USA > New York > Bronx County > The Bronx and its people; a history, 1609-1927, Volume I > Part 46
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The circumstance that a part of the Westchester Grand Jury con- sidered the spirit of the White Plains journal not quite disloyal enough to be included in the presentment drawn up by it against the press would indicate that its tone and sentiments may be taken as represent- ing the attitude of the more modern Democrats who stayed at home during the war and voted for Horatio Seymour, as they did. The fig- ures of the election in the county are rather against the assertion of the "Journal" that "three-fourths of the volunteers from the county" were Democrats, for the vote cast for Seymour for Governor was seven thousand, eight hundred and sixty-six, a decrease from the presidential vote of only two hundred and sixty votes, while the Republican vote was only five thousand, five hundred and fifty-six, which was a decrease of one thousand, one hundred and fifteen votes from that cast for the Lincoln electors two years before.
Draft Riots North of Harlem-The most notable occurrence in the affairs of The Bronx territory and the county of Westchester during the war, following the election of Horatio Seymour, was the series of incidents known as the draft riots, which, beginning in the city of New York, overflowed into the country around. The troubles in the city be-
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gan on July 13, 1863. The New York papers of that day recorded that the draft was begun on the previous Saturday, in the Twenty-second Ward, at No. 677 Third Avenue, and went on to say that "all was quiet, with plenty of good-natured joking at the names of the citizens as they were drawn." They also announced that the next place to be opened would be at the corner of Broadway and Forty-fifth Street, on Monday morning. Thus it will be seen that, as in the case of the Fort Sumter excitement, a serious action had taken place on Saturday and that the people had all Sunday to think over it. In the first case the result of the twenty-four hours' meditation had been in the direction of patriot- ism. This time it was to be different. The mob of April, 1861, had fore- seen nothing personal in the approach of events, and aimed merely at compelling the "hanging out of the United States flag." There was a stronger motive impelling the crowd of July, 1863, for they considered they were being drafted for the war in an unfair manner. The general anger soon took the form of violence. Summed up in short order, the first day's work was the burning of the provost marshal's offices, the destruction of the lists according to which the draft was to be en- forced, the tearing up of the railroad tracks, the cutting of telegraph wires, the mobbing of individual soldiers found on the streets, the mur- der of other soldiers, resistance to the police of the most violent sort, the burning of an orphan asylum for colored children, the burning and sacking of many private houses, the hanging of negroes wherever they were to be found by the mob, an attack on the counting room of the "New York Tribune," and the saving of it by a charge of police under Captain Thorne. On the second day of the rioting there was the mur- der of Captain O'Brien, of the Eleventh Regiment, while he was sep- arated from his troops. The city on this day was in the general control of the rioters, so that troops had to be telegraphed for. Meanwhile there was fierce fighting between the mob and the police.
It was in the course of this second day's disturbance that the dis- tricts north of the Harlem became involved in the disturbance. Crowds visited the enrolling offices of Morrisania and West Farms, tore up the enrolling lists, destroyed the telegraph offices at William's Bridge and Melrose, ripped up rails on the New Haven and Harlem roads, near the Bronx River, planted pickets on both roads as far as Mount Vernon to signal when a general attempt to tear up the tracks might be made. Eventually the mob was brought to a more even frame of mind by appeals issued by Supervisor Cauldwell and Pierre C. Talman. A tele- graph operator on this day attempted to put an instrument into a store at Hunt's Bridge, near Mount Vernon, but the proprietor was intimi- dated by a message from sympathizers with the mob to the effect that if the instrument was not removed the store would be gutted. On this,
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the second day, there was a complete reign of terror, though no violence appears to have been perpetrated north of the Harlem beyond the acts chronicled above.
