Joe Bruno on the Mob – The Civil War Draft Riots of 1863

Never in the history of New York City, or any place on this planet, has there been a more brutal mass insurrection than the New York City Civil War Draft Riots of 1963.

The seed was planted for these riots, when in March of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation, called The Conscription Act (or Enrollment Act), stating he needed 300,000 more men to be drafted into the Northern Army, to beat back the Southern Rebels in the Civil War. This act required that every male citizen between the ages of twenty and forty be drafted into the war. Each man who joined was given a bounty of up to $500 to enlist, but the gravest inequity was that for the sum of $300, a man could buy himself out of being drafted. The rich could afford the $300, but the poor could not, which led to the Civil War being called “A rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”

New York City (which was only Manhattan at the time) had over 800,000 citizens, of which more than half were foreign. Of that half, half again were poor Irish, who had no desire to fight in a war to end the slavery of Negroes, whom they intensely despised. These poor, low-class Irish people settled in the Five Points and Mulberry Bend areas in downtown Manhattan. And also in the 4^th Ward, near the East River. In these slums, gangs like the Plug Uglies, the Bowery Boys, Roach Guards and Dead Rabbits committed atrocious crimes, and this is where the Irish draft rioters began their bloodthirsty march.

Lincoln announced that Draft Day in New York City would commence on Saturday July 11^th. On that day, with only minor disturbances throughout the city, 1,236 men were drafted, and it was announced that the draft would continue on Monday morning. Yet the seeds of discontent were planted during the rest of the weekend, spurred on by an article in Saturday evenings “Leslie’s Illustrated,” which stated, “It came like a thunderclap on the people, as men read their names in the fatal list, the feeling of indignation and resistance soon found vent in words, and a spirit of resistance spread fast and far. The number of poor men exceeded that of the rich, their number to draw from being that much greater, but this was viewed as proof of the dishonesty in the whole proceeding.”

As Monday morning drew near, the poor slum-living Irish populace began planning how to voice their displeasure, and it wouldn’t be pleasant. At 6 am Monday morning, men and women started spilling out of the downtown slums and they began their vicious march to the north. At every street more discontents joined their forces and the group became so huge it split into two groups. It is estimated that eventually 50,000 to 70,000 people took place in the four-day Draft Riots, and the New York City Metropolitan police had only 3000 men to beat the rioters back.

As the rioters moved north along Fifth and Sixth Avenues, they finally turned east and made a beeline toward the main draft office at 46^th Street and Third Avenue. Police Superintendent John A. Kennedy, realizing trouble was brewing, dispatched 60 police officers to guard the Third Avenue draft office and another 69 to guard the draft office at Broadway and 29^th Street. The rioters on Third Avenue were led by the volunteer firemen attached to Engine Company 33, known as the Black Joke. They consisted of members of the Plug Uglies street gang, who had now stopped traffic completely and were pulling people out of their carts. Signs in the crowd were held saying “NO DRAFT!!”, when suddenly someone in the crowd shot a pistol up into the air and the riots commenced.

The mob threw bricks and stones at the draft office, breaking all the windows in the building. Then they surged forwards, thousands of them, while the 60 cops tried in vain to hold them back. The rioters stepped over the unconscious police, and as draft officials jumped out rear windows, the mob set fire to the building.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Kennedy had left Police Headquarters at 300 Mulberry Street, wearing civilian clothes as a disguise. He took a horse carriage to 46^th Street and Lexington, but when he saw the smoke, he jumped out of the carriage and proceeded on foot. He was immediately recognized and beaten to a bloody pulp, until he was unconscious. A good Samaritan saved him, when he announced to the mob that Kennedy was dead. Kennedy was covered by a gunny sack and put in a wagon, which drove him to Police Headquarters. When he was examined by doctors, Kennedy was found to have 72 bruises on his body, and over two dozen cuts.

The rioters then attacked the Colored Orphans Asylum on Fifth Avenue and 46^th Street. As the rioters stormed the building, 50 matrons and attendants snuck 200 Negro children out a secret back door. The mob rush in, stole blankets, toys and bedding, then set fire to the building. One little Negro girl, who was accidentally left behind, was found hiding under a bed. She was dragged out and beaten to death.

All through the streets of New York City, angry Irish mobs chased Negroes, whom they blamed for the drafts in the first place. The Negroes, who were caught, were beaten to death and sometimes hanged. As their dead bodies hung from trees and rafters, mad Irish woman, glee in their eyes, stabbed the dead Negroes’ bodies, while the mad crones danced under lit touches and sung obscene songs.

Finally, Mayor George Updyke wired the War Department in Washington for help. During the next three days of unspeakable mayhem, while hundreds of buildings were being burned down, innumerable business looted, and Negroes killed for no other reason than the color of their skin, the United States Militia, armed, trained and 10,000 strong, stormed New York City to quell the riots. On Tuesday, July 14^th, New York Governor Horatio Seymour, stood on the steps of City Hall and said to the assembled crowd, “I have received a dispatch from Washington that the draft is now suspended.” He was booed and jeered, and the riots continued for two more days.

It is impossible to estimate how many people were killed in the four days of riots. The New York Post reported that the bodies of the rioters were shipped across the East River and buried quietly under the blanket of darkness. Police Superintendent Kennedy put the dead total at 1,155 people, but that did not include those buried secretly at night. Of the tens of thousand of rioters involved, and despite the brutal murders of scores of Negroes, only 19 people were tried and convicted of any crimes. Their average prison sentence was a mere five years.

