The Devil's Own Work

by Barnet Schecter

  From Iowa City, a telegram to Secretary of War Stanton spoke for all the rest: "The enforcement of the draft throughout the country depends upon its enforcement in New York City. If it can be successfully resisted there, it cannot be enforced elsewhere. For God's sake let there be no compromising or half-way measures."39

  Following events from the South, Edmund Ruffin came to a similar conclusion from opposite motives, writing hopefully in his diary that "the timidity & forbearance" of the authorities in New York would trigger rioting all over the North. Ruffin predicted that the damage from the New York riot to "Lincoln's government, & Yankeedom" would be greater than the ravages of one hundred thousand Confederate troops; far worse would be the impact on the Union's reputation and moral standing in the eyes of the world. Ruffin wrote, "I shall await the consummation most anxiously—& earnestly," "though but faintly hoping that the atrocity & rage of the mob may be so extended, & unrestrained, as [to] lay in ashes the whole of the great city of New York, with all its appendages & wealth, as just retribution for its share of the outrages perpetrated on the people of the South."40

  *Leroy Street is on Manhattan's Lower West Side.

  *Sullivan Street straddles today's SoHo and Greenwich Village neighborhoods; Roosevelt Street lay due east of City Hall, just north of the Brooklyn Bridge, which in 1863 had not yet been built.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Police Cannot Much Longer

  Sustain the Contest

  hile the New York rioters tried to burn the bridge that linked Manhattan to the mainland on Monday night, Robert E. Lee's forces were at the Maryland border, stealthily building a pontoon bridge they hoped would be the army's lifeline, securing its escape to Virginia.

  New York militiaman George Wingate recalled the mood in camp. "All were in high spirits. It was universally supposed that the rains had made the Potomac unfordable, 'and that Lee was a goner this time sure'; but as hour after hour passed without a sound of the heavy cannonading which marks 'the battle's opening roar,' and rumor after rumor filled the air, the talk, as time lengthened, grew less and less hopeful." While the militiamen waited in vain for the order to attack the trapped enemy backed up against the swollen river, the Confederates had begun to cross over to Virginia.1

  By 11 a.m. on Tuesday, July 14, Lee's entire army, except a five-hundred-man rear guard, had escaped across the Potomac into Virginia, and the pontoon bridge was destroyed. During the afternoon, Wingate wrote, "we learned definitely that 'the play was played out.' Lee was gone, boots and baggage, and our hopes of taking a hand in the contest which would probably have decided the war, were gone with him."2

  Lincoln was irate and ready to fire Meade but decided to check his anger and give the victor of Gettysburg another chance. The militia units still supporting Meade in Maryland "chafed" to go home and put down the riots, which they had just learned about from the Baltimore papers on Tuesday morning. John Lock-wood of the Twenty-third Regiment wrote that the news "created somewhat of a stir in camp as may be imagined," the men thinking of their homes "exposed to the tender mercies of mob law, and we, to whom the city was accustomed to look for protection against such violence, unable to defend them."

  Having patriotically marched to destroy the invading rebels, Lockwood wrote, "and now to be assailed by this dastardly fire in the rear made us turn with even sharper vengeance against the insurgents at home." The men were eager "to be seen marching up Broadway with firm step to the rescue of our dishonored metropolis."3

  Similarly, Wingate wrote that the day they learned of the riots "was the first, and we hope the only time in our lives, that anyone was heard to say that he felt ashamed to think that he had been born in the city of New York." Having read about the riots in the Herald, which complained that the "military fired on the people," Wingate wrote, the militiamen were ready to gun down the editors, "for a more angry set of men" than this division "was never seen.4

  The army, however, was only willing to send five regiments of militia back to New York right away, the elite Seventh, and four others that did not include Lockwood's or Wingate's. The news of Lee's escape would not reach New York until Tuesday night, and the first of the returning troops, traveling by train and boat, would not arrive until Wednesday night. In the interim, the mayor, the governor, the police, and the military had to cope—in their various ways—with the escalating violence in the streets.5

