The New York Draft Riots

In early July 1863 the United States was in crisis. Vivid accounts of the enormously costly Battle of Gettysburg filled the newspapers, and a new conscription act which would draft soldiers into the Union Army was about to go into effect.

On Saturday, July 11, authorities began drafting men in a few neighborhoods in New York City. The first day passed peacefully, but tensions in the city began to rise over the hot weekend.

As Monday dawned, gangs of protesters, many of them Irish-Americans who felt they were being unfairly drafted into the war, showed up at federal offices and hurled stones through the windows. As the day progressed, pitched battles began taking place in the streets, and by nightfall New York City was plunged into widespread rioting.

The riots continued for several days, taking on a horrendous racial component as free blacks in New York were attacked and lynched.

The nation was shocked, and President Lincoln shuddered when he heard the grim news from New York City. Some even believed the riots were part of some grand conspiracy hatched by the Confederacy.

In the week of the New York Draft Riots, as many as 200 civilians were killed. And the draft continued, as Lincoln weathered the crisis of battles breaking out in the streets of a northern city.

Image: Police battle rioters outside the offices of the New York Tribune/Library of Congress