Manhattan

by Michael Grant

  The business of hauling freight had become so lucrative that Michael decided he had to hire more men. He didn’t make that decision lightly. He hadn’t forgotten how he’d lost the business the last time he’d hired additional men and tried to expand the business. But this time it was different. After the war, Gaylord had assured him, with all those newly minted millionaires, there would be a building boom. Michael certainly hoped that would be the case, but in the meantime, he needed more workers right now.

  He was in his office only half listening to Flynn, whom he’d posted outside and assigned him to interview prospective new workers. Michael would have the final say on any man Flynn found acceptable.

  Flynn was ruthless in his role. All day long, Michael heard him pass withering judgment on the unworthy: “You’re too old.” “You’re too young.” “Man, I don’t think you could pick up a bag of sand.” And on it went. But then, toward the end of the day, just as Michael was finishing up an interview, he heard Flynn say to someone, “We don’t hire niggers. Off with you.”

  An angry Michael stood up. “All right, Cleary, you’re hired. You’ll start Monday.” As the happy man was going out the door, Michael called out, “Flynn, get in here.”

  Flynn came in. “You wanted to see me?”

  “Did I hear you tell someone we don’t hire Negroes?”

  “You did. Sure, the niggers are unreliable, Michael. They don’t show up for work because they’re too drunk or they got thrown into jail for beating their women. We don’t need their likes here.”

  Michael slammed his hand down on the desk. “Flynn, what the hell is the matter with you? Those were the kinds of words that were thrown in my face when I first came to this country looking for work. Have you forgotten the No Irish Need Apply signs?”

  Flynn hung his head. “I did not.”

  “All right, get back to work and know this: I’ll hire any Negro who can do the work.”

  As Flynn got to the door, he turned, “Ach, it wouldn’t have worked out anyways, Michael. The man’s right hand was nothin’ but a claw. How could he do a decent day’s work, I ask ya?”

  Michael jumped up. “Claw? Was he a big man?”

  “Aye. He was that.”

  Without another word, Michael raced out of his office and into the street. He looked up and down, hoping to see a large Negro. But there was none in sight. He ran to the corner of John Street and there, about a block away, was the unmistakable gate of Kitch, lumbering up the street among a crowd of workmen and shoppers.

  Michael raced after him, shoving pedestrians and peddlers aside. “Kitch, Kitch,” he shouted over the clatter of a thousand iron wheels grinding on the cobblestone street.

  Kitch turned around and in an instant recognized Michael. “Mikill,” he said, a wide grin spreading across his face, “my old friend!”

  Michael, panting from the run, slapped him on his broad back. “Kitch, am I glad to see you. Come on back to my office. We need to talk.”

  In amazement, Kitch looked around Michael’s office and shook his head. “So, you own all this?”

  “Not exactly, I have a note to pay off first.”

  “When I came in here looking for work, I had no idea you were the owner. Damn!”

  “Please forgive my employee when he said we don’t hire Negroes. He was wrong and he shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Mikill, I don’t pay that no never mind. I hears that all the time.”

  “Well, you won’t hear it here.” After a moment’s pause, Michael said, “You weren’t there my last day at Clayton’s. I went back several times looking for you, but no one knew what happened to you.”

  “I was mighty sick, Mikill. Some kind of evil ailment ran through my tenement sickenin’ and killin’ I don’t know how many. I was vomitin’ for days and my legs, Lordy, how my legs hurt. I thought I was gonna die for sure, but somehow, I didn’t. After, some people from somethin’ called the sanitation commission paid a visit to the buildin’. They said it was cholera. They said we shouldn’t be drinkin’ bad water. Well, how’s I supposed to know good water from bad water? Best I can tell, all the water in the Five Points is bad.”

  “Well, I’m just glad you’re all right. How would you like a job?”

  “You mean, here with you?”

  “Here with me.”

  Kitch’s face widened in a broad grin. “Well, I reckon I would.”