On Wednesday evening a meeting was called in the town hall at Tremont, which was heavily attended by the people of West Farms, Morrisania and the vicinity. It was presided over by John B. Haskin, and was reported in the "New York Herald" of Friday, till which time the notes of the reporter appear to have been crowded out by the pres- sure of other news. It may be remarked that the "Herald" reports of the incidents of the week seem the best to be found, the facts being given with considerable detail, without much visible attempt to color them. The "Herald" gives this account of Mr. Haskin's speech :
"They had met in a crisis which required the greatest coolness and judgment on the part of the people. He hoped that the proceedings would be characterized, hereafter, as the conduct of honest and law- abiding citizens. That it was not their interest to uphold the Adminis- tration in the odious and unconstitutional Conscription Act (cheers), but there was a way to test it, in the courts. In his opinion, the act of 1792, providing for calling out the militia, was fully equal to the pres- ent emergency in the history of the Rebellion. That the men who made the Constitution passed that act, with the express object of giving power to raise the troops necessary in emergencies. When Mr. Lin- coln made his first call, it was good enough for the purpose. Then the State had a Republican Governor. Now it had a Democratic Governor and the old law was worthless. The chief executive of the State was to be deprived of his power, that his duties might be transferred to government satraps, to execute the will of the irresponsible authorities at Washington (cheers). This was an insult to Mr. Seymour and an insult to the loyal people who elected him (great cheers). If the Ad- ministration was afraid to trust the Governor, afraid to trust the people of the State, it was fresh proof of the imbecility of the men who now controlled the destinies of the Republic (cheers). He argued that the State courts must declare the act constitutional or unconstitutional, and by their decrees the government must abide. Therefore, why this excitement? Their rights would be protected, their privileges main- tained, no matter at what hazard or at what cost (cheers). He referred to the exemption clause ($300) as being an invidious distinction be- tween the rich and the poor (yes, yes). It was undemocratic, unwise, and he did not wonder that they objected to it. He preferred the old law under which all classes bore equal responsibility (cheers). Our recent brilliant victories made it easy for volunteers to be raised, to put down the Rebellion. Let the government abandon the conscrip- tion act and cast itself on the patriotism of the people (great cheers).
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There were men enough to volunteer, good men of their own free will. Such men would fight better, and be an honor to the service. He went on in this strain for some time, and then denounced the rioters for rob- bery, and declared the hanging of inoffensive negroes a disgrace to the age in which we live. They ought rather to be protected, as the weak have a right to the protection of the strong. He was sure that this meet- ing did not approve of the burning of Orphan Asylums, be they for blacks or whites. There should be no distinction of nationalities, colors or races. Then the speaker denounced the excesses of Know-Nothing- ism bitterly, the audience applauding heartily. He alluded to General McClellan, who was cheered enthusiastically, and General Grant's name was also greeted with cheers, the news of Vicksburg being fresh at the time.
"Mr. Pierre C. Talman followed in similar strain, expressing his con- fidence that the meeting before him would be the last people in the world to violate the laws. He reminded them that the abolitionist fanatics, who were rapidly losing their grip on the people, desired noth- ing better than to regain it through the excesses of a mob. (Groans for the Abolitionists). But the workingmen of Westchester County were always ready for peace and the law (cheers). He animadverted on the exemption clause, as an odious distinction, and reminded them that the Governor (great cheers) wanted it tested in the State courts and de- clared unconstitutional (cheers). Then he denounced the excesses in New York, which, he said, where all committed by thieves, who had taken advantage of the excitement to disgrace the people. Mr. Talman was much applauded.
"During his speech, however, he was interrupted by a man, who asked if it was not true that Mr. Haskin had a negro in his employment and what right he had to keep one? Haskin got up at once and replied that he had such a man, the same who hoisted the first Union flag on Roanoke Island, that it was no one's business whether he kept an Irish- man, German, Swede, negro, or anybody else in his employment; that he intended to keep the man as long as he pleased. The statement was cheered and his questioner was silenced.
"This meeting adopted a set of resolutions, condemning the draft; expressing confidence in Horatio Seymour, in his efforts to get it de- clared unconstitutional; affirmed the judgment of the people of Mor- risania and West Farms that the act was unconstitutional, and depre- cated mob violence. They appointed Messrs. Talman, G. W. Cauld- well, Franklin W. Gilley, Thomas E. Sutton, John B. Haskin, John Kirby and Terence Kennedy, a committee, 'to wait on Moses G. Sheard, Esq., Federal Provost Marshal of the district,' to 'insist that the draft be stopped till the State court could decide whether it was consti- tutional'."
