The Dead Rabbits, the largest and most powerful of the gangs, were enrolled under the Wood banner, as were most of the other bruisers of the Five Points and many of the most celebrated sluggers of the water front. The Bowery Boys and other gangs of the Bowery district were adherents of the Native Americans. The night before the election Mayor Wood issued an executive order sending a majority of the policemen off on furlough, with strict orders not to go near the polling places except to cast their votes. When the gangs began rioting they were confronted by small and ineffective detachments of patrolmen who were soon overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers and driven from the field. In the Sixth Ward, of which the Five Points was the heart, a crowd of Bowery gangsters made a surprise attack on the polling place and scattered the Dead Rabbit patrols, but the latter were quickly reinforced by thugs who swarmed from the dives and tenements of Paradise Square, and returned to the fray, armed with clubs, knives, axes, brickbats, and pistols. They soon defeated the Native American bulUes, while half a dozen policemen added to the excitement by barricading themselves in a vacant house and firing an occasional shot through the windows. Throughout the day there were similar clashes in other wards, but Wood’s gangsters proved the more efficient repeaters and the more ferocious battlers, and Tammany Hall carried the day, re-electing Wood with 34,860 votes to 25,209 for Isaac 0. Barker, the Native American candidate. The count showed an enormous increase in the number of ballots cast over the previous election, and Wood’s enemies charged that at least 10,000 of them were fraudulent. But there was no investigation.
In 1857, two years after Bill Poole had gone to his reward. New York passed through one of the most turbulent and disastrous twelve months in her history, beginning with appalling governmental corruption and ending with financial calamity, for this was the year of the great panic, and before the end of December more than a score of banks and almost a thousand business houses had failed with liabilities exceeding $120,000,000. During Fernando
Wood’s second administration as Mayor the police force had become so corrupt, and its organization so chaotic and inefficient, that the Legislature again intervened and relieved the city government of all control over the department. During the spring session several bills affecting the city charter were passed, the most important of which abolished the Municipal Police and the Police Board formed by the Act of 1853, and substituted a Metropolitan Police District comprising Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the small towns on Staten Island and on the mainland north of the Harlem River, all embraced within the counties of New York, Kings, Richmond and Westchester. The Governor was empowered to appoint five Commissioners, who were in turn to name a Superintendent of Police. The first Board was composed of Simeon Draper, James Bowen, James W. Nye, Jacob Cholwell and James S. T. Stranahan, all of whom had been more or less active in the various fights waged by the reformers against the political despoilers of the city. Frederick A. Talmage, who had been Recorder during the Astor Place riots in 1849, became the first Superintendent of Police, accepting the post after several others had declined.
The new Police Board called upon Fernando Wood to disband the Municipal force and turn over all police property, but the Mayor refused, and would not submit even when the Supreme Court handed down a decision in May, 1857, affirming the con-stitutionaUty of the new law. He called upon the police force to stand by him, and when the question was put to a vote fifteen captains and eight hundred patrolmen, as well as Superintendent George W. Matsell, refused to acknowledge the authority of the Metropolitan Board, and decided to continue as members of the Municipal Police. The remaining officers and men, among them Captain George W. WalUng, took the oath of allegiance to the new organization, which opened headquarters in White street and set about filling the places of the patrolmen who had remained loyal to the Mayor. Wood in turn appointed men to succeed those who had gone over to the Metropolitans. The trouble reached a crisis on June 16, when Daniel D. Conover went to City Hall to assume the office of Street Commissioner, to which he had been appointed by Governor King. The Mayor also claimed the power of appointment, and had named Charles Devlin, to whom it was charged he had sold the office for $50,000.
