USA > New York > New York City > History of New York city from the discovery to the present day, V. 2 > Part 13
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eight hundred and sixty-two and fifty-nine one-hundredths acres-more than twice the size of the largest of the Lon- don parks, and eight times larger than all the public parks and squares of New York combined.
"The year 1857 was a disastrous one to New York ; a year of mob rule; beginning with civil strife and end- ing with financial ruin. Many defects in the city charter called for remedy, and the growing abuses in the municipal government of New York, proceeding from the ignorant majority that controlled the elections, seemed to demand that certain powers should be transferred from the keep- ing of the city to that of the State, which was so deeply interested in the welfare of the great American metropo- lis. It began to be more and more realized that there were two peoples in New York, the property-owners, or bona fide citizens, who were for the most part respectable, orderly, and law-abiding men ; and the poor and illiterate masses, chiefly of foreign birth, who owned scarce a rod of land or a dollar, yet who ruled the city by their votes, and elected to office only such men as would pander to their vices. Nevertheless, the latter class represented and still represents New York city in the eyes of many ; a most unjust judgment.
" In the spring of 1857 the State Legislature passed several bills relating to New York, and amended the char- ter in several important particulars. The charter and State elections, which had hitherto been held on the same day, were separated ; the first Tuesday in December being fixed as the date of the former. The Comptroller, as well as the Corporation Council and Mayor, were to be elected by the people. The city was divided into seventeen alder- manic districts, from each of which an Alderman was to be elected by the people once in two years. The Board of Councilmen was composed of six members elected annually from each senatorial district, or twenty-four in
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all. The Alms-house and Fire Departments remained unchanged, and the superintendence of the Central Park was given to a Board, to be appointed by the State Gov- ernment. The most important innovation, however, was the transfer of the Police Department from the city to the State. By the Metropolitan Police Act a police dis- trict was created, comprising the counties of New York, Kings, Westchester, and Richmond ; and a Board of Com- missioners was instituted, to be appointed for five years by the Governor and Senate, to have the sole control of the appointment, trial, and management of the police force, which was not to outnumber two thousand, and to appoint the chief of police and the minor officers. This Board was composed of five members. The Police Com- missioners were to secure the peace and protection of the city, to insure quiet at the elections, and to look after the public health. The first members of the Board appointed were Simeon Draper, General James W. Nye and Jacob Chadwell, of New York; James S. T. Stranahan, of Kings County, and James Bowen, of Westchester County-the mayors of New York and Brooklyn being members ex officio.
" This was the signal for war. Mayor Wood, who had strenuously opposed the action of the Legislature, an- nounced his determination to test the constitutionality of the law to the uttermost, and to resist its execution ; he refused to surrender the police property or to disband the old police ; and for some time the city witnessed the curi- ous spectacle of two departments-the Metropolitan Po- lice under the Commissioners, and the Municipal Police under the Mayor-vieing for mastery. After exhausting all the resources of the law to evade obedience to the act, the Mayor and municipal government finally caused it to be referred to the Court of Appeals. Before the final de- cision came, blood was spilled. On the 16th of June
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matters were brought to a crisis by the forcible ejection from the City Hall of Daniel D. Conover, who had been appointed Street Commissioner by Governor King, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of the former incumbent. The Deputy Commissioner meanwhile claimed his right to hold the office, and a third competitor, Charles Devlin, had been appointed by Mayor Wood, who claimed the appointing power. Mr. Conover immediately obtained a warrant from the Recorder to arrest the Mayor on the charge of inciting a riot, and another from Judge Hoff- man for the violence offered him personally ; and armed with these documents, and attended by fifty of the Metro- politan Police, returned to the City Hall. Captain Wall- ing, of the police, at first attempted in vain to gain an entrance with one warrant. Mr. Conover followed with the other, but met with no better success. The City Hall was filled with armed policemen, who attacked the new comers, joined by the crowd without. A fierce affray en- sued, during which twelve of the policemen were severely wounded. The Seventh Regiment chanced to be passing down Broadway, on its way to take the boat for Boston, whither it had been invited to receive an ovation. It was summoned to the spot, and its presence almost instantly sufficed to quell the riot. Mr. Conover, accompanied by General Sandford, entered the City Hall and served the writ on the Mayor, who, seeing further resistance useless, submitted to arrest. The Seventh Regiment resumed its journey ; nevertheless the city continued in a state of intense excitement, and nine regiments were ordered to remain under arms. Their services were not needed, how- ever, and the Metropolitan Police Act being declared con- stitutional by the Court of Appeals on the first of July, the Mayor seemed disposed to submit, and the disturbance was supposed to be ended.
