DRAFT RIOTS, in New York, July 1863, were serious disturbances caused by the military conscription or drafts (q.v.) of that year, which met with a storm of denunciation from Demo cratic leaders and followers alike. The former proclaimed it unconstitutional, because military service was due only to the State; dangerous, as liable to absorb all the State militia and civil officials into the Federal service; and partisan in execution, the quotas having been gerryman dered to throw an enormous disproportion on the Democratic districts. This last was true, but was the work of subordinates, and was cor rected by the War Department on protest. The rank and file execrated it as a class measure, shifting the burden from the rich, to whom $300 was a trifle, to the poor, who could pay only with their blood, and were least able to leave their families. The only answers were the nation's need, the law of nature that all burdens fall thus on the poor, and the govern ment's wages, bounties and pensions which strained it to relieve distress. But the legal and party arguments reinforced the class hatred and anti-war prejudice, and Gov. Horatio Seymour, the head of the Democratic party, sent his adjutant-general to Washington about 10 July to urge the postponement of the draft, on the ground of this popular excitement.
The drafting began, however, on Saturday morning, 11 July, at each provost-marshal's or assistant's office; which in the ninth district, a Democratic stronghold, was at Third Avenue and 46th street. The method was to place the enrolled names in a wheel and turn it, the first names coming out up to the assigned quota being the conscripts. A large crowd assembled, but made no disturbance; and the names drawn were published in the Sunday papers. Many of the poorer ones, incited and organized by politi cal leaders, met secretly and formed associations to resist; and on Monday morning, parties went around the shops compelling workmen to leave their tasks and join the procession. The drawing was resumed at 10 A.M. ; in a few minutes several paving-stones, one after an other, were hurled through the windows into the midst of the crowd, smashing the furniture; and in another moment the mob broke in the door, wrecked everything inside but the wheel, beat one of the deputies into insensibility, and set fire to the building, though it was inhabited above. The whole block was shortly in flames;
and when the firemen arrived, the hydrants were denied them till the conflagration was past help. The militia were nearly all in Pennsylvania, where Gettysburg had lately been fought, and the few garrison regulars and marines were under different commands; so that the Federal General Wool, the State General Sanford and Mayor Opdyke held separate authority with no deciding power. The mob increased, and began wreaking vengeance on political opponents and their property, burning and pillaging; and thieves and toughs, seeing their opportunity, flocked out and joined. Fifty marines, sent to disperse the 46th street mob, fired blank cart ridges, and were instantly routed and chased far along the streets by the rioters, many of them women and children. This changed the mob's attitude from defense to aggression; a squad of police was set upon and one killed. Then their wrath was turned on the negroes, as the cause of the °Black Republican War.* These were beaten and stoned to death, and hanged to lamp-posts; hotels and restaurants having colored servants were invaded in search of them, and the movables smashed or stolen. In the afternoon the Colored Half-Orphan Asylum, with 700 to 800 children and nurses, was broken into, gutted and set on fire, the inmates being driven into the street while the women of the mob carried off the furniture. The armory on Second Avenue was broken open with stones and sledge-hammers to secure the arms, the police who bravely defended it driven out, and it was fired. All business and trade were suspended. In the lower part of the city the office of the Tribune, the chief Republi can paper, edited by the abolitionist, Horace Greeley, was attacked and about to be set on fire, but the police drove out the rioters. The entire block on Broadway which held the draft office was burned, with the provost-marshal's and the postmaster's private residences, a sta tion-house, a hotel whose proprietor refused liquor to the mob, and other dwellings; and other houses were burned in the upper part. All that day and night the city was protected only by the police, many of whom lost their lives. At midnight a heavy rain dispersed the rioters for the time.