  At Sunday dinner, the talk was all about the unpopular draft laws enacted in March of 1863.

  “Who does this draft law affect?” Letta asked.

  “Every male citizen between ages twenty and forty-five,” Gaylord responded.

  “I had to sign up,” Otto said glumly.

  “I had to sign up myself,” Michael said, indignantly. “I’m forty-two with a wife and four children and they want to send me off to war?”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about getting drafted,” Henrietta said. “I believe they want the young men.”

  “That’s almost as bad. Am I going to lose all my men again? I’ll be ruined.”

  “You won’t be able to stop your young workers from being drafted,” Gaylord agreed. “However, what I find most troublesome is the provision that allows a man to buy his way out of the draft for three hundred dollars.”

  Cully was aghast. “That’s outrageous. Why, that’s a years’ wages for most men.”

  “True enough, and Andrew Carnegie and JP Morgan have already availed themselves of the provision and hired substitutes.”

  “Aye,” Michael said bitterly. “That’s what it’s all about—a way out for the rich.”

  “And speaking of the rich, “Gaylord added, “what could Secretary Chase have been thinking when he ordered a three-thousand-dollar shawl from A.T. Stewart’s for his daughter in a time of war?”

  “My God,” Emily exclaimed, “that represents the price of ten men’s lives,”

  “I doubt he gave it much thought,” Michael added.

  Gaylord poured more wine into his glass. “It’s not just the three-hundred-dollar clause that’s provoking the people. The draft also excludes Negroes.”

  Michael shook his head in agreement. “Just yesterday, I heard a man up on a soap box complaining about that very thing. His point was why should white men go fight to free Negroes so they can come north and take their jobs away from them.”

  “It’s a sore point,” Gaylord admitted. “As far as the draft is concerned, I think we’ll have all the answers soon enough. The lottery is to begin next Saturday.”

  “Where?” Cully asked.

  Gaylord chuckled. “The Ninth Ward headquarters up on Third Avenue and Forty-Seventh Street.”

  “Why that’s an area of nothing but vacant lots and the odd building,” Otto noted.

  “Exactly. And I do believe that is intentional. This draft lottery is a touchy business. They want to stay away from the crowds downtown.”

  The following Saturday morning, at Horace Greeley’s instruction, Gaylord went up to the Ninth Ward to cover the proceedings. In spite of the desolate location, a large crowd had gathered, but they were mostly curious rather than angry. The provost marshal began reading off names drawn from a large barrel. By the end of the day, twelve hundred thirty-six names had been selected. Gaylord was relieved that there had been no disturbance.

  The next day, Sunday, he toured the city’s bars and taverns. Everywhere he went, men and women were pouring over the names listed in the newspapers. Getting drunk on whiskey and beer, they denounced the draft in colorful, if angry, words.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Monday morning was miserably hot and muggy. At six o’clock, Gaylord joined hundreds of men and women streaming north along Eighth Avenue beating on copper pots and waving NO DRAFT signs as they marched to the Ninth Ward headquarters.

  At 10:30, a nervous provost, guarded by 60 equally nervous policemen, and watched by an angry crowd, began to draw more names from the drum.

  Just then, Gaylord spotted the
Black Joke Engine Company in full regalia, marching up Third Avenue. He was not surprised to see them. Sunday night he’d spend the evening in a saloon frequented by the volunteer firemen. They were furious because they’d been led to believe they were exempt from the draft. But that turned out not to be true and several of their men had been selected on Saturday. As the night wore on and they got drunker and drunker, some of the more vocal members bellowed that they should march on the draft location in the morning to not only halt the draft proceedings, but to destroy all evidence that their members had been selected.

  As soon as the firemen got to the site, they began to stone the building. The undermanned police were no match for the angry men and were driven off. The firemen smashed the draft wheel, swarmed into the building and poured turpentine everywhere, and set fire to the building. Then they waited outside to drive off any fire company that would dare show up to put out the fire.

