The Gangs of New York

by Herbert Asbury

  Asylum, in Fifth avenue between Forty-third and Forty-fourth streets, just north of the present Public Library and now in the heart of the fashionable shopping district. The Asylum was a four-storied brick structure, with two wings of three stories each, and housed two hundred Negro children under twelve years of age, together with a staff of about fifty adults. The Superintendent, William E. Davis, barricaded the front doors when the mob began to assemble, and while the rioters attempted to force an entrance he marched the children out the back way and through the grounds into Madison avenue, whence they were driven in stages to the Twenty-second precinct station house in Forty-seventh street, between Eighth and Ninth avenues. Later they were removed to Blackwell’s Island, in the East River, under military escort.

  Scarcely had the children left the Asylum when the doors were ripped from their hinges and the mob streamed into the building, while smaller gangs attacked stores and residences in the vicinity, looting and setting fire to them. The rioters who had invaded the

  Colored Orphan Asylum—

  Fifth Avenue between 43d and 44th Streets

  Asylum destroyed the furniture with hatchets and axes, and killed a little Negro girl who had been overlooked in the hurried exodus of the children, and had sought refuge under a bed. The bedding, trinkets and toys of the children were carried away, and then the mob fired the building in half a dozen places. Chief Engineer John Decker of the Fire Department, arriving with two companies, was twice knocked down when he attempted to carry hose lines into the house, but with fifteen firemen at his heels finally forced his way inside. They extinguished half a dozen fires, but were at last set upon by a great mob of rioters and thrown bodily into the street, where they were surrounded and compelled to watch the destruction of the Asylum, as well as three other buildings nearby.

  For several hours the rioting was confined to the central portion of the city; none of the mobs had penetrated below Twenty-first street except the great mass which had been defeated in Broadway by Inspector Carpenter. But about the middle of the afternoon the gangsters began pouring out of the Five Points, the Bowery and the water front district, and new mobs began to assemble at various points in the lower half of the city. Then in rapid succession came reports of outrages in all parts of Manhattan south of Fifty-ninth street. The Negro settlements in the lower east and west sides were attacked, and several houses were burned or wrecked after the inhabitants had been killed or beaten. Twenty Negro families were ousted from their homes at Leonard and Baxter streets, and Crook’s restaurant in Nassau street was sacked by a mob which beat the Negro waiters. Half a dozen houses in Pell street were destroyed, and a mob also invaded the notorious Arch Block in Thompson street, which seethed with a crowded population of poverty-stricken Negroes. The rioters demolished the dive kept by Big Sue, or the Turtle, and after she had been frightfully beaten by a gang of Irishwomen from the Five Points, her liquor was confiscated and served out to the howling rioters. Half drunk, they surged throughout that part of the city, burning, looting and murdering.

  BY nightfall New York was practically in the hands of the mob, for from all quarters came reports that the small detachments of police were meeting with defeat and fleeing before the rioters; and military aid was not yet available in sufficient force to accomplish anything. Fires from a score of burning buildings pierced the darkness, and the hot stillness of the July night was made more oppressive by the columns of black smoke which hung low over the city. Early in the evening minor outbreaks were reported in Harlem and on the upper West Side, which culminated just before midnight in the burning of Postmaster Abram Wakeman’s home in West Eighty-sixth street. About eight o’clock word was received at Police Headquarters that a vast mob had formed uptown and was marching down Fifth avenue with the avowed intention of hanging Horace Greeley and burning The Tribune building in Printing House Square, opposite City Hall Park. The mob turned east in the lower Twenties and proceeded down Third avenue to the Bowery, and thence through Chatham Square and Park Row, led by a giant thug carrying an American flag. Thousands swarmed after him, singing at the top of their voices:

  We’ll hang old Greeley to a sour apple tree,

  We’ll hang old Greeley to a sour apple tree,

  We’ll hang old Greeley to a sour apple tree,

  And send him straight to Hell!