" The city, however, had become greatly demoralized
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by this ferment. Amidst the civil strife of the police, the repression of crime had been neglected. An organ- ized attempt seems to have been made by the ruffians of the city to take advantage of the prevailing demoraliza- tion to institute mob rule, in order to rob and plunder under cover thereof. The national holiday afforded an opportunity for this outbreak. On the evening of the 3d of July the disturbance commenced by an altercation between two gangs of rowdies, the one styled the " Dead Rabbits" or " Roach Guard," from the Five Points Dis- trict, and the other the "Atlantic Guard " or "Bowery Boys," from the Bowery. The next morning the Dead Rabbits attacked their rivals in Bayard Street, near the Bowery. The greatest confusion followed ; sticks, stones, and knives were freely used on both sides, and men, women, and chil- dren were wounded. A small body of policemen was dis- patched to the spot, but it was soon driven off, with several wounded, and the riot went on. The rioters tore up paving stones, and seized drays, trucks, and whatever came first to hand, wherewith to erect barricades ; and the streets of New York soon resembled those of Paris in insurrection. The greatest consternation and horror pre- vailed through the city; the Seventh Regiment, which was still in Boston, was summoned home by telegraph, and several regiments of the city militia were called out ; but the riot was not quelled until late in the afternoon, when six men had been killed and over a hundred wounded. There was little fighting the next day until about seven in the evening, when a new disturbance broke out in Centre and Anthony Streets. The militia were summoned to the spot, and dispersed the crowd. Several regiments were ordered to remain under arms, but no other troubles occurred.
" This riot aroused the citizens to the danger of the position, and intensified the prejudice against the Muni-
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cipal Police, which was accused of abetting the rioters. Vigorous measures were taken to organize the Metropoli- tan Police and secure its efficiency, in spite of the factious resistance which still existed. The rioters were by no- means quieted, however, and on the 13th and 14th of July another outbreak occurred among the Germans of · the Seventeenth Ward, who had hitherto held aloof from the disturbance, which had been almost wholly confined to the Irish. The riot continued for two days, but was finally quelled by the police without the assistance of the militia, who were under arms, awaiting the signal for action. 'The peace of the city was not again disturbed, and the elements of disorder were gradually restrained.
