central
+Department became a home of refuge for large numbers of poor, persecuted
+colored men, women, and children, many of whom were wounded and sick,
+and all of whom were helpless, exposed, and poor. Mr. John H. Keyser,
+with his accustomed philanthropy, volunteered, and was appointed to
+superintend these wretched victims of violence and prejudice, and has
+devoted unwearied days to the duty. The pitiable condition of these poor
+people appeals in the strongest terms to the Christian charity of the
+benevolent and humane. The members of the force will do an acceptable
+service by calling the attention to their condition of those who are
+able and willing to contribute in charity to their relief.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+ORANGE RIOTS OF 1870 AND 1871.
+
+Religious Toleration.--Irish Feuds.--Battle of Boyne
+Water.--Orangemen.--Origin and Object of the Society.--A Picnic at Elm
+Park.--Attacked by the Ribbonmen.--The Fight.--After Scenes.--Riot
+of 1871.--Conspiracy of the Irish Catholics to prevent a Parade of
+Orangemen.--Forbidden by the City Authorities.--Indignation of
+the People.--Meeting in the Produce Exchange.--Governor Hoffman's
+Proclamation.--Morning of the 12th.--The Orangemen at Lamartine
+Hall.--Attack on the Armories.--The Harpers threatened.--Exciting
+Scenes around Lamartine Hall and at Police Head-quarters.--Hibernia
+Hall cleared.--Attack on an Armory.--Formation of the Procession.--Its
+March.--Attacked.--Firing of the Military without Orders.--Terrific
+Scene.--The Hospitals and Morgue.--Night Scenes.--Number of killed and
+wounded.--The Lesson.
+
+In a free country like ours, where toleration of all religions alike is
+one of the fundamental principles of the Government, one would naturally
+think that open persecution of any sect or body of religionists was
+impossible. But the Irish, unfortunately, have brought with them to this
+country not merely many of their old customs and national fetes, but
+their old religions feuds.
+
+Nearly two hundred years ago, William of Nassau, Prince of Orange,
+or William the Third, a Protestant, met the Catholic King, James the
+Second, of England, In deadly battle, in the vales of Meath, through
+which the Boyne River flows, and utterly routed him, and compelled him
+to flee to the Continent for safety. According to old style, this was on
+the first day of July, as the old ballad says:
+
+  "'Twas bright July's first morning clear,
+    Of unforgotten glory,
+    That made this stream, through ages dear,
+  Renowned in song and story."
+
+According to new style, however, this has become the twelfth of the
+month. The Ulster Protestant Society, known as Orangemen, was founded
+in 1795. It was a secret political organization, founded, it is said, to
+counteract the Ribbonmen, or Protectors, as they were called. Its object
+in this country, it is asserted, is entirely different, and more in
+harmony with other societies that have their annual celebration in New
+York City and other places.
+
+It is not necessary to go over the bitter feuds between these and
+the Catholic Irish in the old country. The hates they engendered were
+brought here, but kept from any great outward manifestation, because the
+Orangemen indulged in no public displays. We believe that there had been
+only one procession previous to this. In this year, however, an imposing
+display was resolved upon, but no trouble was anticipated, and no
+precautions taken by the police. It was not proposed to parade the
+streets, but to form, and march in procession up Eighth Avenue, to Elm
+Park, corner of Ninetieth Street and Eighth Avenue, and have a picnic,
+and wind up with a dance. As the procession passed Fourth Street, in
+full Orange regalia, and about twenty-five hundred strong (men, women,
+and children), playing "Boyne Water," "Derry," and other tunes obnoxious
+to the Catholics, some two hundred Irishmen followed it with curses and
+threats.
+
+Violence was, however, not feared, and the procession continued on, and
+at length reached the new Boulevard road, where a large body of Irishmen
+were at work. Beyond, however, the interchange of some words, nothing
+transpired, and it entered the park, and began the festivities of the
+day.
+
+In the meanwhile, however, the rabble that had followed them came upon
+the Ribbonmen at work on the Boulevard road, and persuaded them to throw
+up work and join them, and the whole crowd, numbering probably about
+five hundred, started for the park. The foreman of the gang of three
+hundred workmen saw at once the danger, and hurried to the Thirty-first
+Precinct station, corner of One Hundredth Street and Ninth Avenue, and
+told Captain Helme of the state of things.
