USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, Vol. II > Part 19
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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 dis- band the old police ; and for some time the city wit- nessed the curious spectacle of two departments-the Metropolitan Police 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 govern- ment finally caused it to be referred to the Court of Appeals. Before the final decision came, blood was spilled. On the 16th of June, 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 Iloffinan for the violence offered him personally, and, armed with these documents, and attended by fifty of
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the Metropolitan Police, returned to the City Hall. Captain Walling 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 ensued, during which twelve of the policemen were severely wounded. The Seventh Regi- ment chaneed 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, however, and the Metropolitan Police Act being declared consti- tutional by the Court of Appeals on the first of July, the mayor seemed disposed to submit, and the disturb- ance was supposed to be ended.
The city, however, had become greatly demoralized by this ferment. Amidst the civil strife of the police, the repression of crime had been neglected. An organized attempt seems to have been made by the ruflians of the city, to take advantage of the prevailing demoralization 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
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by an altercation between two gangs of rowdies, the one styled the Dead Rabbits or Roach Guard, from the Five Points District, 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 children were wounded. A small body of policemen was dispatched 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 prevailed 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 sum- moned 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- cipal Police, which was accused of abetting the rioters. Vigorous measures were taken to organize the Metro- politan Police and secure its efficiency in spite of the factions resistance which still existed. The rioters were
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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, com- merce prosperous, 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 thunderbolt fell upon the country. The credit system had been expanded to its utmost limits, and the slightest contraction was suf- ficient 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 dollars. This was followed by the suspension of the Philadelphia banks, September 25, 26, succeeded by the general suspension of the banks of Pennsylvania, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Rhode Island. At universal panie was the result ; the whole community
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seemed paralyzed by an utter lack of confidence ; the credit system fell to the ground, carrying with it the fortunes of half the merchants, and business was pros- trated. Failure followed failure. A run upon the banks forced the State Legislature to pass an act, October 13, 14, 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 Massa- chusetts banks suspended 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 apprehended 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 contents 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 perished from sheer starvation, almost within sight of the plentiful harvests at the West, which lay moldering
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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 neighbor, or risk it themselves in any speculative ad- adventure ; but, falling into the opposite extreme of dis- trust, kept 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 manu- factories slowly commenced work on a diminished scale, the banks resumed payment one by one, and a mode- rate degree of confidence was restored ; yet it was long before business recovered its wonted vitality. The failures during the year numbered 5123, and the liabil- ities amounted to $291,750,000.
Various landmarks had been displaced in the course of the year. On the 29th of January, 1857, the re- maining portion of the Columbia College grounds, in Park Place, was sold, and the college was removed to Fiftieth street, between Fourth and Fifth Avenues. The fifteen lots of ground on which it stood were pur- chased for the sum of $576,350.
On the 31st of January, the city was thrown into a state of unwonted excitement by the murder of Dr. Harvey Burdell, a well known dentist, residing at 31 Bond street, who was found in his room frightfully mangled. Frequent as murders are in a great city like New York, the horror of the event and the peculiarly mysterious circumstances attendant thereon, absorbed the attention of all, and for days and weeks it continued the chief topic of conversation. Mrs. Cunningham, a widow who hired the house of Dr. Burdell, and who claimed to have been privately married to the murdered
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man, with two of her lodgers, Messrs. Eckel and Snod- grass, were deeply implicated by circumstances, and were arrested on suspicion ; but nothing was proved ; the parties were all acquitted, and the affair remained enveloped in mystery.
In April, 1857, the city government resolved to re- move 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 Wash- ington 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 expiration 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 Rummet, the grandson of the eminent lawyer of that name, whose monument forms one of the prominent features of St. Paul's Churchyard, and the grand-nephew of the celebrated Irish patriot.
The same year witnessed the demolition of the old Broadway Tabernacle, the spacious hall of which had long been known as the usual scene of the large public assemblies, as well as the centre of congregational wor- ship in the lower part of the city. This building had been erected in 1885-36, by a society formed for the purpose of establishing a free church in that quarter.
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The undertaking failed through lack of funds, and the church was sold in 1840 .. In 1845 it was purchased by the Tabernacle congregation, who continued to meet there, under the charge of the Rev. Joseph P. Thomp- son, until, April 23, 1857, it was finally closed. A new Tabernacle was erected by the Society on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Thirty-fourth street, which was dedicated on the 24th of April, 1859.
On the first Tuesday in December, 1857, the date fixed by the amended charter for the annual election of municipal officers, Fernando Wood, who was again a candidate for the mayoralty, was defeated by Daniel F. Tiemann, a prominent merchant of the city. The new mayor was duly installed in office on the 1st of Jan- uary, 1858.