  Encouraged by the actions of the firemen, the crowd quickly became a witless mob. Women, using sticks, began tearing up cobblestones that the men hurled through windows. While this was going on, a man in a buggy came galloping up Third Avenue. Gaylord recognized Superintendent of Police John Kennedy. What in the world, he wondered, did he think he was going to accomplish against this mob?

  He had barely stopped his buggy when someone recognized him. “It’s Kennedy,” a man shouted. “That sonofabitch is with the police. Let’s get him.”

  The crazed mob swarmed the buggy, pulling Kennedy down to the ground. Dozens of men and women attacked the helpless man with sticks, bricks, and knives. When they finally left him, he was unconscious and almost unrecognizable. His clothes had been ripped from his body and he was covered in blood and mud. Gaylord dragged the superintendent to the buggy and lifted him inside. Then, taking the reins, he turned the wagon around and sped south for the police station on West Thirty-Fifth Street.

  The newspaperman galloped past a band of rioters who were tearing up tracks and cutting telegraph lines that connected local police precincts to the central office. Another mob shouting “Kill all niggers!” pulled Negro men and women off omnibuses and beat them. A fringe group, standing in the middle of the street, tried to stop the buggy. Gaylord, realizing that if they stopped him they would beat him to a pulp, put the whip to the horse and anyone who tried to grab the reins. As he scattered the mob, a rock crashed into the side of his head. Brushing the blood out of his eyes, he continued down Third Avenue.

  After he handed off the unconscious Kennedy to a squad of policemen, he went directly to Michael’s house.

  Emily opened the door and was shocked at the sight of Gaylord. He was deathly pale. Blood streamed down his forehead and the front of his coat was smeared with blood. “My God, what’s happened to you?”

  “All hell is breaking lose in the city. There are mobs roaming the streets attacking Negroes and anyone they think is rich. They almost killed a superintendent of police. Buildings are being set on fire. Where are your children?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Good. Keep them in the house. No one is safe on the streets.”

  “I will. Let me get you cleaned up.”

  “No time. I’ve got to get back out there.”

  “In the name of God why?”

  “Because I’m a newspaperman. I’m scared to death, Emily, but it’s what I do.”

  “Well, for God’s sake be careful.”

  “I will. Remember what I said. Under no circumstances allow the children to leave the house.”

  “I won’t.” As soon as he was gone, she bolted the door.

  She called all the children into the kitchen. “Mr. Temple was just here. No one will go out of this house today. There are some very bad things going on in the streets.”

  “What’s happening,” Eleanor asked.

  “People are rioting.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s complicated, but it has something to do with men not wanting to get drafted.”

  “Are they burning down buildings?” Dermot asked, his eyes bright with excitement.

  “That’s none of your concern.”

  “I smell burning outside. They must be burning buildings nearby. Why can’t me and my friends just go see what’s going on?”

  “Because I told you. It’s too dangerous. We will all remain in this house until we are told that it’s safe to go out.”

  “How long will that be?” Dermot persisted.

  “I don’t know.”

  With a look of concern on his face, Peter said, “Where’s Da?”

  “I don’t know, Peter. I’m sure he’s safe and he knows enough to come home if he thinks it isn’t. Now, all of you, go to your rooms and play.”

  Michael and his men were at Hudson River pier loading wagons when a mob appeared at the top of the street. Carrying torches and chanting, “Down with the draft…Burn down the rich man’s warehouses … “Kill all the niggers …” as they advanced toward the pier.

  Michael whispered to Kitch. “Get inside.”

  Kitch tensed. “I ain’t ‘fraid of dem, Mikill.”

  “Kitch, do as I say. Get inside the pier and out of sight.”

  As Kitch did as he was told, the mob, seeing the pier, broke into a trot, chanting, “Burn it down ... Burn it down …”

  Michael turned to his men and said calmly, “Grab a tool and spread out.”