+
+The latter immediately thought of the picnic, and, anticipating trouble,
+telegraphed to Jourdan for reinforcements. In the meanwhile, the mob,
+loaded with stones, advanced tumultuously towards the park, within
+which the unsuspecting Orangemen were giving themselves up to enjoyment.
+Suddenly a shower of stones fell among them, knocking over women and
+children, and sending consternation through the crowd. Shouts and curses
+followed, and the Orangemen, rallying, rushed out and fell furiously
+on their assailants. Shovels, clubs, and stones were freely used, and
+a scene of terrific confusion followed. The fight was close and bloody,
+and continued for nearly half an hour, when Sergeant John Kelly, with
+a force of sixteen men, arrived, and rushing in between the combatants,
+separated them, and drove the Orangemen back into the park. The mob then
+divided into two portions, of between two and three hundred each. One
+party went by way of Ninth Avenue, and, breaking down the fence on that
+side, entered the park, and fell with brutal fury on men, women, and
+children alike. A terrible fight followed, and amid the shouts and
+oaths of the men and screams of the women and children, occasional
+pistol-shots were heard, showing that murder was being done. The
+enraged, unarmed Orangemen, wrenched hand rails from the fence, tore up
+small trees, and seized anything and everything that would serve for a
+weapon, and maintained the fight for a half an hour, before the police
+arrived. The second portion went by Eighth Avenue, and intercepted
+a large body of Orangemen that had retreated from the woods, and a
+desperate battle followed. There were only two policemen here, and of
+course could do nothing but stand and look on the murderous conflict.
+In the meantime, the force telegraphed for by Captain. Helme arrived. It
+consisted of twenty men, to which Captain Helme added the reserve
+force, with a sergeant from the Eighth, Ninth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth,
+and Nineteenth Precincts, making in all some fifty men. These he divided
+into two portions, one of which he sent over to Eighth Avenue to protect
+the cars, into which the fugitives were crowding, while the other dashed
+furiously into the park, and fell on the combatants with their clubs.
+They soon cleared a lane between them, when turning on the Ribbonmen,
+they drove them out of the park. They then formed the Orangemen into
+a procession, and escorted them down the city. A portion, however, had
+fled for the Eighth Avenue cars; but a party of Ribbonmen were lying in
+wait here, and another fight followed. Huge stones were thrown through
+the windows of the cars, the sides broken in, over the wreck of which
+the mob rushed, knocking down men, women, and children alike, whose
+shouts, and oaths, and screams could be heard blocks off. The scene was
+terrific, until the arrival of the police put an end to it, and bore the
+dead and wounded away.
+
+About seven o'clock, Superintendent Jourdan arrived in the precinct,
+accompanied by Inspectors Dilks and Walling, and Detectives Farley and
+Avery. In the basement of the Thirty-first Precinct station, on a low
+trestle bed, three bloody corpses were stretched, while the neighboring
+precincts were filled with the wounded. Two more died before morning.
+The street near each station was crowded with Orangemen inquiring after
+friends.
+
+Although no more outbreaks occurred, the most intense excitement
+prevailed among the Irish population of the city, and it was evident
+that it needed only a suitable occasion to bring on another conflict.
+
+THE RIOT OF 1871.
+
+When the next anniversary of the Orangemen came round, it was discovered
+that a conspiracy had been formed by a large body of the Catholic
+population to prevent its public celebration. The air was full of
+rumors, while the city authorities were in possession of the fullest
+evidence that if the Orangemen paraded, they would be attacked, and
+probably many lives be lost. They were in great dilemma as to what
+course to pursue. If they allowed the procession to take place, they
+would be compelled to protect it, and shoot down the men whose votes
+helped largely to place them in power. If they forbade it, they feared
+the public indignation that would be aroused against such a truckling,
+unjust course. As the day drew near, however, and the extensive
+preparations of the Irish Catholics became more apparent, they
+finally determined to risk the latter course, and it was decided that
+Superintendent Kelso should issue an order forbidding the Orangemen to
+parade. This ludicrous attempt on the part of the Mayor to shift the
+responsibility from his own shoulders, awakened only scorn, and the
+appearance of the order was followed by a storm of indignation that was
+appalling. The leading papers, without regard to politics, opened on him
+and his advisers, with such a torrent of denunciations that they quailed
+before it. Processions of all kinds and nationalities were allowed
+on the streets, and to forbid only one, and that because it was
+_Protestant_, was an insult to every American citizen. Even Wall Street
+forgot its usual excitement, and leading men were heard violently
+denouncing this cowardly surrender of Mayor Hall to the threats of a
+mob. An impromptu meeting was called in the Produce Exchange, and a
+petition drawn up, asking the president to call a formal meeting, and
+excited men stood in line two hours, waiting their turn to sign it.