When Conover appeared he was forcibly ejected from the building by the Municipal Police, and immediately obtained two warrants for the Mayor’s arrest, one charging him with inciting to riot and the other accusing him of violence against Conover’s person. One of the warrants was given to Captain Walling, who went alone to City Hall and was admitted to Mayor Wood’s private office, where the Mayor sat behind the desk clutching his ornate staff of office. Walling explained his errand, and when the Mayor vociferously refused to be placed under arrest the Captain calmly seized him by the arm and remarked that he would take him forcibly from the building, as he would any other person subject to a warrant. But more than three hundred Municipal Police had been stationed in City Hall in anticipation of trouble, and the Mayor was rescued before Captain Walling had dragged him beyond the door of the private office. Walling was then thrown into the street. He made several attempts to re-enter, but was prevented, and was still arguing with Captain Ackerman of the Municipals when a detachment of fifty
Police Riot at City Hall
Metropolitan policemen, under command of Coroner Perry and Captain Jacob Sebring, marched through Chambers street into City Hall Park to serve the second warrant obtained by Conover.
The Metropolitans presented an imposing appearance in their frock coats and plug hats, and with their new badges glistening in the sunshine, but they were no match for the throng of Municipals who swarmed from the building and attacked them. For more than a half hour the combat raged fiercely on the steps and in the corridors of City Hall, but at length the Metropolitans were pushed from the building and fled the scene in disorder. During the battle fifty-two policemen were injured, and one. Patrolman Crofiit of the Seventeenth precinct, was so terribly beaten that he was ever afterward an invalid. They were carried into the offices of Recorder James M. Smith and their wounds treated by physicians, while the Mayor and his supporters gathered in the private offices, which had been barricaded, and jubilantly congratulated each other that the sacred person of the chief executive had been saved.
While the fighting was in progress Conover called upon Sheriff Westervelt to serve the warrants, and the Sheriff was advised by his lawyers that it was clearly his duty to do so. Accompanied by Conover and his attorney and bearing his staff of office, with his sword strapped to his waist and the official plug hat on his head, the Sheriff marched with great dignity up the steps of the City Hall and into the Mayor’s offices, where Wood again angrily refused to submit to arrest. Meanwhile the Seventh Regiment of the National Guard, with flags flying and drums beating, was marching down Broadway to take a boat for Boston, where the troops were to be entertained by one of the Massachusetts regiments. A hundred yards from City Hall the members of the Metropolitan Police Board met the soldiers and informed the commander, Major-General Charles Sandford, that they had come to exercise the power granted to them by the Legislature of calling upon the National Guard whenever the peace and dignity of the city were threatened. They were unanimously of the opinion that such a time had arrived.
The Seventh Regiment was thereupon marched into the Park and City Hall surrounded, after which General Sandford and his staff held a conference with Sheriff Westervelt and the Police Commissioners. Then, with his sword clanking at his heels and a platoon of infantry with fixed bayonets surrounding him, the General strode fiercely into the building, where he informed Mayor Wood that he represented the military power of the Empire State and would tolerate no further resistance. Wood glanced out of the window, and seeing the Park filled with soldiers, accepted the warrants and submitted to arrest. Within an hour he was released on nominal bail, and so far as the records show was never brought to trial, the Civil Courts holding that the Governor had no right to appoint a Street Commissioner and that Devlin was entitled to the office. Several months later the policemen who ha
d been injured m the clash between the Metropolitans and the Municipals brought suit against Wood and received judgment of $250 each. But the Mayor never settled, and the city finally paid the claims, together with the costs of the actions.
In the early autumn the Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the Supreme Court and upheld the constitutionality of the new law, and within a few weeks the Mayor had disbanded the Municipals.
But during the summer both police forces patrolled the city, and paid more attention to their private feud than to protecting the lives and property of the citizens. Whenever a Metropolitan arrested a criminal, a Municipal came along and released him, and the thug went about his business while the policemen fought. Aldermen and magistrates who supported the Mayor spent their days in the Metropolitan police stations, and whenever a prisoner was brought in they immediately released him on his own recognizance, while officials who favored the Metropolitan Board did the same at the Municipal stations. In consequence of this situation the gangsters and other criminals ran wild throughout the city, revelUng in an orgy of loot, murder and disorder. Respectable citizens were held up and robbed in broad daylight on Broadway and other principal streets, while Municipal and Metropolitan policemen belabored each other with clubs, trying to decide which had the right to interfere. Gangs of thieves and rowdies invaded and plundered stores and other business houses, and stopped the stage coaches and compelled passengers to surrender their money and jewelry, while private residences had no protection save stout locks and the valour of the householders.