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The meeting gives a good indication of the condition of feeling at the time. The speakers managed the mass of excited men, whom it was their task to quiet, with considerable skill. They regaled them with assurances that their opposition to the draft was all right. They ap- pealed to their self-respect, and the appointment of the committee ended the whole matter. The region of The Bronx and Westchester County in general was tranquil after the meeting, the more so since on the same day the return of the troops from Pennsylvania and the report of fierce fighting in the city, in which the mob was getting the worst of it, had a tendency to kill the idea that attempts at violence were to be made with safety. Elsewhere north of the Harlem the disturbances went no further than aimless tumults, which resulted in no actual bloodshed as far as can be ascertained from the reports of the facts which are available. Thomas J. Byrne, the county enrolling officer at White Plains, was fired at as he was driving home at night, but re- turned the fire with a revolver, and got away safe. His house was vis- ited by a mob a couple of days later after dark. The enrollment papers were burnt, the house was sacked, and his wife and two children were forced to take refuge in the house of Edward Haight. Mr. Byrne him- self was away from home at the time or the consequences might have been more serious. On the same day the Hudson River train was stopped at Yonkers, the rails having been torn up between that place and the city, so that the Canadian mail had to be taken to New York on the boat. The citizens of Yonkers formed two companies of Home Guards to keep property and life safe, but there was no serious dis- turbance. The arsenal was guarded day and night. At Tarrytown a guard was also formed, and procured a cannon to overawe the mob, so that all was peaceful along the Hudson River. On the same day- Wednesday-there was very nearly a serious disturbance in the town of Eastchester.
Thus a crowd of men and boys from the quarries of the village of Tuckahoe set out from that place, gathering recruits from the villages near them, armed with sticks, stones and any rude weapons they could lay their hands on, and took up their march for the village of Mount Vernon, with the avowed object of "burning down the houses of all the Republicans in the place." The men were probably excited by the accounts given in the city papers of the way in which the same venge- ance had been meted out to well-known Republicans in the city, one house having been actually burned down, "because Horace Greeley once boarded there," as reported by the "Tribune," "Herald" and "World." At all events they started out, and the news reached Mount Vernon, where a Home Guard had been hastily formed by the citizens, who were much alarmed at the idea of being attacked, both from the city
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and the river. Volunteers were called for to reconnoitre the enemy ; and a drummer boy, home on sick furlough at the time, was found, who said he would go. A horse was furnished him and he boylike must needs put on his uniform and ride off. He met about two miles from the village, coming out of the lane from Bronxville, towards Mount Vernon, a confused crowd of men, who stopped him and asked him where he was going. He replied that he was going to Bronxville, and asked them in turn where they were going. The reply was: "We are going to raise hell," with which they began to throw stones at him and yell, so that he was glad to wheel his horse and gallop away. Probably his youth and apparent innocence saved him from serious harm, for no effort was made to pursue him and he got away safe. Returning and trying to take a short cut across the swamp towards Mount Ver- non, he got his horse mired just behind the house of John G. Satterlee, afterwards known as "the Corson Place," and had to leave the animal and run the rest of the way to the village on foot. Preparations were made to receive the rioters by the Home Guards, who occupied two buildings, one being a cartridge factory. Towards the end of the after- noon the rioters made their appearance, but in the meantime they had been met by several prominent Democrats of the place, at a turn in the road, known as "Sageman's Corners," where they were induced to give up their design of actual arson, though they remained obstinate in their determination to march into Mount Vernon. They went down the White Plains road, where it runs into Fourth Avenue, Mount Vernon. They threw stones at windows in First Street, at the corner of Fourth Avenue, and in Fourth Avenue itself. They shouted, flourished sticks, and yelled; but after marching a little way down First Street, they turned back at the bridge over the New Haven track, known as "Scott's Bridge," and went home.