  Silently, the men picked up axes and hammers and formed a line in front of the wagons. As the mob reached the pier, Michael shouted out, “Move on, the lot of you. Any man who tries to put a torch to this pier will answer to me and my men.”

  A large, burly drunk, apparently the leader of the mob, stepped forward. “Get the hell out of the way, damn you. Why are you protecting the rich man’s property?”

  Michael took a step forward and pointed his axe at the man. “You take one more step and I will split your skull with this axe.” As he said that, his men inched forward, itching for a fight. They knew that if the mob had its way, they would burn the pier and their wagons, the source of their livelihood.

  The mob leader, realizing that these wagon drivers couldn’t be intimidated, turned away. “Come on,” he shouted to the others, “there’s plenty more that can be burned down.”

  After they’d gone, Kitch came out and there were tears in his eyes. “Mikill, I will never hide from white trash like dem again.”

  “You won’t have to. I think this might have something to do with the draft. I want you to go to my house now and stay there till this madness blows over.”

  “I can go to my room in the Five Points.”

  Flynn, who’d been listening to the conversation, shook his head. “Too dangerous, Kitch.”

  “All right, Mikill. I’ll go to your house after the day’s work is done.”

  “You’ll go now. I don’t know what’s going on, but I want you off the streets.”

  As Kitch started up the street reluctantly, Michael shouted after him, “Be careful, Kitch.”

  Kitch waved and disappeared around a corner.

  After Michael and his crew unloaded their cargo at the rail yards, Michael said, “Let’s get the wagons back to the warehouse.”

  As they moved through the streets of downtown Manhattan, they encountered robbing bands of drunken men and women setting fire to buildings.

  When they got to the warehouse, Michael said, “Everybody go home. It’s too dangerous to continue working.”

  “What are you going to do?” Flynn asked.

  “I’m going to stay here. If a drunken mob has a mind to burn down my property, they’ll have to go through me.”

  “I’ll stay with you,” Flynn said without hesitation. He turned to the other men. “What about you lot?”

  Without a word, every man raised his hand.

  The men barricaded the doors and windows and formed a line outside. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of burning wood. To Michael’s relief, Pearl Street was deserted. But how long would that last, he wo
ndered?

  While rioting occurred in many parts of the city, none of it was coordinated. The central cause of the riots was opposition to the draft, but each individual mob selected individual targets. Homes of wealthy men were looted and burned by some. Others attacked businesses and warehouses. While still others roamed the streets looking for Negroes.

  Around four in the afternoon, Gaylord caught up with a mob of several hundred men, women, and children all armed with sticks and cobblestones and streaming up Fifth Avenue. When they got to the Colored Orphan Asylum at Fifth Avenue and Forty-Third Street, the leader of the mob stopped in front of the large four-story building surrounded by grounds and gardens. Raising a torch, he cried out, “Look, the nigger kids’ home is right here. Let’s burn it down.”

  Knowing that there could be hundreds of children inside, Gaylord watched in horror as the mob hurled themselves against the building. Three swings of an axe and the front door came crashing down. Gaylord followed a stream of wild-eyed men, women, and children as they swarmed into the building. A dismayed Gaylord watched as they proceeded to ransack the building and set it on fire.

  While the mob was busy looting and setting fires, Gaylord made his way through the building looking for the children. He found about two hundred of them huddled in the basement, protected by the superintendent of the asylum and his assistants, who, pathetically, considering who they were up against, had armed themselves with brooms.

  “What are you doing here? You must get the children out of here.”

  “We’re afraid to take the children out into the street,” the terrified superintendent said.

  “But you can’t stay here. They’re burning the building.”

  Gaylord opened the back door. “Come. Right now, the mob is busy looting upstairs, but if they come down here …” He left the rest of the sentence unsaid, but the superintendent understood exactly what he was getting at.

  “Where can we go?”

  Gaylord thought for a moment. “The safest place is a police station. There’s one on West Thirty-Fifth Street. Quickly, we have no time to lose.”