+The building was thronged, and the vice-president called the meeting to
+order, and informed it that the rules required twenty-four hours' notice
+for such a meeting. The members, however, would listen to no delay, and
+with an unanimous and thundering vote, declared the rules suspended. The
+action of the city authorities was denounced in withering terms, and a
+committee of leading men appointed to wait on them, and remonstrate with
+the Mayor. One could scarcely have dreamed that this order would stir
+New York so profoundly. But the people, peculiarly sensitive to any
+attack on religious freedom, were the more fiercely aroused, that in
+this case it was a Catholic mob using the city authority to strike
+down Protestantism. The Mayor and his subordinates were appalled at the
+tempest they had raised, and calling a council, resolved to revoke the
+order. In the meantime, Governor Hoffman was telegraphed to from Albany.
+Hastening to the city, he, after a consultation with Mayor Hall, decided
+to issue the following proclamation:
+
+"Having been only this day apprised, while at the capital, of the
+actual condition of things here, with reference to proposed processions
+to-morrow, and having, in the belief that my presence was needed,
+repaired hither immediately, I do make this proclamation:
+
+"The order heretofore issued by the police authorities, in reference to
+said processions, being duly revoked, I hereby give notice that any
+and all bodies of men desiring to assemble in peaceable procession
+to-morrow, the 12th inst., will be permitted to do so. They will be
+protected to the fullest extent possible by the military and police
+authorities. A police and military escort will be furnished to any body
+of men desiring it, on application to me at my head-quarters (which will
+be at police head-quarters in this city) at any time during the day. I
+warn all persons to abstain from interference with any such assembly or
+procession, except by authority from me; and I give notice that all the
+powers of my command, civil and military, will be used to preserve
+the public peace, and put down at all hazards, every attempt at
+disturbances; and I call upon all citizens, of every race and religion,
+to unite with me and the local authorities in this determination, to
+preserve the peace and honor of the city and State."
+
+Dated at New York, this eleventh day of July, A. D. 1871. JOHN T.
+HOFFMAN.
+
+It was thought by many that this would counteract the effects of the
+cowardly order of the police superintendent. But whatever its effect
+might have been, had it been issued earlier, it now came too late to
+do any good. The preparations of the Roman Catholics were all made. A
+secret circular had fallen into the hands of the police, showing that
+the organization of the rioters was complete-the watchwords and signals
+all arranged, and even the points designated where the attacks on the
+procession were to be made. Arms had been collected and transported
+to certain localities, and everything betokened a stormy morrow.
+Consequently, General Shaler issued orders to the commanders of the
+several regiments of militia, directing them to have their men in
+readiness at their respective armories at 7 o'clock next morning,
+prepared to march at a moment's warning. His head-quarters, like those
+of General Brown in the draft riots, were at the police head-quarters,
+so as to have the use of the police telegraph, in conveying orders to
+different sections of the city. Meanwhile, detachments were placed on
+guard at the different armories, to frustrate any attempt on the part of
+the mob to seize arms.
+
+The night, however, wore quietly away, and in the morning the Governor's
+proclamation appeared in the morning papers, showing the rioters the
+nature of the work before them, if they undertook to carry out their
+infamous plans. It seemed to have no effect, however. Early in the
+morning sullen groups of Irishmen gathered on the corners of the
+streets, where the Irish resided in greatest numbers, among which were
+women, gesticulating and talking violently, apparently wholly unaware
+that the authorities had any power, or, at least, thought they dared
+not use it. Other groups traversed the streets, while at the several
+rendezvous of the Hibernians, many carried muskets or rifles without any
+attempt at concealment. In the upper part of the city, a body of rioters
+began to move southward, compelling all the workmen on their way to
+leave work and join them. One or two armories were attacked, but the
+rioters were easily repulsed. The demonstrations at length became so
+threatening, that by ten o'clock the police seized Hibernia Hall.