The gangs of the Five Points and the Bowery, by far the most turbulent of the city’s inhabitants, took advantage of the opportunity to vent their ancient grudges against each other, and engaged in almost constant rioting. Scarcely a week passed without half a dozen conflicts, and once more, as during the great riot period of 1834, the National Guard regiments stood to arms and quelled the lawless elements with bayonet and saber. The most sanguinary of these battles occurred on July 4 and 5, 1857, when the dispute between the Mayor and the Metropolitan Board was at its height and the police organization was in a condition of utter chaos. Led by the Dead Rabbits and the Plug Uglies, all of the gangs of the Five Points with the exception of the Roach Guards began their celebration of the Fourth with a raid on the building at No. 42 Bowery, occupied by the Bowery Boys and the Atlantic Guards as a club-house. There was furious fighting, but the Bowery gangsters triumphed and drove their enemies back to their dens around Paradise Square. On this day the rioting spread as far as Pearl and Chatham streets, now the northern half of Park Row, and a few Metropolitan policemen who tried to interfere were badly beaten. The Municipals said it was not their fight, and would have no hand in any attempt to suppress the trouble.
Early the next morning the Five Points gangs, reinforced by the Roach Guards, marched out of Paradise Square and attacked a resort called the Green Dragon, in Broome street near the Bowery, a favorite loafing place of the Boys and other Bowery gangs. Carrying iron bars and huge paving blocks, the Five Pointers swarmed into the establishment before the Bowery thugs could rally to its defense, and after wrecking the bar-room and ripping up the floor of the dance hall, proceeded to drink all of the liquor in the place. News of the outrage reached the Bowery Boys, and they boiled furiously out of their holes, supported by the Atlantic Guards and the other gangsters who owed allegiance to them or loyalty to the Bowery. The gangs came together at Bayard street and immediately began the most ferocious free-for-all in the history of the city.
A lone policeman, with more courage than judgment, tried to club his way through the mass of struggling men and arrest the ringleaders, but he was knocked down and his clothing stripped from his body, and he was fearfully beaten with his own nightstick.
He crawled through the plunging mob to the sidewalk, and, naked except for a pair of cotton drawers, ran to the Metropolitan headquarters in White street, where he gasped out the alarm and collapsed. A squad of policemen was dispatched to stop the rioting, but when they marched bravely up Center street the gangs made common cause against them, and they were compelled to retreat after a bloody encounter in which several men were injured. However, they rallied and finally fought their way into the center of the mob, where they arrested two men who seemed to be leaders. But again they were compelled to fall back, for the gangsters forced their way into the low houses which lined the Bowery and Bayard street, and after driving out the inhabitants, swarmed to the roofs and windows, whence they pelted the Metropolitans with stones and brickbats.
When the police had marched away without their prisoners, there was a breathing spell of a few moments, but the excitement grew more intense, and the Dead Rabbits attacked with great fury after a mob of wild-eyed, screaming Five Points hussies had rushed into their midst and taunted them with cowardice. Reinforcements from the dives of Paradise Square followed close on the heels of the women, and other thugs had arrived to swell the ranks of the heroes of the Bowery. It was estimated that from eight hundred to one thousand fighters were actively engaged, all armed with bludgeons, paving stones, brickbats, axes, pitchforks, pistols and knives. And from all parts of the city had hurried several hundred thieves and thugs who were members of none of the gangs. Attracted by the prospect of loot, and knowing that if the police were there at all they would be very busy with the rioters, these men attacked the residences and stores along the Bowery, and along Bayard, Baxter, Mulberry and Ehzabeth streets, so that the owners had to barricade their buildings and protect their property with muskets and pistols. “Brick-bats, stones and clubs were flying thickly around,” said the New York Times of July 6, 1857, “and from the windows in all directions, and men ran wildly about brandishing firearms. Wounded men lay on the sidewalks and were trampled upon. Now the Rabbits would make a combined rush and force their antagonists up Bayard street to the Bowery. Then the fugitives, being reinforced, would turn on their pursuers and compel a retreat to Mulberry, Elizabeth and Baxter streets.”
