Draft Lottery Sparks NYC Riots

• Author: Allen Pusey
• Pages: 72-72

PHOTOGRAPHS FROM HARPER’S WEEKLY AND U.S. ARMY VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Draft Lottery Sparks NYC Riots

The Enrollment Act of 1863 came at a bad time for New York Democrats. With Abraham Lincoln

in the White House, abolitionists were gaining political strength, drawing crowds to their rallies.

Under emancipation, the introduction of free black men to the cauldron of mostly German and Irish

immigrants seemed foreboding to the Tammany Hall regime.

Support for Li ncoln’s conduct of the Civil

War was hardly unani mous in the North; by

early July, many white workers in New York

City saw conscription as a n existential threat

to a life and livelihood relat ively untouched

by the strife.

The act, which Linc oln signed in March,

required male citi zens between ages 20 and

45 to register for conscr iption, with each

congressional distr ict assigned a recruitment

quota. The enlistment term s were left to

individual state s, and some oered generous

bounties to attrac t recruits.

In New York, a lottery was to determ ine conscription,

but it had several unpopular exemptions: black men,

whose citizenship was st ill a matter of national debate,

and wealthy whites, who for $300 could purc hase an

exemption or hire a substitute draf tee.

On Saturday, July 11, the lottery began smoot hly at 677

Third Ave. in the 9th Congressiona l District. But by the

time it resumed on Monday morning, July 13, white work-

ers from several rai lroads and foundries had marched in

unison to the site, recr uiting others along the way.

Anticipating trouble, ocials delayed t he lottery until

police arrived. But the t wo dozen ocers who responded

were overmatched by the jeering mob. Shortly a fter the

first names were pulled, je ers morphed into rocks and

bricks. And as t he mob moved in, ocials aba ndoned

the oce to rioters. Soon f urniture was destroyed, book s

and records strew n across the street, and the building

—occupied by terrified fa milies on the upper floors—set

aflame.

Seemingly crazed by t he fire, the mob moved through

the city, swelling in number and indiscr iminate wrath.

When the police superintendent showed up, the horde

beat him and destroyed hi s carriage. They set

fire to the Bull’s Head Hotel, where the Union

League was k nown to meet. The Marston & Co.

armory was be sieged and reduced to rubble.

Two more enrollment oces were looted and

burned. The home of the postmaster w as

torched along with a nearby police pre cinct.

Because the Battle of G ettysburg earlier in

the month had sapped troop strengt h from

the region, help from federal forces wa s slow

to arrive. For four days, the r ioters tumbled

through the city unre strained before sucient

troops could be mustered to re store the calm.

Roving gangs of Irish C atholics targeted Protesta nt

churches and charities . For black residents, it was wors e.

Eleven black men were murdered for no apparent reason;

countless others were beaten a nd maimed. Black families’

homes were destroyed. Even the Orphan A sylum for

Colored Children on Fift h Avenue was torched, though

its 230-plus residents manage d to escape.

The mobs turned on newspapers perceived a s

Republican. A t the New York Times, rioters were

turned away by Gatling gu ns manned by Times sta.

At abolitionist Horace Greeley’s New-York Tribune,

they listened to bullet ins on the progress of their riot

before attacki ng. Telegraph poles were toppled, train

tracks up ended, businesses g utted and burned.

Confronted by 6,000 troops a nd a Tammany Hall

promise to pay the exemption fees of its loyalist s, calm

finally set in on Friday. Ocial s set the death toll at

119, with police and firefighter s among the victims.

Property dam age ran into the millions, and 20 percent

of the city’s black population, fear ful of further violence,

fled. Of the thousands who riot ed, only 67 were convicted

of any crime .

July 13, 1863

72 || ABA JOURNAL JULY 2018

Precedents || By Allen Pusey