+
+About the same time, the Orangemen--who on the issue of Kelso's order
+had determined not to parade but on the appearance of the Governor's
+proclamation changed their mind--began to assemble at Lamartine Hall, on
+the corner of Eighth Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street. Their room was in
+the fourth story, and the delegates from the various lodges brought with
+them their badges and banners, which they displayed from the windows.
+This brought a crowd in front of the building, curious to know what was
+going on in the lodge room. Soon five hundred policemen, ten or fifteen
+of them on horseback, appeared under the command of Inspectors Walling
+and Jamieson, and occupied both sides of Twenty-ninth Street, between
+Eighth and Ninth Avenues. Several policemen also stood on Eighth Avenue,
+while the door of the hall was guarded by others. Inside the hall there
+were probably some seventy-five or a hundred Orangemen, discussing the
+parade. Some stated that a great many, concluding there would be none,
+had gone to their usual work, while others, alarmed at the threats of
+the Hibernians, would not join it. But after some discussion, it was
+resolved, that although the number would be small, they would parade
+at all hazards; and at eleven o'clock the door was thrown open, and
+the Orangemen, wearing orange colors, were admitted, amid the wildest
+cheering. An invitation was sent to the lodges of Jersey City to join
+them, but they declined, preferring to celebrate the day at home.
+
+Two o'clock was the hour fixed upon for the parade to begin, and the
+authorities at police head-quarters were so advised. In the meantime a
+banner had been prepared on which was inscribed in large letters,
+
+"AMERICANS! FREEMEN!! FALL IN!!!"
+
+in order to get accessions from outsiders, but without success.
+
+The line of march finally resolved upon was down Eighth Avenue to
+Twenty-third Street, and up it to Fifth Avenue, down Fifth Avenue to
+Fourteenth Street, along it to Union Square, saluting the Lincoln and
+Washington statues as they passed, and then down Fourth Avenue to Cooper
+Institute, where the procession would break up.
+
+About one o'clock, a party of men came rushing down Eighth Avenue,
+opposite Lamartine Hall, cheering and shouting, led by a man waving a
+sword cane. As he swung it above his head it parted, disclosing a long
+dirk. The police immediately advanced and swept the street. Eighth
+Avenue was cleared from Thirtieth Street to Twenty-eighth Street, and
+the police formed several deep, leaving only room enough for the cars to
+pass.
+
+In the meantime, around police head-quarters, in Mott Street, things
+wore a serious aspect. From six o'clock in the morning, the various
+detachments of police kept arriving until Bleecker, Houston, Mulberry,
+and Mott Streets were dark with the massed battalions, ready to move at
+a moment's notice. Rations were served out to them standing. Early in
+the day, Governor Hoffman and staff arrived, and were quartered in the
+Superintendent's room, while General Shaler and staff were quartered in
+the fire marshal's office. Commissioners Manierre, Smith, and Barr were
+in their own rooms, receiving reports from the various precincts
+over the wires. A little after nine a dispatch came, stating that the
+quarrymen near Central Park had quitted work, and were gathering
+in excited groups, swearing that the Orangemen should not parade.
+Immediately Inspector Jamieson, with two hundred and fifty policemen,
+was despatched in stages to Forty-seventh Street and Eighth Avenue, to
+watch the course of events. Another dispatch stated that an attack
+was threatened on Harper's building, in Franklin Square, and Captain
+Allaire, of the Seventh Precinct, was hurried off with fifty men
+to protect it. A little later came the news that the Orangemen had
+determined to parade at two o'clock, and a police force of five hundred,
+as we have already stated, were massed in Eighth Avenue, opposite
+Lamartine Hall. About noon, a body of rioters made an attack on the
+armory, No. 19 Avenue A, in which were a hundred and thirty-eight stands
+of arms. Fortunately, the janitor of the building saw them in time to
+fasten the doors before they reached it, and then ran to the
+nearest police-station for help, from which a dispatch was sent to
+head-quarters. Captain Mount, with a hundred policemen, was hurried off
+to the threatened point. He arrived, before the doors were broken in,
+and falling on the rioters with clubs, drove them in all directions.
+During the forenoon, Drill-captain Copeland was given five Companies,
+and told to seize Hibernia Hall, where arms were being distributed. As
+he approached, he ordered the mob to disperse, but was answered with
+taunts and curses, while the women hurled stones at his face. He then
+gave the order to charge, when the men fell on the crowd with such fury,
+that they broke and fled in wild confusion. Meanwhile, the detectives
+had been busy, and secured eighteen of the ring-leaders, whom they
+marched to police head-quarters.