  Throughout the evening another crowd had been assembling in City Hall Park and Printing House Square, and when the uptown mob came streaming down Park Row an attack was immediately begun. Sergeant Devoursney attempted to defend The Tribune building single handed, and fought valiantly in the doorway until he was surrounded by a ring of dead and disabled gangsters, but he was finally overwhelmed and the mob rushed into the building, overrunning it and setting it on fire in half a dozen places. The editorial and mechanical forces, led by Horace Greeley, escaped down the back stairways, and Greeley was chased into a Park Row restaurant, where he hid under a table. He was not found, for the waiter covered him with a cloth. Captain Warlow and a detachment from the First Precinct were returning to their station house in Broad street after a hard campaign against rioters along the water front when they received telegraphic instructions to rush to the rescue of The Tribune.

  Captain Warlow led his men up Nassau street, and at Printing House Square was met by Captain Thorne and a detail from City Hall. Together, with a force of about one hundred policemen, they attacked the rear of the mob and soon cleared The Tribune office of the rioters, extinguishing the fires before they could do much damage. The mob fled in shrieking disorder up Park Row and through City Hall Park, where it was attacked by a large body of policemen under Inspector Carpenter and Inspector Folk of Brooklyn, who had brought a hundred men across the East River and had been doing vaUant service uptown. Carpenter formed his men in company front and swept the Park like a storm, soon dispersing the rioters. After this fight Inspector Folk returned with his force to Brooklyn, where great excitement had begun to prevail, although there was no actual rioting in that city until Wednesday night, when several grain elevators in the Atlantic Basin were burned. Two hours later another mob marched against The Tribune, but was repulsed by a detachment of fifty policemen who had been left to garrison Printing House Square while Inspector Carpenter led the remainder of his force into other threatened areas. Employees of the newspapers took part in this last fight, for Patrolman Blackwell of the Harbor Police had brought pistols and carbines from the municipal stores on Riker’s and Blackwell’s Islands, and had distributed them among the men of the mechanical and editorial departments. Lighted lanterns were hung from the windows of The Tribune building, illuminating the Square so brightly that there was no possibility of a surprise attack. The next day the police garrison was relieved by a hundred Marines and sailors, and Gatling guns replaced the lanterns, while the black muzzle of a howitzer protruded threateningly from the main entrance of The Tribune. The guns were manned by a squad of seamen.

  Serious rioting began in the Negro settlements north and east of the Five Points about seven o’clock Monday evening, and for five hours Captain John Jourdan and sixty men of the Sixth precinct patrolled the district, engaging in many battles and leaving scores of disabled rioters in their wake. Returning to City Hall, this detachment joined a force under Inspector Carpenter, and made a tour of the water front district of the Fourth Ward, where mobs had again assembled after the departure of Captain Warlow, and were burning Negro dwelhngs and looting stores. Several of the notorious water front dives were sacked by the rioters, and a house of prostitution in Water street was burned and the inmates tortured because they refused to surrender a Negro servant. In New Bowery, east of the Five Points, three Negroes sought refuge on a roof, and the mob fired the building beneath them, so that the Negroes were forced to cling with their fingers to the copings of the gable walls, while the rioters screamed madly for them to fall. Finally their hands were burned and they dropped, and were immediately stamped and kicked to death.

  Meanwhile the mob
s farther uptown had continued their depredations, and throughout the night there was almost constant fighting. Many of the fires which had been set by the rioters were extinguished by a heavy rainstorm, accompanied by great thunder and lightning, which deluged the city about eleven o’clock. Some historians of the riots believe that if the rain had not appeared the lower half of New York would have been destroyed, for several of the fire companies had joined the mobs en masse, and others were slow in responding to alarms. And invariably when the engines did roll to a fire the firemen were hindered by the rioters, and in many cases driven away.