  "Just as the City Hall clock struck twelve," at noon on Tuesday, the World reported, "a large crowd, composed mainly of mechanics, gathered about the Tribune office, apparently as if by previous arrangement. A man mounted the door step of the office and began haranguing the assemblage in favor of sacking the establishment, when the cry was raised, 'Governor Seymour,' 'Governor Seymour,' and away ran the crowd to the park."6

  Governor Seymour, who was traveling to see relatives in New Jersey when the riots broke out and had to be contacted on the road, did not arrive in the city until Tuesday morning. He might have arrived almost a day earlier if he had taken a direct route and not chosen to spend Monday night in New Jersey. Republicans quickly seized on his tardiness as evidence of his sympathy for the rioters, while the World countered that he had spent the previous week in the city tending to the harbor defenses and had left on Friday, July 10, without any warning from federal authorities that they were about to implement the draft.7

  William Tweed, who had been out on the streets since the riots began, trying to calm his constituents and keep abreast of events, met the governor at the ferry and escorted him to the St. Nicholas Hotel, where he joined Mayor Opdyke for a closed-door meeting. Just before noon, Seymour walked down Broadway without a guard or police escort to City Hall. Along with the mayor and a few other officials, including Tweed and District Attorney A. Oakey Hall, Seymour mounted the front steps. Mayor Opdyke looked "ghastly white," and his hands trembled, according to one reporter. "In his person he symbolized the fear that possessed the town." Seymour, by contrast, appeared calm. He addressed the cheering throng as "My friends" and launched into a speech.8*

  "I call on the people to maintain law and order . . . for your salvation depends on this. Anarchy will be ruin," Seymour declared. "If the conscription law will not bear the test of the courts and the Constitution, it will not be enforced," Seymour promised his listeners, "but if upheld by the courts, then the state and city authorities will combine for the purpose of equalizing the tax and making it bear proportionately on the rich and the poor." The crowd cheered loudly.9

  After the speech, Seymour conferred with Mayor Opdyke, military leaders, and other local officials, telling them he deemed martial law a last resort, and Opdyke still shared the governor's conciliatory approach. Intent on forestalling federal intervention and keeping the city in Democratic hands, the governor then issued a proclamation that placed him in command of enforcing law and order in the city, the local authorities being overwhelmed.

  It urged the rioters and all citizens to return to their homes and jobs on pain of full prosecution under the law, but also promised that the rights of every draftee would be protected by the courts of New York State. For residents willing to serve on civilian patrols and volunteer military regiments, Seymour announced meeting places where they would be deputized. Seymour also sent a message to Archbishop John Hughes entreating him, as a leader of the Irish Catholic community, to call on the rioters to desist.10

  Seymour got into a carriage with Tweed, and "amid the cheers of the multitude that thronged about the vehicle," they set off on a tour of the city, accompanied by other Democratic officials. The governor was cheered throughout the excursion and gave two more speeches, one on Wall Street, and the other to workers uptown on the West Side. Aside from President Lincoln and federal officials, Seymour had the greatest power to determine the government's handling of the draft riots, and by his words and actions, he endorsed the conciliatory approach of men like Judge Barnard and others who had addressed the crowds on Monday.11

  cartoon of Governor Seymour addr
essing a crowd during the draft riots

  Seymour set up his own headquarters at the Saint Nicholas Hotel on Tuesday, where he conferred with Samuel Barlow, General George McClellan, and other prominent Democrats, many of whom he sent as his emissaries to flash points across the city, where they persuaded mobs to disperse. Uptown, small-business and property owners along with clergymen also addressed the mobs, offering help in opposing the draft's three-hundred-dollar clause in exchange for an end to the violence. One such meeting drew up a petition to the city government calling for a suspension of the draft and an appropriation from the Common Council to pay the commutation fees of workers if the courts ultimately declared the conscription law to be constitutional.12