+
+As the hour for the procession to form drew near, the most intense
+excitement prevailed at police head-quarters, and the telegraph was
+watched with anxious solicitude. The terrible punishment inflicted on
+the rioters in 1863 seemed to have been forgotten by the mob, and it
+had evidently resolved to try once more its strength with the city
+authorities. Around the Orange head-quarters a still deeper excitement
+prevailed. The hum of the vast multitude seemed like the first
+murmurings of the coming storm, and many a face turned pale as the
+Orangemen, with their banners and badges, only ninety in all, passed out
+of the door into the street. John Johnston, their marshal, mounted on
+a spirited horse, placed himself at their head. In a few minutes, the
+bayonets of the military force designed to act as an escort could
+be seen flashing in the sun, as the troops with measured tread moved
+steadily forward. Crowds followed them on the sidewalks, or hung from
+windows and house-tops, while low curses could be heard on every side,
+especially when the Twenty-second Regiment deliberately loaded their
+pieces with ball and cartridge. The little band of Orangemen looked
+serious but firm, while the military officers showed by their
+preparations and order that they expected bloody work. The Orangemen
+formed line in Twenty-ninth Street, close to the Eighth Avenue, and
+flung their banners to the breeze. A half an hour later, they were ready
+to march, and at the order wheeled into Eighth Avenue. At that instant a
+single shot rang out but a few rods distant. Heads were turned anxiously
+to see who was hit. More was expected as the procession moved on. A
+strong body of police marched in advance. Next came the Ninth Regiment,
+followed at a short interval by the Sixth. Then came more police,
+followed by the little band of Orangemen, flanked on either side, so as
+fully to protect them, by the Twenty-second and Eighty-fourth Regiments.
+To these succeeded more police. The imposing column was closed up by
+the Seventh Regiment, arresting all eyes by its even tread and martial
+bearing. The sidewalks, doorsteps, windows, and roofs were black with
+people. The band struck up a martial air, and the procession moved on
+towards Twenty-eighth Street. Just before they reached it, another shot
+rang clear and sharp above the music. No one was seen to fall, and the
+march continued. At the corner of Twenty-seventh Street, a group of
+desperate-looking fellows were assembled on a wooden shed that projected
+over the sidewalk. Warned to get down and go away, they hesitated, when
+a company of soldiers levelled their pieces at them. Uttering defiant
+threats, they hurried down and disappeared. As the next corner was
+reached, another shot was fired, followed by a shower of stones. A scene
+of confusion now ensued. The police fell on the bystanders occupying the
+sidewalks, and clubbed them right and left without distinction, and the
+order rolled down the line to the inmates of the houses to shut their
+windows. Terror now took the place of curiosity; heads disappeared, and
+the quick, fierce slamming of blinds was heard above the uproar blocks
+away. The procession kept on till it reached Twenty-fourth Street,
+when a halt was ordered. The next moment a shot was fired from the
+second-story windows of a house on the north-east corner. It struck the
+Eighty-fourth Regiment, and in an instant a line of muskets was pointed
+at the spot, as though the order to fire was expected. One gun went off,
+when, without orders, a sudden, unexpected volley rolled down the line
+of the Sixth, Ninth, and Eighty-fourth Regiments. The officers were
+wholly taken by surprise at this unprecedented conduct; but, recovering
+themselves, rushed among the ranks and shouted out their orders to cease
+firing. But the work was done; and as the smoke slowly lifted in the hot
+atmosphere, a scene of indescribable confusion presented itself. Men,
+women, and children, screaming in wild terror, were fleeing in every
+direction; the strong trampling down the weak, while eleven corpses lay
+stretched on the sidewalk, some piled across each other. A pause of a
+few minutes now followed, while the troops reloaded their guns. A new
+attack was momentarily expected, and no one moved from the ranks to
+succor the wounded or lift up the dead. Here a dead woman lay across a
+dead man; there a man streaming with blood was creeping painfully up a
+doorstep, while crouching, bleeding forms appeared in every direction.