A great revolution followed the stirring scenes of 1857. The next few years were not marked by many events of municipal importance. The destruction of the quarantine buildings by the populace of Staten Island, in July, who were determined that their shores should no longer be appropriated to this purpose, occasioned great excitement, indeed, during the summer of 1858, and gave rise to a controversy which has continued till the present time. During this year the new State Arsenal was erected on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Thirty-fifth street ; and the Cooper Institute, built by Peter Cooper at the cost of over $600,000, for the purpose of furnishing free courses of lectures and other facilities for popular instruction, was thrown open to the public. The School of Design for Women, an admirable institation for the training of women in drawing, painting, wood-engraving, etc., found a home
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in this building. On the 15th of August the corner- stone of the new Roman Catholic Cathedral on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fiftieth street was laid by Archbishop Hughes, in the presence of an immense concourse of people. This structure is in the form of a Latin cross, three hundred and twenty-eight feet long by one hundred and seventy-five feet wide, and is the largest church edifice in America, with a capacity for accommodation not exceeded by any Gothic building in the world.
The great fire of the year was the conflagration, before mentioned, of the Crystal Palace, during the fair of the American Institute, which vanished like a dream on the 5th of October, 1858, leaving naught but dust and ashes. On the 13th of February the hospital on Blackwell's Island had been burned, and the physicians, with five hundred patients, had barely escaped with their lives. The hospital was rebuilt in the course of the year. The City Hall also narrowly escaped burning on the occasion of the great cable celebration, of which we shall speak hereafter.
On the 3d of July, 1858, the remains of President Monroe were removed from the cemetery in Second street, where they had long reposed, to Richmond, Virginia, escorted by the Seventh Regiment of New York. The regiment returned bearing the corpse of one of their beloved comrades, Lieutenant Hamilton, a descendant of Alexander Hamilton, who had died on the way, and whose remains were interred in Trinity church-yard.
In the summer of 1860, the Atlantic Garden, at No. 9 Broadway, formerly Burns's Coffee-House, the Faneuil
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Hall of New York, was purchased by the Hudson River Railroad Company and demolished, to make room for their dépôt.
During the years that intervened between the great financial crisis and the civil war, little occurred of pecu- liar interest to New York City ; which nevertheless was deeply stirred by national events, the Kansas troubles, the John Brown raid, and the great presidential elec- tion of 1860. Fernando Wood resumed the mayoralty at the opening of the latter year, having been elected in December, 1859. Despite the impending storms, the year 1860 seemed especially devoted to festivities. An unusual influx of distinguished personages from abroad visited the city, and were received with lavish hospitality. First came the members of the Japanese Embassy, who reached New York on the 16th of June, 1860. The arrival of these strangers from an almost unknown country excited universal curiosity and inter- est. They were made the guests of the city during their stay, and entertained with all possible respect. On their arrival at Castle Garden, they were escorted by the National Guard to the Metropolitan Hotel, where preparations had been made for their reception ; at night a grand serenade was given them, and the hotel and surrounding buildings were illuminated in their honor. On the 18th of June a grand ball was given them at Niblo's Theatre. They spent some days in visiting the public institutions, and finally left the city and country on the Ist of July. Their visit was of peculiar significance, as being the first voluntary over- ture on the part of their hitherto secluded nation to open communication with the rest of the world, and
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deserved especial notice from New York, the commer- cial metropolis of America.
Close in the wake of the Japanese followed another visitor, in the shape of the mammoth ship, the Great Eastern, which had been recently built in England, and which still carries off the palm from all rivals in magni- tude. The huge vessel was moored for some weeks in the North River, where it was thrown open to the public, and was visited by thousands.
During the same summer, Prince de Joinville visited New York, as well as Lady Franklin, who came to thank the New Yorkers for the interest and sympathy which they had evinced for her unhappy husband, and the generosity with which they had endeavored to learn his fate. The most important guest of the year, how- ever, was the Prince of Wales, who reached Newfound- land in July, and after making an extended tour through British America and the Western and Southern States, reached New York on the 11th of October, 1860. The visit to the American republic of the heir-apparent to the British throne was regarded as a peculiar mark of respect to the country, and did much to extinguish the feud that had been smoldering among Americans since the Wars of the Revolution and 1812. This feud had come to be a thing of tradition, well-nigh obliterated by time ; and the popular manners of the young prince, who travelled under the title of Baron Renfrew, as well as the universal esteem felt for his mother, insured him a hearty welcome. He was met at Castle Garden by the First Division of the New York State Militia, number- ing over seven thousand; after reviewing the troops, he was conducted to the City Hall, where he was received
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by the mayor and Common Council, and was thence escorted to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, through streets lined with spectators, and gayly decorated with the united British and American flags. It is estimated that over two hundred thousand people participated in the ovation, yet such was the admirable order preserved that not a single disturbance occurred in this immense crowd. The next morning he breakfasted with the mayor, after which he visited several of the public institutions, together with the Central Park, where he planted an oak. On the same night a grand reception and ball were given him at the Academy of Music. On the next night he was entertained by a firemen's torch- light parade, one of the finest displays of the kind ever witnessed in the city. On Sunday he attended Trinity Church. The next morning, he quitted New York, on his way to Boston, where similar demonstrations awaited him. The friendly feeling awakened by the presence of this distinguished guest was hailed as an omen of future cordiality between America and England; this cordiality, however, was soon doomed to be overshad- owed by the attitude of the latter in our great national struggle.