Diarist George Templeton Strong summed up the disgrace of New York City when he wrote, “This is a nice town to call itself a center of civilization.”

Joe Bruno on the Mob – Boss Tweed — The Most Crooked Politician in New York City’s HistoryLudlow Street Jail

William “Boss” Tweed was so outlandishly a crooked politician, what he did in elected office in New York City was almost too devilish to believe. He stole so much cash from the New York City coffers, by 1870, Tweed had become the third largest land owner in the entire city.

William Tweed, a third generation Scottish-Irishman, was born on April 3, 1823 at 24 Cherry Street on the Lower East Side. His father was a chair maker and the young Tweed tired to follow in his father’s footsteps, but the lure of the streets was too much for him to overcome. He ran with a motley crew of juvenile delinquents called the “Cherry Street Gang,” who wrecked havoc on local merchants, by stealing their wares and selling them on the street’s black market. Soon Tweed became boss of the “Cherry Hill Gang,” and he (as did most gang members of that day) joined various volunteer fire companies, which were a springboard for men with big political ambitions. Tweed helped found American Fire Engine Company No. 6, which was called the Big Six. During his time in the volunteer fire business, Tweed forged friendships with people of all ancestries; Irish, Scottish, Germans, anyone who could help him climb the ladder of public services, with only one thing in mind, steal often and steal big.

In 1850, Tweed ran unsuccessfully for assistant alderman on the Democratic ticket. But a year later was elected alderman, a non-paying job, but with unlimited power for anyone smart enough and crooked enough to take advantage of its perks. Just scant weeks after he became an alderman, Tweed brokered a deal to buy land on Wards Island for a new potters field. The asking price was $30,000, but Tweed paid $103,450 of the city’s money for the land, then split the difference between himself and several other elected civic-minded officials.

In 1855, Tweed was elected to the city board of elections, which was another cash cow for the greedy Tweed. He sold city textbooks for his own profit and sold teacher’s jobs to whomever had the money to buy one. In once instance, he peddled a teacher’s position to a crippled schoolmarm for $75, even though the job only paid $300 a year. In 1857, Tweed was appointed to the New York County Board of Supervisors, which propelled Tweed into a much more profitable form of thievery. He formed what was known as the “Tweed Ring,” which was nothing more than Tweed and his buddies controlling every job and work permit in the entire city of New York. Every contractor, artisan and merchant, who wanted to do business with the city, had to cough up cash, and they coughed up plenty. It is estimated that Tweed’s board of supervisors pocketed 15% of every dollar spent on construction in New York City.

Concerning Tweed and his cronies, American lawyer and diarist George Templeton Strong wrote in 1860, “Our city government is rotten to the core.”

By 1865, Tweed’s wealth had grown to impressive proportions, as did his girth. Standing 5 feet 11 inches, Tweed’s weight ballooned to 320 pounds. His reputation for eating was legendary and he consumed enormous amounts of the finest foods. He floundered around town like a whale out of water, with a huge diamond stuck right in the middle of his fancy shirt, flouting his tremendous wealth.

It is estimated, from 1865 to 1871, Tweed’s gang stole as much as 200 million dollars from the New York City treasury. They did this by over-billing the city for everything imaginable. They paid out of the city’s coffers $10,000 for $75 worth of pencils; $171,000 for $4,000 worth of tables and chairs, and $1,826,000 for the plastering of a municipal building that cost only $50,000 to plaster. Tweed also gave citizenship to over 60,000 immigrant, none of whom could read or write, but who could vote for Tweed and his cohorts on election day.

Tweed’s downfall began on December 25, 1869, when Harper’s Weekly published a cartoon of Tweed and his gang breaking into a huge box, with the caption “Taxpayers’ and Tenants’ Hard Cash.” Upon seeing the cartoon, Tweeds reportedly said, “Stop them damned pictures. I don’t care so much what the papers say about me. My constituents don’t know how to read, but they can’t help seeing them damned pictures!”

With the pressure mounting to unveil the extent of Tweed’s corruption, a blue ribbon panel, headed by future Presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden, was formed to investigate New York City’s financial documents. When the books were checked, it was discovered that money had gone directly from city contractors into Tweed’s pocket. The next day, Boss Tweed was arrested.

His first trial, in January 1873, ended in a hung jury — a jury many people thought was bought by Tweed’s money. But in November of that same year, Tweed was convicted on 204 out of 220 counts and sentenced to 12 years in prison. He was incarcerated at the Ludlow Street Jail, but was allowed home visits. During one such visit, Tweed fled the country and traveled to Spain, where he worked as a seaman on a commercial ship. He was recognized, because his picture was frequently in the newspapers, and returned to America. He again was imprisoned at the Ludlow Street Jail; this time with no home visits allowed.

On April 12, 1878, Boss Tweed died in the Ludlow Street Jail from a severe case of pneumonia. He was buried in Brooklyn’s Greenwood Cemetery, and due to Tweed’s outlandish treachery, New York Mayor Smith Ely would not allow the City Hall flag to be flown at half staff in Tweed’s memory.

No one could account for what became of Boss Tweed’s vast amounts of ill-gotten gains, since there were no reports of a Wells Fargo stagecoach following his horse-drawn hearse.