USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, 1609-1909 > Part 37
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It was early in January, 1861, when President Buchanan called John A. Dix into his cabinet, to take the place of Philip F. Thomas, on his resig- nation of the treasury portfolio. One of the first things the new secretary set himself to do was to have all the revenue cutters in Southern harbors sent north before the hostilities, which now seemed inevitable, should begin. So he sent Mr. Jones, a special agent, to New Orleans, Mobile and Gal- veston, with instructions to save the revenue cutters then on duty at those ports. Captain Breshwood, commanding the revenue cutter McClelland, re- fused to obey these orders, and when Mr. Jones telegraphed to Secretary Dix to that effect, the secretary sent by telegraph the following dispatch:
"Treasury Department, Jan. 29, 1861.
Tell Lieut. Caldwell to arrest Capt. Breshwood, assume command of the cutter and obey the order I gave through you. If Capt. Breshwood after arrest undertakes to interfere with the command of the cutter, tell Lieut. Caldwell to consider him as a mutineer and treat him accordingly. If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot.
JOHN A. DIX, Secretary of the Treasury."
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
The final sentence of this dispatch thrilled the North. In the nerve- less condition of the Buchanan administration, such evidence of virility was encouraging. During January, 1861, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Missis- sippi, Louisiana and Texas followed South Carolina in the passing of secession ordinances, and on February 4, 1861, delegates from all these States, except Texas, met at Montgomery, Alabama, and proceeded to organize the Confederate States of America, electing Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, President, and Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, Vice President.
After the inauguration of President Lincoln, a few weeks were required to get things in working order. Then came the firing on Fort Sumter and the gallant defense by Anderson, up to his final surrender. At once opinion at the North crystallized. Indignation at the firing on the flag made many who had hoped for peace anxious to join in the war for the preservation of the Union. Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand men, and troops flocked to Washington. Vir- ginia, North Carolina, Ten- nessee and Arkansas joined the Confederacy.
"New York was thrilled with the news from Sumter. CITY HALL, TRINITY CHURCH AND GRACE CHURCH The Legislature appropriated $3,000,000; the New York City militia regiments volunteered; recruiting of new volunteer regi- ments rapidly went on, and the Common Council at once appropriated $1,000,000 for military equipment and outfit, for which $1,000,000 of Union Defense Fund Bonds were issued. The march of the New England troops through the city, April 18th, en route to Washington, was an ovation of the most emphatic kind, the entire marching route being lined with dense masses of the people, shouting their joy with deafening cheers. The news later, that on April 19th, the anniversary of Lexington, the men of the Sixth Massachusetts had been attacked and several killed as they marched through the streets of Baltimore, roused the excited people to the pitch of frenzy, and on the next day a mass convention which had been called to meet in Union Square brought together more than a hundred thou- sand people. The meeting was presided over by Hon. John A. Dix, and there were eighty-seven vice presidents chosen from the most solid men of the com- munity. Four speaking stands had been erected, but proved insufficient, and
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balconies and roofs were used as additional rostra, from which Colonel Baker, Daniel S. Dickinson, Robert J. Walker, Professor Mitchill, David S. Cod- dington, and other gifted orators, spoke for the cause of the Union.
The first of the city regiments to move to the front was the Seventh, 1050 men, which went on April 19th, under command of Colonel Marshall Lef- ferts; and they were quickly followed, on Sunday, April 21st, by the Sixth, 550 men, Colonel Joseph C. Pinckney; the Twelfth, 900 men, Colonel Daniel Butterfield; and the Seventy-first, 950 men, Colonel A. S. Vosburgh. On the 23d went the Eighth Regiment, 900 men, Colonel George Lyons; on the 27th the Fifth Regiment, 600 men, Colonel C. Schwarzwaelder ; on the 28th, the Sec- ond Regiment, 500 men, Colonel George W. Tompkins; on the 29th, the Sixty- ninth Regiment, 1050 men, Colonel Michael Corcoran; and on the 30th, the Ninth Regiment, 800 men, Colonel John W. Stiles. These were mustered in on the three-months call of the President. Other regiments followed until by May 25th the authorized thirty thousand men had been raised by the State, and by July 12th they had been organized into thirty-eight regiments.
