Document 13.13 Edward B. Freeland, The New York City Draft Riot, 1863

Edward B. Freeland | The New York City Draft Riot, 1863

The Enrollment Act, which authorized conscription in the North, outraged many working-class city dwellers. In New York City, whites—including native-born whites and Irish and German immigrants—rioted for four days in July 1863. At least 120 people died, and 11 black men were lynched by the mob. Journalist Edward B. Freeland wrote an analysis of the New York City draft riot in the magazine Continental Monthly.

On Monday, the 13th day of July, 1863, the national conscription was proceeding in two districts of New York city. By Monday night the buildings and the blocks in which the provost marshals had their respective offices had been burned to the ground by a furious rabble, whose onset the police had in vain attempted to stay, and the great metropolis of North America was at the mercy of a raging mob, which roamed through the streets, robbing, beating, burning, murdering where they would.

By Tuesday the police had thoroughly organized, and the trial of strength between mob-law and authority began. Night closed over a still unconquered, defiant, law-contemning insurrection.

On Wednesday the public conveyances of the city were stopped, the places of business mostly closed, while the rioters alternated between hanging negroes, burning their houses, and plundering generally, on the one hand, and fighting the military on the other. Thursday the final struggle ensued, and when Friday dawned, though not until then, was the city fairly delivered from the hands of the insurgents, and restored to its wonted order. Now all is tranquil, and save the occasional ruins, the groans of the wounded in the hospitals, the agony of those who have lost friends or homes in the struggle, and the diminished number of the blacks, little remains to attest the scenes of terror through which New York has passed.

Whence came this riot? From what causes did it spring? . . .

It is one of the vices of our political system, not yet remedied, that it holds out great inducements to unscrupulous and ambitious men to deceive the ignorant and credulous masses, in order to obtain their good will and their votes. This deception has necessarily to be practised, moreover, concerning the individuals and the things in regard to which the highest interests of the people demand they should not be deceived. For the wicked and designing politician knows that good men, who really have the interest of the people at heart, will not elect him to office. On the contrary, they will expose his true character and unmask his deception to the poor dupes whom he is cajoling and deluding. Hence the necessity, on the part of such men, of putting a complete barrier between the really good portion of the community and the ignorant and weak, who most need their assistance. The politician of this stamp resorts, therefore, to every means in his power to destroy the confidence of the lower classes in the higher. He succeeds in convincing the thoughtless portion of the masses that the respectable and comfortable citizen is his enemy and cares not for his condition, while he himself is the poor man’s friend, watchful over his interests, and carefully guarding him from the designs of his foe. . . .

But while plying the people with the most levelling dogmas of equality, it is the equality of the white race only that has been affirmed by the crafty demagogue. The efforts for the enfranchisement of the negro have been eagerly seized upon to widen still further the breach between the intelligent and the ignorant. The thoughtless among the masses have been persistently taught that the emancipation of the negro would result in his coming North, that this would bring him in as a competitor in the struggle for life, already so arduous and harassing, and that, consequently, the emancipation of the black was a direct blow at the interests of the poor white laboring man. When the present national conflict began, and the politicians of the cunning, unscrupulous school thought they saw it to be their interest to gain favor with the South, they opposed the war, and sought to league the populace on their side by raising the cry that the contest was for emancipation, not for saving the Union. And now, when all other efforts to end the struggle in favor of the South are unavailing, they have fastened on the prevention of the draft as the “last ditch” in which to make a final stand and risk a last battle.

They have summoned all their forces to the field in this contest. They urge the poor man to resist the conscription, because it infringes the equality of the citizen and makes an invidious distinction between the rich and the poor. They teach him that he is being forced from fireside and friends, while others no better than himself are left at home; that his family are left destitute by his absence, while others remain to protect and support their dependents; that he is forced to do this in a war which has for its principal object the liberation of a people whom he believes he has every cause to hate, and who will become, on their liberation, his rivals in the race where suffering and perhaps starvation await the loser. Is it any wonder that they broke the [draft lottery] wheel, scattered the names, and burnt the enrolling offices—that they plundered and murdered the negroes?

Source: Continental Monthly 4, no. 3 (September 1863), 302–4.