Posted on 04/10/2015 5:03:22 PM PDT by lqcincinnatus
And you're not the one of the ones I'm talking about. And I'll certainly concede that the movie looks great.
http://www.mrlincolnandnewyork.org/inside.asp?ID=91&subjectID=4
The 1863 Draft Riots
The New York draft riots were “a macabre episode, a three-day orgy of violence which sickened Lincoln to read about,” wrote biographer Stephen B. Oates.1 “New York, in its earlier history, stands preëminent among the cities of the country for the frequency and violence of her riots,” wrote historian Daniel Van Pelt in Leslie’s History of Greater New York. “But up to the year 1863 — with the Doctor’s Mob of 788, the riots of 1834, 1835, 1837, 1849, and the ‘Dead Rabbits’ exploits of 1857, not to mention Mayor Wood’s performances with his ‘own’ police in the same year, all garnishing the record — New York is not easily excelled. In 1863 she added to that record the worst, bloodiest, most destructive and brutal riot of all. It goes by the name of the ‘Draft Riots.’”2
The draft riots stemmed from many causes — not the least of which was the way that violence had been employed for political reasons in the past three decades. But the proximate cause was the fact that New York City — which had furnished too many soldiers to the Union Army at the beginning of the war now furnished too few. Because it was failing to meet its recruitment quotas, it had fallen subject to provisions of the Enrollment and Conscription Act passed by Congress on March 3, 1863. Conscription was to be employed when enrollment targets were not met by a community. “The draft needed to be applied to New York State and city sooner than anywhere else,” wrote historian Daniel Van Pelt. “At the close of the year 1862, it was reported to the department that since July, 1862, New York State was short 28,517 in volunteers, of which 18,523 was to be charged to New York City. But for this very reason conscription was least likely to be welcomed here. The revulsion in sentiment had carried an anti-war Governor, Horatio Seymour, into office” in 1862.3
Unlike his Republican predecessor, Edwin D. Morgan, Governor Seymour did not construe his job as trying to do everywhere possible to forward troops to the war front. Instead, he quibbled over the accuracy of the War Department statistics. According to Seymour biographer Stewart Mitchell, “Governor Seymour was a vigorous opponent of federal conscription, first and last. To begin with, he though the law was unnecessary — which it would have been if all the states had done as well at finding soldiers as New York. In the second place, he though the at evasive and dishonest — as indeed it was. Once it was a law, however, he publicly declared that it would never work and ought to be tested in the courts. This opinion carried him beyond the position of many people who approved his course of conduct as a whole.”4
That set the stage for the bloody and brutal violence of July 14-17, 1863. “The draft riots, as they are called, were supposed by some to be the result of a deep-laid conspiracy on the part of those opposed to the war, and that the successful issue of Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania was to be the signal for open action. Whether this be so or not, it is evident that the outbreak in New York City on the 13th of July, not only from the manner of its commencement, the absence of proper organization, and almost total absence of leadership, was not the result of a general well-understood plot. It would seem from the facts that those who started the movement had no idea at the outset of proceeding to the length they did. They simply desired to break up the draft in some of the upper districts of the city, and destroy the registers in which certain names were enrolled,” wrote Joel Tyler Headley in The Great Riots of New York City.5
The Confederate invasion had contributed to the riots in another way. At the request of the Lincoln Administration, Governor Horatio Seymour had forwarded all available militia units from New York City to the Pennsylvania war front. “George Opdyke, the Republican mayor of New York, protested when he learned that all the troops had been ordered to leave the city for the front, but Major-General [Charles W.] Sandford declared that the governor must be obeyed. Seymour planned to replace the soldiers who had left with militia from the interior of the state, but General Wool requested him to countermand his order to this effect,” wrote Seymour biographer Stewart Mitchell.6
New York in 1863 was beset by many problems. “Municipal services failed to keep pace with the rise in population,” wrote William K. Klingaman in Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, 1861-1865. Nearly two-thirds of New York City lacked sewers; many of the sewer lines that existed were so poorly constructed that they frequently were clogged with filth. Epidemics regularly swept through the tenements, giving New York the highest death rate of any city in the civilized world. Merchants sold milk from diseased cattle and coffee tainted with street sweepings and sawdust,” wrote Lincoln chronicler William K. Klingaman.7 But the most important problem in mid-July was the absence of security personnel combined with the presence of angry draft dodgers. The result was an incendiary situation.