The President, on May 4th, called for volunteers and Colonel Ellsworth's regiment, Eleventh, New York Zouaves, was the first volunteer regiment from New York to reach the field; and there quickly followed the Twenty-eighth, Colonel Bennett; Fourteenth, Colonel Wood, in May; fol- lowed in June by the Eighth, Colonel Blenker; the Tenth, Colonel McChesney ; the Garibaldi Guard, Colonel D'Utassy; the Twelfth, Col- onel Quincy; the Thirteenth, Colonel Walrath; the Ninth, Colonel Hawkins; the Sixth, Colonel Wilson, followed by the Thirty-eighth, Colonel Hobart; the Eighteenth, Col- onel Jackson; the Seventeenth, Colonel Lansing; the Thirty- seventh, Colonel McCunn; BARNUM'S MUSEUM AND ST. PAUL'S CHURCH and the Thirty-first, Colonel Pratt, of the volunteer regiments. Also, of New York State troops: the Seventy-ninth, Colonel Cameron; the Nineteenth, Colonel Clark ; Company K of the Nineteenth New York, Captain Bunting; the Twenty-first, Col-
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onel Rogers; the Twenty-sixth, Colonel Christin; the Twenty-ninth, Col- onel Von Steinwehr; the Twenty-eighth, Colonel Donnelly; the First, Colonel Montgomery; the Sixteenth, Colonel Davies; and the Thirtieth, Colonel Matheson. On May 8th, General John A. Dix was appointed major general of New York, and the other major generalship was given to James S. Wadsworth, who later fell in the Battle of the Wilderness.
Colonel Ephraim Elmer Ellsworth, who headed the Eleventh (Zouave) Regiment, the first volunteer regiment to be raised in New York, was a native of Mechanicsville, New York, born in 1837. He went to Chicago as a boy and lived there to manhood, later coming to New York. At the call for volunteers he raised and organized his Zouave regiment from among the volunteer firemen of the city and became its colonel. He took part in the first general move- ment of the Federal forces into Virginia, but at Alexandria, on May 24, 1861, was shot dead by a hotel keeper, from whose building he had just torn away a Confederate flag. In the North he was regarded as the first martyr to the cause of the Union. His body was carried to the White House, in Washing- ton, where there were funeral ceremonies, with full military honors and im- posing ceremonies, President Lincoln acting as chief mourner; it was after- ward brought to New York City, where, after lying in state for two days in the City Hall, it was conveyed for burial to his birthplace.
Among the important steps taken by New York in aid of the Union cause was the organization, on April 22, 1861, of the Union Defense Com- mittee of the City of New York, of whom the first members were John A. Dix, chairman; Simeon Draper, vice chairman; William M. Evarts, secre- tary; Theodore Dehon, treasurer; Moses Taylor, Richard M. Blatchford, Ed- wards Pierrepont, Alexander T. Stewart, Samuel Sloan, John Jacob Astor, John J. Cisco, James S. Wadsworth, Isaac Bell, James Boorman, Charles H. Marshall, Robert H. McCurdy, Moses H. Grinnell, Royal Phelps, William Earle Dodge, Green C. Bronson, Hamilton Fish, William F. Havemeyer, Charles H. Russell, James T. Brady, Rudolph A. Witthaus, Abiel A. Low, Prosper M. Wetmore, and A. C. Richards, all of whom ranked among the leading professional and business men of New York; and the mayor, city comptroller, and the presidents of the two boards of the Common Council were ex-officio members of the committee. Later other prominent names were added to the committee. It raised funds for arming, equipping and transporting troops, and did a vast number of things quickly, which the municipality could only have accomplished very slowly. It continued in operation for a year, and before its final adjournment, April 30, 1862, had disbursed more than $1,000,000 for the benefit of New York volunteers, their widows and orphans.
Another great movement which had its origin in New York was the United States Sanitary Commission. It began, as many organizations of help
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UNITED STATES SANITARY COMMISSION
and mercy have begun, in the work of devoted women, who, soon after the Union Square meeting of April 20th, organized the Woman's Central Association of Relief for the Sick and Wounded of the Army. Upon the advice of Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D., a committee, representing that association and some medical relief associations of New York, went to Washington to confer with the authorities in the War Department as to the needs of the service and the best means of supplying them, and from this conference came the organization of the United States Sanitary Com- mission, which, under the general direction of Rev. Dr. Bellows, its presi- dent, became the most successful agency of help and comfort to sick and wounded soldiers that the world had ever seen.
