Iver Bernstein

Lots of cognitive dissonance in this one. It’s1863; New York City is just Manhattan – and only the southern half of Manhattan, at that – the maps in this book illustrating events only go up to 86th Street. And Manhattan’s character is very different; it’s a manufacturing center, with iron works and shipyards. Politically, it’s strongly Democratic, and the Democrats are the party of the working class – but this working class is proslavery and proConfederacy. The Republicans tend show more to be middle class up to wealthy – but are antislavery and proUnion.

Political alignment is explained by economics and racism – antebellum New York had extensive trade ties with the South and wanted them to resume, and working class New Yorkers imagined the end of slavery would bring an influx of freed blacks to take away their jobs. As it happened, New York City labor had been fairly integrated until the 1840s but after that blacks were gradually pushed out.

So with that geographic and economic background, we come to the Draft Riots. The Federal Army had incurred heavy losses in the first two years of the war. There were some successes, but they were mostly in the western theater, a long ways from New York. Volunteers were getting scarce, leading to the draft. The draft law was not very egalitarian; you could buy your way out of conscription for $300 (around $7500 in modern dollars) or you could hire a substitute for whatever the market would bear. And blacks were exempt – because they were not considered United States citizens. Thus the draft was seen as way for the rich to make the poor fight a war they didn’t want.

Starting on the first day of the draft – Monday, July 13th 1863 – working class New Yorkers attacked the draft offices. Things quickly spread to attacks on police, infrastructure (tearing up railroad tracks and cutting down telegraph poles) and general looting. By the second day of rioting, things had moved on to attacks on known Republicans – and lynching blacks; 11 were killed, often with “extreme prejudice”, including castration and burning alive. The rioters also turned on the city’s brothels, especially those catering to black men.

The riots finally ended when Federal troops showed up, fresh from Gettysburg. Although many of these were New York troops, they didn’t hold much with rioters supporting the Confederacy and expressed their displeasure with canister, musket volleys, and bayonets. The official death toll was around 120, but some estimates are ten times as large.

The account of the riots proper only occupies the first chapter of Iver Bernstein’s book – the remainder is the slow leadup, including the rise of labor unions (which, in another pulse of cognitive dissonance, tended to be very racist) and the aftermath, especially the development and decline of the Tammany Hall regime. Industry disappeared from Manhattan and the island became a merchandising and banking center. Blacks fled, mostly to Brooklyn.

Very enlightening, especially if you have assumed 20th and 21st century politics were continuous with the 1800s. Things drag a little after the riots, but the complex interactions among the various interest groups does repay careful review. Contemporary illustrations, a good map section, several appendices detailing occupational and ethnic makeup of various groups insofar as it can be determined, and extensive endnotes. show less