  NOT more than eight hundred policemen were available for duty in Manhattan when the rioting began Monday morning, but by nightfall the men off duty had reported to their station houses, and Commissioner Acton was able to put about 1,500 men in the field, although many were soon disabled by the pistols and clubs of the rioters. The seriousness of the situation had been apparent to both Mayor Opdyke and the Commissioner early in the morning, and the first mob had scarcely begun to mass in Third avenue before they appealed to Major-General Sandford to call out all units of the National Guard which were in the city. Aid was also requested from Major-General John E. Wool, commander of the Eastern Department of the United States Army, which included New York City. General Sandford immediately sent out messengers, and published handbills and advertisements in the afternoon newspapers, calling upon all officers and men of the Guard, as well as other persons who had seen military service, to report at the Arsenal at Seventh avenue and Thirty-fifth street. General Wool sent a gunboat from Governor’s Island to the various forts about the city, with orders to the commanding officers to embark every soldier who could be spared from the fortifications, and as much artiUery as possible. He also asked Rear Admiral Paulding, commandant of the Navy Yard, to send to Manhattan all available Marines and seamen from the Yard, and from the warships anchored there and in the harbor. All Regular Army troops were placed under the command of Brigadier General Harvey Brown, who made his headquarters in Commissioner Acton’s office. Mayor Opdyke remained at City Hall during the day, and at dusk removed to the St. Nicholas Hotel, where he was joined on Tuesday by Governor Seymour, who had hastened down from the state capital at Albany. Late Monday night Mayor Opdyke sent telegrams to the War Department at Washington asking that the New York regiments which had fought at Gettysburg be rushed into the city as quickly as possible. Messages were also dispatched to the Governors of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts, requesting them to hold troops in readiness for service if needed.

  The first mihtary unit mustered, besides the Invalid Corps which was already under arms, was the Tenth Regiment of the National Guard, which had been ordered to form hne on Monday morning in the Arsenal at Elm and Worth streets. Originally it had been intended to embark the troops for the battle front, but instead they remained in the city and did vahant service in suppressing the mobs. On the first day of the rioting two companies remained at the Elm street Arsenal to guard the munitions stored there. They were supported by a battery of three six-pound guns. Fifty men of the Tenth Regiment and fifty of the Invalid Corps relieved the police guard at the Seventh avenue Arsenal, where General Sandford established his headquarters and whence he dispatched details of troops to cooperate with the police. Two more companies of the Tenth marched to the Arsenal in Central Park. By the middle of the afternoon several small detachments of the regular infantry, and some two hundred Marines and sailors, had landed and were marched to Police Headquarters and the Arsenals. Two more companies of regular infantry reached Headquarters at eleven o’clock Monday night, and by midnight about 2,000 regular and state troops were available for service. The enlisting of citizens as Volunteer Special Police had also begun and was proceeding rapidly. Soon after midnight Colonel Henry Moore of the Forty-seventh Regiment of Volunteers reported that the following troops were garrisoned at the Seventh avenue Arsenal:

  Several twelve-pounder mountain howitzers from Governor’s Island, with artillerists; detachment of Tenth New York State Militia under Major Seeley; detachment of Twelfth Regular U. S. Infantry, from Fort Hamilton, Captain Franklin; ditto. Third Regular U. S. Infantry, from Governor’s Island, Captain Wilkins; ditto, Invalid Corps, from Riker’s Island; ditto, units of New York State Volunteers, Captain Lockwood.

  These troops numbered about one thousand, all well armed and equipped. But only two detachments, Captain Wilkins’ infantrymen and a company of Marines, had engaged the rioters. The latter fired into a mob which attempted to stop its march to Headquarters, and the former relieved the citizen guard at Mayor Opdyke’s home, repulsing a gang which made a second attack on the building about midnight.

  THE DRAFT RIOTS (Continued)

  THE SECOND day of rioting, Tuesday, July 14, 1863, began with two murders. After a night of drinking and carousing in the dives and dance halls of the Bowery and Five Points, more than a thousand frenzied men and women surged into Clarkson street before dawn and hanged William Jones, a Negro, to a tree when he attempted to defend his wife and children and prevent the burning of his home. A fire was lighted beneath him, and the mob danced madly about, shrieking and throwing stones and bricks at his body while it dangled above the flames. Another Negro, named Williams, was attacked at Washington and LeRoy streets. While half a score of rioters held him down, their leader smashed his skull with a huge stone weighing more than twenty pounds, which he dropped time after time on the Negro’s head. Women who accompanied the rioters slashed his body with knives and poured oil into the wounds, but before they could ignite it were dispersed by a detachment of police under Drill Officer Copeland and Captain John F. Dickson. This force also defeated the mob in Clarkson street and cut down Jones’s body.