“There were murmurings of the coming storm, but efforts to avert it were frustrated by those high in power,” wrote historian Daniel Van Pelt. “Mr. George Opdyke, a Republican, was Mayor, and he foresaw that there would be trouble when the drafts should begin. He remonstrated with Governor Seymour against the withdrawal of all the militia from the city, but the Governor blandly replied that he had to obey superior orders, and that the city would be safe enough under the protection of its own police force.”8 The New York militia had been moved South to help deal with the Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania that culminated in the Battle of Gettysburg. An important factor in the severity of the riots was their timing. The draft lottery began only a week after the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1-3, 1863. To meet the Confederate invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania, all available militia was sent forward to Pennsylvania when the Confederates invaded the State at the end of June. New York City was not ready to handle the riots.
Ah, my people!
https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/harp/0801.html
How to Escape the Draft
Artist: unknown
n July 13, 1863, anti-draft violence erupted in New York City, resulting in four days of bloodshed, arson, looting, and mayhem. The New York City Draft Riot, with an official death toll of 119 (which many at the time thought too low), remains the bloodiest outbreak of civil disorder in American history. In this cartoon, a gang of Irish-American rioters prepares to assault an elderly black man who shields a black child in his arm.
By the hot summer of 1863, New York City was a smoldering cauldron of racial, class, religious, and political resentments. The incident sparking the rampage in mid-July was the implementation of a military conscription law passed by Congress on March 3, 1863. Members of the Peace wing of the Democratic Party (nicknamed “Copperheads”) were incensed by the draft law, which they denounced as a violation of civil liberties, an unfair burden on workingmen (rich draftees could hire substitutes for $300), and a threat to white supremacy.
The latter sentiment arose from President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863. Many Northern whites concluded that the combined policies of emancipation and conscription meant that they would be forced to risk their lives in a war to free black slaves. In addition, Democratic politicians and newspapers convinced their constituents, including many Irish immigrants, that emancipation would allow the freedmen to move North to take their jobs and marry their daughters.
For months, Democratic associations in New York City had been distributing pamphlets and organizing public rallies that denounced the war, emancipation, blacks, Lincoln, and Republicans in terms of class and race warfare. Governor Horatio Seymour promised to challenge the draft law in court, arguing that the quotas for Democratic strongholds, including most of New York City, were unfairly higher than for Republican districts. Other anti-draft voices called for armed resistance, and at a mass meeting on July 4, Seymour warned, “the bloody and treasonable and revolutionary doctrine of public necessity can be proclaimed by a mob as well as by a government.”
By then, New York City was virtually undefended, as thousands of Union troops had left in late June in order to defend Pennsylvania against the recent invasion of Confederate commander Robert E. Lee, which culminated in the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3). Since those troops had not returned to New York, the city had only 550 men in eight forts, and no naval ships in the harbor. Meanwhile, Governor Seymour’s legal ploy to stop the law’s implementation was unsuccessful, and the draft’s lottery began in New York City on Saturday, July 11.
At 6 a.m. on Monday, July 13, hundreds of the city’s white workingmen marched in protest against the draft, carrying placards and banging metal pans. The crowd grew as the procession wended its way to the provost marshal’s office on Third Avenue, where the lottery commenced at 10:30. A company of volunteer firemen, angry over losing their traditional exemption from conscription, demolished and burned the draft office. The expanding mob forced an army squadron of 32 soldiers to retreat, and beat Police Superintendent John Kennedy to a bloody mess.
Demonstrators downed telegraph poles, uprooted train tracks, and fashioned clubs from fence rails. The anti-draft zealots then went on an arson spree, targeting homes of draft supporters, well-known Republicans, and the wealthy on Fifth Avenue, looting as they went. Irish Catholic rioters targeted Protestant charities, such as the Magdalene Asylum and Five Points Mission. By the late afternoon, protesters had entered the city’s arsenal, which they burned (killing ten of their own) when the police arrived.
The rioters also began attacking blacks, shouting racial slurs, and torching homes of poor African Americans on the west side of 30th Street. In one of the most infamous incidents, a mob burned the Colored Orphan Asylum on west 44th Street, although its 237 children escaped to safety. The policy of racial extermination escalated during the night: a black man was lynched and set afire; while waterfront tenements, taverns, and other others buildings populated by black laborers were systematically burned. Racially mixed couples were especially at risk from the rioters’ wrath.
At Newspaper Row, across from City Hall, Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, averted the rioters with Gatling guns, one of which he manned. The mob, instead, attacked the headquarters of abolitionist Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune until forced to flee by the Brooklyn Police.
On Tuesday, July 14, the rioters again focused on destroying and looting property of the wealthy, including stores such as Brooks Brothers. The protesters assaulted police and soldiers, who represented federal authority, and erected barricades along First and Third Avenues. The mob continued venting its ferocious fury on blacks, beating them and burning their homes and businesses. At least 11 black men were brutally murdered during the riot. Yet, some of the anti-draft protestors, especially the German Americans, broke ranks with rioters and even assisted the police.