Immediately after the battle of Bull Run, which proved especially disastrous to New York troops, Gover- nor E. D. Morgan issued a call for twenty-five thousand troops to serve three years, and by the end of 1861 New York City had put into the field over sixty thousand volunteers, exclusive of mili- tia, and had made loans to the general government of more than $100,000,000.
In the December elec- BELLEVUE HOSPITAL tion, in 1861, George Opdyke, a merchant of New York City, was elected mayor, and was, during his administration, especially active in such measures as the municipality could initiate or aid, connected with the furtherance of the Union cause. Private benefactions and efforts continued along the same line. Mrs. Valentine Mott headed an association of ladies which opened, May 2, 1862, a Home for Sick and Wounded Soldiers in the building at Lexington Avenue and Fifty-first Street, which had recently been erected for an Infants' Home, the home having accommodations for from four to five hundred soldiers. Mount St. Vincent, in Central Park, was another institution of the same kind.
The first half of 1862 covered a series of uninterrupted victories to the Union arms, but reverses came in midsummer which disheartened many. The restoration of the Union, which at the beginning of the war had been looked upon as being only a matter of a few months, was now seen to be a task of great difficulty. The losses of men by death, disease, capture, and expiration
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
of enlistment were very great, and on July 2, 1862, President Lincoln called for three hundred thousand volunteers, which was his final effort to recruit the army by voluntary military service.
Many of those familiar with military science condemned the volunteer system; not because the volunteers did not make the best soldiers, but because of the unequal burden upon the people from the fact that it imposed no sacri- fice upon those individuals or communities that were not willing to furnish volunteers for the army. Some places gave up practically the entire popula- tion fit for military service; while in other places scarcely any volunteered. There was quite a large popular demand for a draft, while other large num- bers of people who were opposed to the war were, of course, equally opposed to any measure which should compel them to participate in it. The reverses of the last half of 1862 had increased the numbers of the party in favor of letting the South go. These largely believed that the South would win in the end (probably with the aid of France, or England, or both), and that the sooner the warfare was ended the better it would be for both the North and South. Even among those who were perfectly sincere in their desire for the success of the Union arms there were many who did not believe in the levy- ing of a conscription.
In New York State the Republican nominee was General James S. Wadsworth, and the language of the platform was that the war should be prosecuted "by all the means that the God of Battles has placed in the power of the government." The Democratic nominee was Horatio Sey- mour, an eminent lawyer of Utica, who had been governor of the State from 1852 to 1854, and the platform upon which he stood favored "all legitimate means to suppress the Rebellion." Seymour was elected by a majority of 10,752 votes.
In 1863 Congress passed the Enrollment Act, approved on March 3. The adjutant general of the army had previously notified the State author- ities that New York was deficient 28,517 men in volunteers furnished since July 2, 1862, and that of these 18,523 were due from the City of New York. Preparations for a draft, under the Enrollment Act, went forward rapidly. They were, in New York City and Brooklyn, in charge of Colonel Robert Nugent, of the Sixty-ninth New York Volunteers, who had been appointed assistant provost marshal general, under whom was a pro- vost marshal for each congressional district.
There was much murmuring, in certain sections of the city, in refer- ence to the approaching draft. The Enrollment Act provided that the draft should be made from able-bodied citizens between the ages of twenty and forty-five years, but any drafted man could procure exemption by paying $300. This was attacked as a flimsy device to enable the rich to
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ENROLLMENT FOR THE DRAFT
evade service. Late in June, when Pennsylvania was threatened with invasion by Lee's Army, the New York City militia regiments had been summoned to assist in repelling the invasion, so that when the order was issued, July Ist, for making a draft in the State, under the Enrollment Act, the only forces in the city to pre- serve order, additional to the police, were a few regulars in the garrisons and the disabled men of the Invalid Corps. It was ordered that the draft should begin in the city, on Satur- day, July IIth, and it commenced promptly. Though interference had been threatened, none of any serious quality was attempted, and those in charge of the conscription were encour- aged in the hope that there would be no very serious opposition to the com- pletion of their duty.