"The scourge of civil war was quickly succeeded by that of financial distress. In the autumn of 1857 a great monetary tempest swept over the United States. For several years the country had been in the full tide of prosperity. Business was flourishing, commerce prosper- ous, and credit undisputed both at home and abroad ; the granaries were overflowing with the yield of a luxuriant harvest, and everything seemed to prophesy a continued era of prosperity. In the midst of the sunshine a thun- derbolt fell upon the country. The credit system had been expanded to its utmost limits, and the slightest con- traction was sufficient to cause the commercial edifice to totter on its foundation. The first blow fell on the 24th of August, 1857, by the suspension of the Ohio Life and Trust Company, an institution hitherto regarded as above suspicion, for the enormous sum of seven millions of dol- lars. This was followed by the suspension of the Philadel- phia banks, September 25th, 26th, succeeded by the general suspension of the banks of Pennsylvania, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Rhode Island. An universal panic was the result; the whole community seemed paralyzed by an utter lack of confidence; the credit sys-
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tem fell to the ground, carrying with it the fortunes of half the merchants, and business was prostrated. Failure followed failure. A run upon the banks forced the State Legislature to pass an act, October 13th, 14th, authorizing a general suspension of specie payment by the banks for one year. The city banks, however, resumed payment on the 24th of December. The Massachusetts banks sus- pended payment on the same day. The panic spread through the United States, and thence extended across the ocean, involving the European nations in the general ruin. The manufactories stopped work throughout the country, thus throwing thousands out of employment and reducing them to a state of utter destitution. A state of terrible suffering ensued. Crowds of the unemployed workmen gathered in the Park, clamoring for bread and threatening to procure it at all hazards, while many more, as needy and less demonstrative, perished silently of cold and starvation. For some time serious danger was ap- prehended from the rioters, who accused the speculators of being at the root of the evil, and threatened to break open the flour and provision stores and distribute the con- tents among the starving people. Prompt measures were taken by the corporation to alleviate the suffering and provide for the public safety. Many of the unemployed were set to work on the Central Park and other public works, soup-houses were opened throughout the city, and private associations were formed for the relief of the suffering ; but this aid failed to reach all, and many per- ished from sheer starvation, almost within sight of the plentiful harvests at the West, which lay moldering in the granaries for the want of money wherewith to pay the cost of their transportation. Money abounded, yet those who had it dared neither trust it with their neigh- bor or risk it themselves in any speculative adventure ; but, falling into the opposite extreme of distrust, kept
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their treasure locked up in hard dollars in their cash-boxes as the only safe place of deposit. As spring advanced, business gradually revived, the manufactories slowly com- menced work on a diminished scale, the banks resumed payment one by one, and a moderate degree of confidence was restored; yet it was long before business recovered its wonted vitality. The failures during the year num- bered five thousand one hundred and twenty-three, and the liabilities amounted to two hundred and ninety-one millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
"In April of the same year the city government resolved to remove the hundred thousand bodies that filled the Potter's Field, or pauper burial-ground, from the city limits to Ward's Island, where seventy acres had been purchased for the purpose. Previous to 1823 the Washington Parade-ground had been devoted to this use, after which the ground now occupied by the distributing reservoir, on the corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue, was taken for a public cemetery. At the expira- tion of two years the bodies were removed from both Washington and Reservoir Squares to the new Potter's Field, bounded by Forty-eighth and Fiftieth Streets, and Fourth and Lexington Avenues. This site was granted by the city, in the following year, to the State Woman's Hospital, founded in 1857 by Dr. J. Marion Sims, and subsequently conducted by Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, the grandson of the eminent lawyer of that name (whose monument forms one of the prominent features of St. Paul's church-yard), and the grand-nephew of the cele- brated Irish patriot."*
During the next few years no events stand out partic- ularly prominent in the city's history. It is true that the destruction of the Quarantine buildings on Staten Island
* Mary Booth's History of New York City.
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by the populace in July, 1858, occasioned considerable excitement, but the rioters were soon put down.
1858. In June, 1860, the city entertained the mem- 1860. bers of the Japanese Embassy ; and in the same sum- mer welcomed successively the Prince de Joinville, 1861. Lady Franklin, and the Prince of Wales. In 1861 1862. and 1862, the citizens of New York, almost to a man, and without distinction of party, rose grandly to 1863. sustain the Union; but, in 1863, the enviable rep- utation thus gained was sadly tarnished by an event to which, on account of its importance, the next chapter will be devoted.
CHAPTER XI.
THE year 1863, as hinted in the last chapter, was marked by an event which, as has been justly remarked, was the most humiliating of any ever recorded in the annals of New York. The national victories 1863. of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, while they gladdened the hearts of loyal citizens, only exasperated the disloyal por- tion of the community, and urged them to desperate meas- ures. An opportunity for such a course was soon found when the draft, in accordance with a proclamation, issued by the President of the United States on the eighth of May, was begun in the Eastern and Middle States, early in July. This process for obtaining soldiers, however necessary, was known to be distasteful to American citi- zens, and more or less resistance to its execution was anticipated, but, greatly to the surprise of all, and much, perhaps, to the disappointment of some, the draft was begun and completed in a considerable portion of the country without exciting any violent opposition. There were, indeed, everywhere, from those liable to suffer from its effects, expressions of dissatisfaction, though a general resignation to its necessity.