  Catholic priests also intervened successfully at Columbia College on East Forty-ninth Street, where botany professor John Torrey reported, "The mob had been in the College Grounds, & came to our house—wishing to know if a republican lived there, & what the College building was used for."* The rioters declared they would burn President Charles King's house "as he was rich, & a decided republican." However, "the rioters were induced to go away by one or two Catholic priests, who made pacific speeches to them."13

  Maria Daly concluded that "Catholic priests have done their duty as Christian ministers in denouncing these riotous proceedings. One of them remonstrated with a woman in the crowd who wanted to cut off the ears of a Negro [who] was hung. The priest told her that Negroes had souls. 'Sure, your reverence,' said she, 'I thought they only had gizzards.' "14

  Despite the occasional successes of Democratic leaders and Catholic priests in mollifying the rioters, on the whole, the violence continued to escalate. At about the time that Seymour addressed the crowd at City Hall, rioters across the city stepped up their quest for firearms by raiding gun retailers' shops. Gun stores had sprung up all over the city during the war and carried large inventories to meet the growing demand. Fortunately for the city, the stores did not keep much ammunition or gunpowder on hand, and the biggest gun dealers were in the Wall Street area—the best-defended in the city.15 By noon, heavy defenses were in place at government facilities. A navy gunboat in the East River at the foot of Wall Street stood ready to mow down any rioters that crossed its path, while marines equipped with artillery protected the government's gold in the U.S. Sub-Treasury at Wall and Broad Streets.16†

  Unlike the saloonkeepers and small-property owners uptown, who negotiated with the rioters, wealthy Republican merchants and financiers on Wall Street banded together to form civilian patrols. William Dodge, vice president of the Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Union League Club, and his allies dominated the meeting at the Merchants' Exchange on Broadway but could not get a unanimous vote in favor of federal intervention. Over cries of "no" from their more conservative colleagues, the merchants resolved to "recommend to the proper authorities the consideration and the propriety of declaring martial law in this city."17

  Dodge and several other prominent businessmen also addressed a crowd from the steps of the U.S. Sub-Treasury, denouncing the rioters and rallying support for the Union cause. By publicly calling for a swift, forceful response to the mobs, and having their words reported in the newspapers, the speakers risked reprisals against their homes and businesses. Many wealthy men chose instead to leave the city or remain hidden until the riots were over.18

  Colonel O'Brien's cursing of the mob, followed by his orders to open fire on Second Avenue that morning, had marked him for revenge. When he recklessly returned to his neighborhood alone at about 2 p.m., he may have intended to check on his family, unaware that they had escaped to Brooklyn that morning after the mob sacked his house. Coming out of a drugstore, O'Brien cocked his pistol to intimidate the crowd that had gathered around the door. When a woman threw a stone at him, he fired low and the bullet ricocheted off the ground into her knee.

  "She instantly fell, and from that moment the Colonel's fate was sealed," according to the Tribune. The mob knocked O'Brien to the ground and beat him unconscious with bricks and clubs. "Yelling like so many devils, three or four men seized the Colonel by his hair and dragged him into the street," the Evening Post reported. When the druggist tried to intervene and give O'Brien some water, the mob ransacked his store. After torturing the colonel's body for several hours, they dragged him into an alley and stood guard over their prize, smashing his head on the pavement when periodic groans indicated he was still alive.

  Father Clowry, an Irish Catholic priest, also tried to stop the murder, but his pleas were ignored, and the mutilation continued for a few more hours. Clowry knelt down in the street and administered the last rites to O'Brien just before he died. When the mob was distracted by a commotion elsewhere, Clowry and another priest, with the help of some neighbors, hefted the enormous corpse onto a handcart and wheeled it to the morgue at Bellevue hospital. "He was terribly mangled," the Tribune reported after talking to Clowry, "and his body was almost naked and covered with gore."19