Early in the afternoon Police Commissioner Simeon Draper dispatched another and larger force of policemen against the mob, and they marched in close formation to the scene of the riot, although assailed at every step. They cleared the street as they advanced, and forced scores of the Dead Rabbits and Bowery Boys into the houses and up the stairs to the roofs, clubbing them at every jump. One desperate gangster who refused to surrender was knocked off the roof of a house in Baxter street, and his skull was fractured when he hit the sidewalk. His enemies promptly stamped him to death. On another roof the police captured two of the leaders of the Dead Rabbits, and although the Five Points gangsters attacked with great fury managed to march their prisoners to the police station, escorted by a detachment of cheering Bowery Boys.
But no sooner had the police departed than the gangsters renewed their battle, and the rioting went forward with greater ferocity than ever. Barricades of carts and stones were piled up in the streets, and from behind these defenses the gangsters shot and hurled bricks and used their clubs. One giant member of the Dead Rabbits walked coolly along in front of his barricade and, although fired at repeatedly, used his pistol with such deadly accuracy that he killed two Bowery thugs and wounded two others. He was finally knocked unconscious by a small boy whose brother was fighting in the ranks of the Bowery Boys. This lad crept on his stomach along the barricade, and when he was close enough slammed a huge brickbat, about as heavy as he could lift, against the skull of the Dead Rabbit.
The police continued their efforts to disperse the battling gangs, but failed, and were compelled to retreat several times with heavy losses. Early in the evening the police authorities, in despair, sent for Captain Isaiah Rynders, political boss of the Sixth Ward and as such king of the Five Points gangsters, and implored him to stop the slaughter. But the rioters were in such a rage that they refused to obey his commands, and as he stood before their barricades haranguing them the Bowery Boys attacked and Captain Rynders was badly beaten before he could find refuge in the midst of hi
s own henchmen. Realizing the futility of further appeal, he made his way to Metropolitan Police Headquarters and advised Commissioner Draper to call out the troops. Meanwhile the gangsters had set fire to two or three houses, and the fighting continued, while the independent thugs made life miserable for the householders who insisted on remaining in their homes within the battle area.
Commissioner Draper asked Major-General Sandford to order three regiments into action, but it was nine o’clock before the blare of bugles and the rattle of drums was heard and the soldiers, their bayonets glistening in the moonlight and the glare of the burning buildings, marched down White and Worth streets, supported by two police detachments of seventy-five men each, who ranged ahead of the troops and clubbed every gangster they could catch. Two regiments instead of three, the Eighth and the Seventy-first, had answered the call, and neither was up to full strength, but the display of force was sufficient to overawe the thugs, who abandoned the battlefield and slunk back to their dens. There was no more rioting, for the police and soldiers patrolled the district throughout the night and all the next day. During the two days’ fighting eight men were killed and more than a hundred injured, of whom fifty were compelled to remain in hospitals for treatment. It is believed that many more dead and injured were carried away by their comrades, for several days after the fighting had ended it was reported that half a dozen new graves had been dug in the cellars and underground passageways of the Five Points and Paradise Square, and some of the most noted sluggers of both the Dead Rabbits and the Bowery Boys were no longer to be seen in their accustomed haunts.
On July 6 a wandering band of Bowery Boys engaged in a desperate fight with the Kerryonians in Center street, but were driven back to the Bowery and Chatham Square before the police could interfere. A few days later the excitement spread to the German settlements along the East Side, near the East River, and strong detachments of police were sent to Avenues A and B to quell outbreaks among the ambitious young hoodlums of that area, who desired to emulate the deeds of their Irish fellow citizens. For more than a week there was sporadic fighting whenever patrols of the Five Points gangsters came upon thugs from the Bowery, but the former bitterly resented the insinuations of the police and the newspapers that they were criminals. “We are requested by the Dead Rabbits,” said The Times, “to state that the Dead Rabbit club members are not thieves, that they did not participate in the riot with the Bowery Boys, and that the fight in Mulberry street was between the Roach Guards of Mulberry street and the Atlantic Guards of the Bowery. The Dead Rabbits are sensitive on points of honor, we are assured, and wouldn’t allow a thief to live on their beat, much less to be a member of their club.”
The Gangs of New York Page 11