+Women from the windows looked down on the ghastly spectacle,
+gesticulating wildly. The police now cleared the avenue and side
+streets, when, the dead and wounded were attended to, and the order
+to move on was given. General Varian, indignant at the conduct of the
+Eighty-fourth in firing first without orders, sent it to the rear, and
+replaced it on the flank of the Orangemen with a portion of the
+Ninth. The procession, as it now resumed its march and moved through
+Twenty-fourth Street, was a sad and mournful one. The windows were
+filled with spectators, and crowds lined the sidewalks, but all were
+silent and serious. Not till it reached Fifth Avenue Hotel were
+there any greetings of welcome. Here some three thousand people were
+assembled, who rent the air with cheers. No more attacks were made, and
+it reached Cooper Institute and disbanded without any further incident.
+
+In the meantime, the scene at the Bellevue Hospital was a sad and
+painful one. The ambulances kept discharging their bloody loads at the
+door, and groans of distress and shrieks of pain filled the air. Long
+rows of cots, filled with mangled forms, were stretched on every side,
+while the tables were covered with bodies, held down, as the surgeons
+dressed their wounds. The dead were carried to the Morgue, around which,
+as night came on, a clamorous crowd was gathered, seeking admission, to
+look after their dead friends. A similar crowd gathered at the door of
+the Mount Sinai Hospital, filling the air with cries and lamentations.
+As darkness settled over the city, wild, rough-looking men from the
+lowest ranks of society gathered in the street where the slaughter took
+place, among whom were seen bare-headed women roaming about, making
+night hideous with their curses.
+
+A pile of dead men's hats stood on the corner of Eighth Avenue and
+Twenty-fifth Street untouched, and pale faces stooped over pools of
+blood on the pavement. The stores were all shut; and everything wore
+a gloomy aspect. The police stood near, revealed in the lamplight, but
+made no effort to clear the street. It seemed at one time that a serious
+outbreak would take place, but the night passed off quietly, and the
+riot was ended, and the mob once more taught the terrible lesson it is
+so apt to forget.
+
+Two of the police and military were killed, and twenty-four wounded;
+while of the rioters thirty-one were killed, and sixty-seven
+wounded--making in all one hundred and twenty-eight victims.
+
+There was much indignation expressed at the troops for firing without
+orders, and firing so wildly as to shoot some of their own men. It was,
+of course, deserving the deepest condemnation, yet it may have saved
+greater bloodshed. The fight evidently did not occur at the expected
+point, and doubtless the result here, prevented one where the mob was
+better organized, and would have made a more stubborn resistance.
+
+That innocent persons were killed is true; but if they will mingle in
+with a mob, they must expect to share its fate, and alone must bear the
+blame. Troops are called out to fire on the people if they persist in
+violation of the peace and rights of the community. Of this all are
+fully aware, and hence take the risk of being shot. Soldiers cannot be
+expected to discriminate in a mob. If the military are not to fire on
+a crowd of rioters until no women and children, can be seen in it, they
+had better stay at home.
+
+To a casual observer, this calling out of seven hundred policemen and
+several regiments of soldiers, in order to let ninety men take a foolish
+promenade through a few streets, would seem a very absurd and useless
+display of the power of the city; and the killing of sixty or seventy
+men a heavy price to pay for such an amusement. But it was not ninety
+Orangemen only that those policemen and soldiers enclosed and shielded.
+They had in their keeping the laws and authority of the city, set at
+defiance by a mob, and also the principle of religious toleration and
+of equal rights, which were of more consequence than the lives of ten
+thousand men. The day when New York City allows itself to be dictated
+to by a mob, and Protestants not be permitted to march as such quietly
+through the streets, her prosperity and greatness will come to an end.
+The taking of life is a serious thing, but it is not to weigh a moment
+against the preservation of authority and the supremacy of the law.
+
+One thing should not be overlooked--the almost universal faithfulness
+of the Roman Catholic Irish police to their duty. In this, as well as
+in the draft riots, they have left a record of which, any city might be
+proud. To defend Protestant Irishmen against Roman Catholic friends and
+perhaps relatives, is a severe test of fidelity; but the Irish police
+have stood it nobly, and won the regard of all good citizens. [Footnote:
+Twenty-four pages are here added to correct the omission in paging the
+engravings.]
+
+[Illustration: RECEIVING AND REMOVING DEAD BODIES IN THE MORGUE.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Riots of New York 1712 to
+1873, by J.T. Headley
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