  O'Brien's murder was one of many fierce encounters unfolding across the city. Also at about 2 p.m., rioters on Sixth and Second Avenues coalesced into one enormous mob around several opulent Fifth Avenue mansions in the area of Forty-sixth Street that they believed were owned by prominent Republicans. "On my reporting to General Brown, I was ordered to proceed with my company to Forty-sixth Street, where the mob was burning buildings," Captain H. R. Putnam of the Twelfth U.S. Infantry recalled. He and his eighty-two men had arrived in the city Monday night, only to be sent by General Wool on a pointless march from the St. Nicholas Hotel to City Hall, back to the hotel, and finally to 300 Mulberry Street. They would march some twelve miles on Tuesday fighting the rioters.20

  A rising star in the military, Putnam was in charge of the fort at Sandy Hook, the gateway to New York's waters from the Atlantic Ocean. The captain exhibited the best qualities of his legendary ancestor, Major General Israel Putnam, the fearless Revolutionary War hero. Wounded during the Battle of Bull Run, Captain Putnam had nonetheless dragged others to safety.21

  At Forty-sixth Street, Putnam's troops "found the mob in strong force, burning and destroying property," he reported. He was joined by sixty patrolmen under Captain George Walling, who estimated the crowd at more than two thousand people. "I shouted at the top of my voice," Walling recalled, "so that the rioters could hear me: 'Kill every man who has a club! Double quick! Charge!'" The police and soldiers plowed into the crowd, while women at the edges of the melee yelled at the rioters to "stand up and give the police hell!" According to Putnam, the mob "fought desperately for about five minutes, when they broke in all directions . . . Their loss in killed and wounded would not fall short of forty."22

  One newspaper reported that "in every street they might be seen reeling to and fro, their faces covered with clotted blood, their clothes torn, and everything about their appearance disgusting and absolutely sickening to behold." Several soldiers were injured by stones, and two "who had stumbled in the charge were set upon and badly beaten before they could be rescued." One of them was sent to the nearby Jews' Hospital because his wounds were so severe.23*

  The mob had reassembled and taken back the Union Steam Works not long after Dilks and his men departed, easily overwhelming the small garrison he had left behind.24The rioters also fended off an assault on the factory by policemen of the local precinct. At 2:30 p.m., a large force of police and volunteer specials followed by some regular troops converged on the factory "and found the building in possession of the rioters, who crowded the windows" and showered them with "brick-bats and stones and shot," the Tribune reported.

  Captain John Helme and his patrolmen had just thwarted an attack on the mayor's house and were the first on the scene. Wielding their clubs, they charged, battling the rioters outside and inside the building for a full ten minutes and seizing the remaining carbines while rescuing the few men Dilks had left behind to guard them. "The policemen also made liberal use of their revolvers," according to the World. The rioters were seen "throwing
away their guns and making the best use of their legs to get away, screaming and howling with pain, as the clubs were playing with terrible force upon them."

  Their mission accomplished, the police piled nearly a thousand carbines on a wagon commandeered from its angry owner, and prepared to leave. David Barnes of the Times reported: "By the time the wagon was loaded and the force in line, they were completely surrounded by an overwhelming and infuriated mob; not a man flinched; all felt their critical situation, but were determined to fight their way out. Just at this juncture, when they were showered with stone and shot, and when the mob, reinforced by that which had murdered Col. O'Brien, were about rallying for an attack, Inspector Dilks, with his command of police and military, wheeled into the avenue from Twenty-first Street."

  Helme's men cheered loudly, while Dilks and his 150 patrolmen, supported by more than 100 U.S. infantrymen under Captain Walter Franklin, plowed into the rioters from behind. The mob retreated but kept "firing stones and muskets continually" at the soldiers, Franklin recalled. "The crowd grew more insolent, and increased the firing as we advanced," so he fought them like an enemy in a pitched battle. "I halted the company, and fired by sections, allowing each section to fall to the rear to load as fast as it had fired."

  These tactics cleared the streets and drove the rioters into houses and onto rooftops from which they fired on the troops until Franklin's men made it "dangerous to show a head anywhere." The police and soldiers then marched away, but the angry mob closed in behind them on Second Avenue. "They were allowed to get quite close to us, when I faced the rear section about, and fired one or two volleys," Franklin reported, "which must have been very effective, as they dispersed, and did not give us any further trouble."