But, as events afterward proved, Sunday was used by the disaffected and desperate to plan what proved to OLD ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL Third Street be the most terrible and desperate riot that ever blackened the annals of New York. Some working men who had been drafted, aided by several political agitators, stirred up an oppo- sition to further enrollment under a system which placed, as they claimed, its entire burden upon the poor.
The officers in command of the police were the president of the board, Thomas Acton, and the superintendent, John A. Kennedy. On Monday morning, small details of police were sent to the enrolling offices, at 677 Third Avenue (corner of Forty-sixth Street), and 1190 Broadway, two doors from Twenty-ninth Street, and at the latter place the drawing of names continued until noon, when news of disorder in other parts of the city led those engaged in the work to suspend further operations for the day.
At the Third Avenue enrollment office, the doors were opened at nine o'clock, and a crowd thronged into the room. Forty or fifty names had been drawn when a paving stone came crashing through the window from the outside, and at once there was a concerted attack upon the enroll- ing officials, who were glad enough to escape unhurt, except Provost Marshal Vanderpoel, who was badly maltreated and carried out for dead.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
The furniture, records, and drafting apparatus were destroyed, the build- ing fired, and the entire block was burned, because the mob would not per- mit the firemen, who came promptly to the scene, to get near the hydrants until the fire was beyond control.
The mob amounted to many thousands. Early in the day deputations had visited the workshops and factories, informing the proprietors that they would not be responsible for the safety of their establishments unless they closed them, and permitted their men to join the ranks of the rioters, if they so desired. Most of the places were thereupon closed. Thus the mob grew. Superintendent Kennedy, going in plain clothes, without escort, to size up the situation, was recognized and attacked by the mob at Forty-sixth Street and Lexington Avenue, and would have been killed but for the intervention of an influential friend. As it was, he was disabled for several days. President Acton, however, established himself at police head- quarters, in Mulberry Street, and from there, by telegraph, directed the movements of the police, who did gallant work in the face of what was, in fact, an overwhelming force, which could have destroyed practically the entire city, if it had been under coherent leadership. From Cooper Insti- tute to Forty-sixth Street, Third Avenue was crowded with a lawless mob who not only filled the street and roadway, but hung over the eaves and filled the windows and doors.
The mob was especially virulent against the negroes. The draft was, in their eyes, directed against the poor whites, to compel them to fight for the negro; and when an unfortunate member of that race was found, the cry, "Kill the nigger!" met prompt response, and from many a lamp-post hung victims of the race hatred of the mob, who, in their insatiate fury, showed no respect for age or sex. The Colored Orphan Asylum, on Fifth Avenue, Forty-third to Forty-fourth Streets, was the object of a concerted attack, and as the hundreds of children were hurried out of the rear door, the mob broke in the front doors and set fire to the building in several places at once. It was utterly destroyed, in spite of the strenuous efforts of the firemen, under command of Chief Engineer Decker, to save it.
The police managed, at some of the more remote points of trouble, to disperse detachments of the rioters bent on mischief, but in Third Avenue, stores were looted, and on Lexington Avenue two private residences, after being robbed, were burned to the ground. A detachment, about forty, of the Invalid Corps, sent to help in restoring order, was attacked in Forty-third Street, and at the command of their officer, Lieutenant Reed, fired blank cartridges at the mob, which so infuriated the rioters that they at once rushed upon the soldiers, wrenched their muskets from their hands and beat them severely, killing some and severely injuring most of the others. An
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attack, which had been boldly planned, on the Central office of the police in Mulberry Street, was attempted by a mob of about five thousand men, but Ser- geant Daniel Carpenter (afterward inspector of police) so maneuvered his force of two hundred policemen as to attack the invading column simultaneously from many points on its flank, and by well-directed use of the club, to make such a combined charge that the mob fled in dismay, and was glad to take some other direction. They broke the windows of the "Tribune" office, in Printing House Square, and entered the office, destroying the furniture, but were driven off; made a demonstration at Mayor Opdyke's residence; burned Postmaster Wakeman's house in Yorkville and the Twenty-third Precinct police station nearby. About four o'clock the office of Provost Marshal Manniere, at 1190 Broadway, was reached, broken into and set on fire. Soon the whole block on the east of Broadway, from Twenty-eighth to Twenty-ninth Street, was in flames, while the lower floors, which were stores filled with costly goods, were looted by the mob.