The festivities were soon forgotten in the turmoil of the presidential election. New York became the scene of the wildest excitement. Mass meetings of the four parties in the field were held in the public halls, and torch-light processions paraded the streets, with numer- ous banners and devices. Foremost among the transient associations was the Wide-Awakes, a republican organ- ization, which sprang into existence for the occasion, and which attracted much attention by its originality.
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The tide of excitement ran high. The democrats were stronger in numbers, and the republicans in wealth and influence. The other two parties, the "Douglas" and " Bell and Everett," were too small to weigh heavily in the scale. Secession was loudly discussed ; but was regarded by most as an idle threat, designed for political effect. The Southern students in the Medical College met, indeed, just before the election, and resolved, if the republican party were successful, to withdraw in a body and return to their homes; but they were restrained, and the affair passed over. The election of Mr. Lincoln decided the contest.
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CHAPTER XXIII.
1860-1867.
Accession of Mr. Lincoln-Breaking out of the Insurrection-Peace Measures- Union Square Meeting-March of the New York Regiments-Union Defence Committee-Relief Association-Death of Colonel Ellsworth-War Meetings- Volunteering-Union League Club-Sanitary Commission-Loyal Publication Society-The Draft-The Great Riot-The Sanitary Fair-The Presidential Election in New York-Hotel Burning-Goldwin Smith-Fall of Richmond -- Assassination of President Lincoln-His Obsequies in New York-Paid Fire Department-Death of Preston King-Academy of Design-Burning of Barnum's Museum-Atlantic Telegraph-Board of Health-Cholera in New York-De- molition of St. John's Park and Tammany Hall-Burning of Winter Garden- Conclusion.
WE are not presumptuous enough to undertake to give, in these few pages, a history of New York City during the great civil war. To do justice to this subject would require a volume double the size of the present one ; moreover, this epoch is still too near our own to belong to the domain of history. Not till the smoke of battle is cleared away, and the passions and prejudices aroused by this period of bitter contention effaced, can the story of this eventful era be fairly written. He would be cold and unimpassioned indeed that could be an actor in this intense drama and remain sufficiently unmoved thereby to narrate it without laying himself open to the charge of special pleading. The most that we can hope to do, in the brief space allowed us, is to chronicle
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some of the prominent events that transpired in our city during this time, and to aid in storing up materials for the future historian.#:
New York City occupied a peculiar position at the outset of the conflict. It cannot be denied that her most fervent wish was peace. By her commercial posi- tion, as the great centre of the United States, she had been brought into constant intercourse with the people of the insurgent section, and entertained the most friendly feeling for them as individuals, much as she deprecated their public action. Again, she foresaw that in case of war she would not only lose heavily, but would also be obliged to bear the brunt of battle, and to furnish the money, without which it would be impossible to prosecute the conflict. It was natural, therefore, that her citizens should be unanimous in exhausting their resources to preserve peace, from different motives, it is true. We speak of New York collectively, but it must not be forgotten that there are two New Yorks : Political New York, by which the city is usually judged, and which comprises its so-called rulers ; and Civil New York, made up of its native-born citizens, who, outnumbered by a foreign majority, honor the law of majorities, obedience to which they demand from others, pay the taxes that are imposed on them, and hold the wealth which enables the city to sustain its position as the western metropolis. Of these, the
* In preparing this sketch the author has consulted, besides the journals of the day, Greeley's American Conflict, Moore's Rebellion Record, Harper's Pictoriai History of the Rebella a, Lossing's Civil War in America, and the American Annual Cyclopedia, Mayor Opdyke's official documents, Pollard's Lost Cause, and various other current publications.
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dominant party, headed by Mayor Wood, desired peace at any price ; another large class, composed chiefly of the men of wealth, were willing to make all possible concessions to avoid the war, of which they knew that they must pay the cost ; and a third party believed that compromises enough had been made, and that the country should brave the issue. Yet all met on the common ground of the preservation of the Union. Scarcely the shadow of a disposition was anywhere manifested to interfere with the existing institutions of the South, which many deplored, but which most regarded as a painful necessity, beyond the reach of outside interference. Therefore, when, after Mr. Lin- coln's election, menacing events followed thick and fast, New York at first put forth her efforts to avert the tempest. Floyd's huge robbery, the withdrawal of the South Carolina senators, the secession of their state, followed by that of others, and the seizure of the public property, caused universal consternation ; yet men still clung to the belief that the difficulty would be settled. The actual secession of the states, indeed, had drawn in a few of the ultra members of the democratic party, among whom was the mayor, who, on the 7th of Jan- uary, 1861, sent a message to the Common Council setting forth the advantages that would accrue to New York should she also secede from the Union and become a free city. It is just to say, however, that he did not formally recommend secession: The suggestion was scouted with indignation ; why, it was asked, should not Manhattanville, Yorkville, and Harlem secede in turn, and where would be the end? Four days after, on the HIth of January, the State Legislature passed a
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