Democratic politicians essentially reacted with a policy of appeasement. Governor Seymour sent representatives to negotiate with the rioters, while addressing a group of protestors as “My friends,” and pledging to work for repeal of the draft. Republicans, on the other hand, called for swift and forceful action. “Crush the Mob!” ran The New York Times headline, as Mayor George Opdyke telegraphed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton for federal troops. Since Robert E. Lee, the invading Confederate commander, had crossed back into Virginia following his defeat at Gettysburg, Stanton was able to dispatch five regiments to New York City.
The federal troops arrived on Wednesday, July 15, as the demonstrators continued attacking blacks, the wealthy, Protestant missions, and Republicans (who were identified with the previous three groups). Fierce fighting between soldiers and their allies and the rioters lasted until Thursday evening, July 16. By Friday, 6000 soldiers were dispersed throughout the city, and the situation began returning to normal. Similar anti-draft riots occurred in other Northern cities during the summer of 1863, but none as massive and destructive as the one in New York City.
Following the riot, President Lincoln appointed General John Dix, a War Democrat, to ensure that the military draft was implemented and that the city remained at peace. The prosecuting district attorney, Abraham Oakey Hall, and the presiding judge, John Hoffman, both Tammany Hall Democrats, earned praise from all sides for conducting rigorous yet fair trials. 67 of the indicted rioters were convicted, although few received long sentences.
Meanwhile, Lincoln reduced New York’s draft quota by more than half. The city’s Board of Supervisor’s, William Tweed’s Tammany Hall, and other organizations began hiring military substitutes for the city’s workingmen who could not otherwise afford them. The draft riot caused many blacks to flee the metropolis, resulting in a 20% decline in New York City’s African-American population during the Civil War.
Robert C. Kennedy
spacer
But children do. The World War II generation of historians often said they went into that field because of Gone with the Wind.
Dreadful. As I said earlier, The Irish Rep Company, a very well-respected theater group in Manhattan, had a play about this about 4 years ago. There’s also a famous NYC diarist - a Wasp-y kind of name, who wrote very well about this horror. I used to have his book but lost it over the years, damn it.
I’m not sure what you point was.
How many of them quote "Gone With The Wind" as history?
I’m really starting to doubt your brain power. Gone with the Wind is one of the most accurate books ever written about the Civil War - which is why it so influenced historians. Mitchell had grown up hearing the stories from Confederate vets and her family’s memories of Reconstruction. God only knows how many people delved into the history after seeing the movie.
It's a flipping work of fiction. I have a number of books which accurately portray the period; they are called non-fiction. My father has even more and Amazon.com has more still. Do you not understand the difference between fiction and non-fiction?
Oh, fiddle dee dee!
As God is my witness I'll never go hungry again! (I had a big lunch.)
Frankly Doodle, I don’t give a damn.
;’)
I guess you think Homer and Euripides weren't reflecting history.
Always?
My God! It's not like Margaret Mitchell didn't know anything about the war. In fact, it's said that there are no factual mistakes in GWTW - down to the type of buttons on the women's dresses.
And the fact that there was no Rhett Butler, no Scarlet O'Hara, no Tara...
I guess you think Homer and Euripides weren't reflecting history.
I guess you think that Carl Sandburg wrote a dead-on accurate biography of Lincoln.
Seriously, you are so ignorant about literature, it’s not worth discussing. Take your cause up with someone else.
Whatever, girlfriend. But can you truly not see that "Gone With The Wind" was a romanticized portrait of a South that didn't really exist except in Margaret Mitchell's imagination? And that while it may have had some historical accuracy in the broadest sense of the term, in its details it was one-sided and biased towards the Confederate side? Which, given Margaret Mitchell's background, it understandable?
No, you’re wrong as usual. The book is very accurate. You are confusing her attitude towards slavery with her very accurate portrayal of the lives of northern Georgian planters and their destruction during the Civil War. She’s very critical as well as loving towards that world. Certainly, Rhett Butler expresses his hatred towards that society.
I also read Faulkner and Thomas Wolfe to learn about the war’s effect on the Deep South and the Appalachians. I read Marjorie Rawlings for her ideas on Floridians who suffered during that period.
And, no. I don’t read Sandburg because he’s a bad writer. Now go play with the other South-haters here.
To be fair, the film (or at least the depiction) is not without controversy. I went to IMDB.com - which is the authoritative resource for film - and looked up GWTW.
They give it an overall score of 8.9 which is virtually film perfection. Very few films are rated higher. But a caveat offered right up front starts with: “Whether we like the film, or not....”. Further down the line I see: “People don’t watch Gone With The Wind for the history...” before lavishing praise on the acting, sets, etc.
The point is the storyline itself reflects a regional bias and takes liberties with historical facts. It’s perfectly acceptable for fiction, but shouldn’t be taken for gospel.
I give up.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.