Thus ended the last actual attempt at violence in the neighborhood of The Bronx and even in the county of Westchester. The Mount Vernon affair found little space in the periodical journals and to F. Whittaker is due the credit for painstakingly gathering some of the in- cidents together. Two of the ringleaders of the mob, which marched into Mount Vernon, were recognized, and one of them, after the war, became a town official, well known for his good nature. The story of the little fracas is indicative of the excitement into which many in the neighborhood were worked by the inflammatory appeals of journals op- posed to the war, and how nearly the neighborhood was disgraced by bloodshed. Men, who at other times would not have harmed a kitten, were thrown into a frenzy by the belief that they were being grossly wronged, and were ready for any sort of violence. That they had in this case no intention of perpetrating actual murder appears to be
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shown by the fact of their restraint, when they spared the rash little drummer boy, who actually rode into the midst of them, wearing his uniform. It is true his horse was struck by a few stones by angry hands, but they were clearly not intended to hurt the boy. His name was Joseph H. Porter, and he afterwards enlisted in the Thirteenth New York Cavalry from New York City and served to the close of the war.
The Press and Lincoln-The suppression of the draft riots in New York City, the capture of Chattanooga, and the general advance of the armies of the Potomac and the West, in the spring of 1864, had their influence on the general feeling in the neighborhood of The Bronx and in Westchester County generally. There was a decided change in the attitude of the unfriendly papers. In Yonkers in particular this change was considered so necessary that on May 7th the editor of the "Herald" of that town, formally resigned, and the journal passed into the con- trol of a stock company, known as the "Yonkers Democratic Publish- ing Association," under which the paper, which appears from the fare- well announcement of the editor to have been in a far from prosperous condition, was carried on to the termination of the war. Its tone, under the new control, was no longer one of open hostility to the prosecution of the war, but dealt chiefly in personal attacks on Lincoln, on the ground of his "frivolous nature" and his "buffoonery." On May 21, 1864, the noted forged proclamation of Joe Howard and the suppression of the copies of the "World" and the "Journal of Commerce," which con- tained them, are noticed, with much outcry concerning the liberty of the press. The split in the Republican party, threatened by the nom- ination of Fremont, under the inspiration of Gratz Brown, who ran with Horace Greeley in 1872, on the Democratic ticket, is noticed, with unconcealed hopes of a favorable' issue for the Democracy. The cry of corruption was thus raised in the same issue of the paper :
That stench of official corruption in Washington at this moment is ranker than that even that arising from the thousands of unburied bodies of horses and men, that strew the soil of Virginia. There may have been corruption under previous administrations; but under that of "honest old Abe" it is positively frightful.
A few days later the Yonkers "Herald" wants General Dix punished "by damages in a civil action," since he "cannot be reached by the State courts, or court-martial," for having closed the "World" and "Journal of Commerce," because there was no hope in Congress-"it was too thoroughly servile." "No Senate, in the corruptest days of Rome, registered every decree of its military tyrant with more slavish alacrity than is displayed by the administration majority in fulfilling the will of Abraham Lincoln." Noticing the nomination of Lincoln at the regular Republican Convention, the Yonkers "Herald" remarks :
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"Another four years of 'Honest old Abe' would leave nothing but the shadow of a Republic on the American continent." It thanks the "Eastern State Journal" and "Highland Democrat" for the welcome ex- tended by them to the paper under the new management. On June 4th the name of the paper is changed to the "Gazette," and a great boom begins in the advertising columns, from the quantity of county adver- tising thrown in, as in the case of the "Eastern State Journal," by the county officials. On the same day begins a period of controversy with the "Yonkers Statesman," formerly the "Examiner," the leading Repub- lican newspaper of the county, with regard to accusations made against the "Gazette," for "disloyalty." This is how the editor expresses him- self :
"We confess to the smallest possible amount of respect for Republi- can professions of 'loyalty,' or Republican charges of 'disloyalty.' The word is not American, nor Republican even-here it originally expressed the treasonable attachment of the loyal Tories to George the Third, in his wanton war against American liberty; and, as now used, it gener- ally means partisan devotion to Abraham Lincoln, not in resistance to a Southern rebellion, but in a would-be second war on the liberties of American citizens."