Even in New York, on the first day of the draft, Sat- urday, July 11th, there was hardly any manifestation of public discontent. The drawing in the Twentieth Ward
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took place, under the guard of a strong police force, at the office of the provost marshal, No. 677 Third Avenue, beginning at nine o'clock in the morning and ending at four in the afternoon. A large crowd assembled in the neighborhood and exhibited great interest in the result, but no desire to interfere with the process. " Everything then went on as quietly as possible during the entire day. The people seemed to take it in more of a jocular than a serious mood, as a smile flitted frequently across the countenances of several. When some familiar name was announced, there was an ejaculation of 'How are you, Brady ?' or 'How are you, Jones ?' Then there were joc- ular tokens of sympathy, such as 'Good-by, Patrick,' or ' Good-by, James,' when the drawn name happened to have either of these Christian prefixes to the same."
Such was the prelude, comical in its extremes of good humor, which preceded the tragic week of civic anarchy. During the Sunday which succeeded the first day of the draft, there was evidently great agitation among the poorer inhabitants of the city, who, gathering about the streets in throngs, angrily denounced a compulsory sys- tem for obtaining soldiers, that seemed to bear most heavily upon the class to which they belonged. On Mon- day morning, July 13th, the draft of the Ninth District was resumed. At nine o'clock the doors of the provost mar- shal's office were thrown open, when a large crowd imme- diately thronged in. The drawing commenced at half-past ten o'clock. Some fifty or sixty names had been taken from the wheel and announced, when, on the announce- ment of Z. Shay, 633 West Forty-second Street, a stone was dashed through the window. This was taken as the signal for a general attack by the populace on the out- side, which had been gathering since the opening of the day, and now numbered several thousands.
"During the carly part of the morning," reports a
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journalist,* " the people of the Ninth District, consisting of a large number of respectable workmen and others, were seen to assemble at certain specified spots, and between eight and nine o'clock began moving along the various avenues west of Fifth Avenue, toward their appointed place of general meeting. A large number of workmen's wives, etc., began also to assemble along the various avenues, and, if anything, were more excited than the men, who were armed with sticks, stones, adzes, axes, saws, and some with even old swords. As the assembled people moved along they stopped at the differ- ent workshops and factories, and a deputation entered the various buildings to inform their proprietors that they would not be answerable for the safety of their premises unless the same were closed and their men allowed to join them if they so desired. In most cases the request was complied with at once, and the assemblage moved on. They next arrived at their specified meeting place, on an open lot near the Park, and by their concerted action it was evident that there had been some degree of organiza- tion in their movements. Having arranged their plans to their satisfaction, they began to move down town again, by way of Fifth and Sixth Avenues, until they reached the vicinity of Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh Streets, along which they proceeded in an easterly direction. When they arrived at Fourth Avenue, along which the New Haven and Harlem Railroad tracks run, one of the principals of the assembled people caught sight of the tel- egraph wires and poles. It was at once suggested that the authorities might telegraph to Albany for troops. Scarcely were the words uttered when the axes were laid at the feet of the telegraph poles, and down they came. That part of the wires that could not be thus destroyed
* New York Herald.
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was divided by means of. men climbing the poles and throwing slings, stones, etc., until the wires were severed and rendered completely useless. Another branch wire, leading from the railroad to Third Avenue, and that along Third Avenue, were similarly damaged, and then the crowd again moved on to the provost marshal's office."
On the first stone being thrown through the window, the mob on the outside rushed into the building. After having dashed the wheel into pieces, torn into shreds the draft list, and destroyed the furniture of the office, they emptied out a can of turpentine, and setting fire to it, the · whole house was soon in flames. The fire extended to three adjoining buildings, as the mob, overpowering the police, would not allow the firemen to extinguish it, and exulted with loud shouts at the conflagration.