Mayor Opdyke, finding that the riot was beyond the control of the police, called for troops, upon General Wool, commanding the Depart- ment of the East, and upon General Sandford, commanding the National Guard. General Harvey Brown, of the national forces, established his headquarters in the Central police office in Mulberry Street, while Gen- eral Sandford, finding altogether seven hundred militiamen, temporarily absent from their regiments, got them together in the State Arsenal, at Seventh Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street.
Tuesday morning found nearly every store closed and the streets deserted by all except the mob, who had during the night burned several more houses. On this second day of the riot the mob had more of an organization and moved with more precision. It directed its attention, early in the day, to the negro quarters of the town, killing many of the negroes and setting fire to many of the houses tenanted by people of that race.
A little later, however, they found things not all their own way, for the troops were sent from place to place to disperse the mobs. Lieutenant Wood, with a hundred and fifty soldiers from Fort Lafayette, coming upon a mob of two thousand men at Grand and Pitt Streets, tried to disperse them but was attacked with stones and other missiles, whereupon he ordered his men to fire, and twelve were killed. Sergeant Carpenter, sent to disperse a mob assembled for the purpose of burning the houses on Thirty-fourth Street, did so after some difficulty, and his force going from that place met Colonel H. T. O'Brien, of the Eleventh New York Volunteers (then absent from his regiment for recruiting duty in New York). He had with him a detachment of soldiers and two field pieces. Seeing that the mob was rallying again, the police and soldiers returned to the scene and received from the mob a volley of
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paving stones and other missiles. They fired on the mob, killing several, in- cluding a woman and two children. The crowd dispersed, vowing vengeance on Colonel O'Brien. Later in the day that officer, hearing that his house was attacked, went to see about it, and found it open and empty, having been looted from top to bottom. Anxious to learn the fate of his family, he went to a drug store on Thirty-fourth Street. The store was at once attacked by a mob, and though the proprietor begged O'Brien to escape by the rear, the fearless but imprudent officer stepped out of the front door to expostulate with the mob. He was felled by a blow from the rear and was kicked and pounded into an unrecognizable mass, and thus mistreated for about an hour; he was still alive when two priests arrived and they were permitted to read the last prayers over the dying soldier, and to take him away. They secretly removed his body that night to the morgue at Bellevue.
Governor Seymour came to the city that day (the 14th) and issued a proclamation, in which he declared that while any citizen's right to appeal to the courts against the conscription would be maintained, rioting would be put down, and must cease, and that the laws of the State would be enforced and lives and property protected at any and every hazard.
Telegrams were sent calling home the Seventh and other regiments from Pennsylvania, and the government also was appealed to for troops. The third day saw many more outrages, but the troops and police had better suc- cess in quelling the disorders, and on the 16th the army details were only needed in two or three cases. It was announced on that day that the City Council had appropriated $2,500,000 toward paying substitutes for any poor persons who might be drafted. Archbishop Hughes, roused by a charge of the Tribune that the mobs were Irish, announced that he would like to talk to the people who had been assembling on the streets, and especially if any were Catholics, and asked them to meet in front of the Episcopal residence, on the 17th. Accordingly a very large crowd assembled and listened to the vener- able archbishop, who implored them as their friend and pastor to go to their homes with as little delay as possible, and especially if any of them were Cath- olics, to leave bad associations and respect the laws. The crowd heard him with respect and cheered him at several points in his speech (which took up about a column of small type in the papers of the next day) and quietly dis- persed when he had concluded.
The police estimate of the killed was over one thousand, though the exact number is not known, because the mob moved and disposed of many of their own dead. The killed were mostly rioters and their negro victims, the num- ber of the police and military killed being comparatively slight. The city afterward paid about $1,500,000 as indemnity for losses sustained during the riot.
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THE SANITARY FAIR
After the militia reached the city, the Seventh and other regiments con- tinued guard duty during several days; and again in August, when the con- scription was resumed and completed without molestation.
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