Early in June comes the notice of the Democratic Convention being called by August Belmont, on which the editor exhorts his readers that "Civil liberty cannot survive another term of Abraham Lincoln." In the week that followed we find an article on "Reconstruction," the trend of which is given in the following extract: "What is the political relation of the rebellious States to the Union? Have their own acts and ordinances taken them out of it, as they themselves claim? If not, has the President, or Congress even, the right to expel States from the Union? If these States are still members of the Union, can new States be carved out of them without their own consent, against the prohibi- tion of the Constitution on that head? On some of these points we en- tertain very decided opinions, which we refrain, however, from ex- pressing in this article."
In the course of the summer the "Gazette" is exercised over what it regards as the progress of "military despotism," having regard to the suppression of the bogus proclamation, and particularly in view of the fact that the New York Grand Jury, appealed to by Judge Russell, to investigate in the matter, considered it "inexpedient to inquire into the action of the general government as to certain newspapers in this city." The "Gazette" calls on the judge to summon another Grand Jury and on Oakley Hall, the district attorney, to do his best to have it out in a conflict between the State of New York and the United States on the subject. "We sincerely trust," the paper says, "the authorities will not
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be intimidated by the declaration of war upon them by Mr. Lincoln. Let it be made known to him that he cannot play the dictator over the people and laws of the State of New York, or let us prepare for worse than Austrian slavery."
Through the latter part of the summer to the middle of September the "Gazette" is occupied with definitions of principle, of which the following is an example: "He who avows that he is not for the Union, without conditions, is disunionist, let him be Abraham Lincoln or Jeffer- son Davis .... The only Union man is he who is for the Union, without conditions." There are also a number of stories about the "branding" of United States recruits, which are repeated from week to week, with the obvious intention of discouraging ignorant men from enlisting. As the election approaches the "Gazette" becomes more pronounced in its appeals to the people in favor of slavery, such as this :
The Difference .- The Democratic Platform is, the Union at all hazards; the Republican Platform is, Abolition at all hazards. The difference between the candidates: Lincoln is for the Union, without slavery; McClellan is for the Union, with or without slavery; Lincoln is for the Union on certain conditions; Mcclellan, at all hazards; Lincoln has been tried and found wanting; Mcclellan has always shown himself equal to emergency. With this brief and intelligent view of the merits of the present contest, no thinking man will hesitate regarding how or where his vote shall be cast.
From the beginning of October to the date of the election, the paper is full of reports of mass-meetings, political advertising and appeals to voters to "register, register." On November 13th, the conclusion is: "The grand old Democratic party of the State of New York yields the battlefield, covered with all the glory a nobly contested struggle can confer upon it." A touch of humor is attached to the issue of the paper by a glance at the advertising column, placed opposite the editorial. The advertisement that catches the eye is as follows :
The Re-election of ABRAHAM LINCOLN, and The election of ANDREW JOHNSON, and The UNIVERSAL UNION TRIUMPH will be cele- brated in Yonkers, Tuesday evening, November 15th, by a TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION and ILLUMINATION. All UNION men and LOYAL citizens are cordially invited to take a share in the celebration. Yonkers, November 9, 1864.
N. P. Otis, Sec.
John V. Paddon, Chairman.
The defeat of November appears to have considerably sobered the conductors of the "Gazette." It subsides and remains in an inactive state during the rest of the month. On December 2, the readers are edified by some pious instructions-the heading of which is "Charity." The editor remarks:
The meddlesome notions of New England Puritanism found a congenial topic
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in the slavery question, and decreed, at an early date, that there should no longer be peace on earth, or good will among men unless the negroes were emancipated ... The full fruits of such teachings are just now visible in the want of charity mani- fested by the supporters of Mr. Lincoln's administration towards their political opponents. Differences of opinion ... are made the subject of unjust charges of disloyalty and treason to the country ... This bitterness and uncharity are a stain on the national character. They constitute a state of feeling discreditable to char- itable people and which deserves the severest condemnation. For the credit of our common humanity, we wish there were less of it prevalent among us.
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