  Hanging and Burning a Negro in Clarkson Street

  It was soon apparent that New York faced a day of even fiercer fighting than on Monday, and that all of the resources of the police and military would be required to save the metropolis from fire and pillage. By six o’clock mobs had begun to assemble throughout the city, sweeping tumultuously through the streets, pursuing and beating Negroes, and looting and setting fire to houses. One of the first crowds to gather appeared suddenly in East Eighty-sixth street and attacked the Twenty-third precinct police station, which was garrisoned only by Doorman Ebling, the patrolmen having been marched downtown to Headquarters soon after midnight. The station house was burned. Another mob made a demonstration before Mayor Opdyke’s home, smashing windows and doors with bricks and paving stones before it was driven away by the police and soldiers. A second great mass of shouting men and women surged across Printing House Square to attack the Times and Tribune buildings, but fled in disorder northward through Park Row and Center street when they saw the Gatling guns and the howitzer which had been moved into position during the night. A third gang burned the home of Colonel Robert Nugent, Assistant Provost Marshal General, in West Eighty-sixth street.

  Great throngs of men gathered before daybreak in Ninth and First avenues, and worked furiously, erecting barricades which were to give the police and troops much trouble later in the day. Telegraph poles and lamp-posts were hacked down and laid across the street, and between them the rioters piled carts, barrels, boxes and heavy pieces of furniture stolen from residences and stores in the vicinity. In First avenue the fortifications extended from Eleventh to Fourteenth streets, and in Ninth avenue from Thirty-second to Forty-third streets, with smaller barricades across the intersecting thoroughfares. Throughout the day, when hard pressed by the policemen and soldiers, the rioters sought refuge in these districts, and they were not dispersed and the barricades destroyed until the troops had driven the mob back with heavy volleys of musketry fire.

  Inspector Daniel Carpenter mustered a force of two hundred policemen at Headquarters at six o’clock Tuesday morning, and marched them uptown to suppress rioters who had appeared in Second avenue and threatened the plant of the Union Steam Works at Twenty-second street, from which the police had been
unable to remove the stores of munitions. The detachment marched into Second avenue a block below the Works, and found a mob which packed the thoroughfare north to Thirty-third street. Hundreds of the rioters possessed muskets, swords and pistols, and boldly confronted the police, while others had invaded the houses on either side of Second avenue between Thirty-second and Thirty-third streets, and lay in wait on the roofs with piles of bricks and stones beside them. As he had done in the Broadway and Amity street battle on Monday, Inspector Carpenter deployed his men as skirmishers, and two Unes of policemen marched slowly northward, meeting with httle resistance except for a few scattering volleys which passed harmlessly over their heads, or clipped the pavement before them. But at Thirty-second street the rioters on the house-tops suddenly hurled a shower of bricks and stones into the ranks of the police, and many of the patrolmen went down under the shock of the heavy missiles. At the same instant the mob, which had slowly closed in behind the advancing force, attacked front and rear, but Carpenter and his men fought with such fury and discipline that within fifteen minutes they had cleared the street, and the rioters huddled in small and sullen groups a hundred feet from the menacing clubs. With the mob thus frightened, fifty patrolmen dashed into the houses and up the stairs to the roofs, where they fell upon the gangsters. The rioters would not stand up before the slashing nightsticks, and many leaped into the street and were killed. Others were clubbed down, and those who escaped into the street were felled by Carpenter and his men. About fifty rioters had taken possession of a saloon at Second avenue and Thirty-first street, and were firing muskets and pistols through the windows, but were driven out without loss to the police, although many patrolmen had narrow escapes. One of the gangsters fired a bullet through a policeman’s cap, but the latter seized him about the middle and flung him through a window, dashing out his brains against the pavement.