The crowd, still increasing in numbers and becoming more excited, now turned to go to the arsenal, where, in the meantime, a detachment of regulars from Gover- nor's Island had arrived and were prepared to defend the building. A small force of only about forty soldiers, being a part of the provost guard, having been sent up from the Park to awe the rioters, came into collision with them in the Third Avenue, near Forty-second Street, and fired, killing and wounding several persons. This, instead of intimidating, aroused the fury of the people, who attacked the soldiers and forced them to fly. As they fled they threw away their muskets, which were seized by their pursuers and used against them. One being overtaken, was "beaten almost into jelly, and fainting from loss of blood and exhaustion, was thrown into an alley-way and left to take care of himself as best he might." Others were seized and mangled to death. In Forty-second Street, a policeman on duty having fired into the crowd and unfortunately killed a woman, was set upon with sticks and stones, and after being thus
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cruelly mauled, was shot in the back. The rioters, in the course of their morning's havoc, burnt the Bull's Head Hotel in Forty-third Street and the Colored Orphan Asy- lum in Fifth Avenue, and tore up a portion of the New Haven Railroad track. In the afternoon they resumed their work of destruction, and after killing and wounding half a dozen of its defenders, destroyed a depot of fire- arms at the corner of Second Avenue and Twenty-first Street, and burned two private houses in Lexington Avenue, in their rage at the escape of a policeman who had sought refuge in one of them. The draft in the Eighth District, including the Twenty-second Ward, was, notwithstanding the disorder in other parts of the city, persisted in until twelve o'clock, when it was suspended. About four o'clock in the afternoon the mob attacked the enrolling office, No. 1190 Broadway, second door from the corner of Twenty-ninth Street, and after rifling it and the neighboring shops, burnt them to the ground. In other parts of the city there were also riotous manifestations, and some acts of violence. A crowd thronging about the Tribune office broke the windows and tore down the doors. Demonstrations were also made against the residences of Mayor Opdyke and others.
The civic and military authorities seemed perplexed how to act. The usual proclamations and orders were issued by the Mayor and the commanders of the United States troops and militia, but nothing effective was done toward re-establishing order in the city and rescuing it from the ruthless sway of the mob. It is true that, in consequence of the call of the President for troops to resist the invasion of the enemy, New York had been deprived of most of its armed defenders ;* still, with
* An idea of the deserted state of the lower and business part of the city during the riot may be gathered from this fact. At two o'clock on the after.
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unanimity of action and timely precaution, it would not have been difficult to organize the orderly citizens into efficient conservators of the peace.
On the second day, Tuesday, July 13th, the rioters, their audacity heightened by impunity, and their lust of blood and plunder increased by previous license, recom- menced their work of rapine and murder. The Governor of the State came to the rescue of the helpless city with a proclamation :
" TO THE PEOPLE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK-A riotous demonstration in your city, originating in opposition to the conscription of soldiers for the military service of the United States, has swelled into vast proportions, direct- ing its fury against the property and lives of peaceful citizens. I know that many of those who have partici- pated in these proceedings would not have allowed them- selves to be carried to such extremes of violence and of wrong, except under an apprehension of injustice; but such persons are reminded that the only opposition to the conscription which can be allowed is an appeal to the courts.
" The right of every citizen to make such an appeal will be maintained, and the decision of the court must be respected and obeyed by rulers and people alike. No other course is consistent with the maintenance of the laws, the peace and order of the city, and the safety of its inhabitants.
" Riotous proceedings must and shall be put down. The laws of the State of New York must be enforced, its peace and order maintained, and the lives and property of all its citizens protected at any and every hazard. The
noon of Monday, the first day of the riot, the writer turned into Broadway from Grand Street, and as far as he could see up and down Broadway, he dis covered but one solitary individual.
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