The Great Riots of New York, 1712 to 1873Headley, Joel Tyler
History
The Great Riots of New York, 1712 to 1873
Headley, Joel Tyler
Draft Riot, New York, N.Y., 1863; New York (N.Y.) -- History; Riots -- New York (State) -- New York
Towards evening a mob assembled over in Ninth Avenue, and went to work
with some system and forethought. Instead of wandering round, firing and
plundering as the whim seized them, they began to throw up barricades,
behind which they could rally when the military and police came to
attack them. Indeed, the same thing had been done on the east side of
the city; while railroads had been torn up, and stages stopped, to
keep them from carrying policemen, rapidly from one quarter to another.
During the day, Colonel Frothingham had stood in Third Avenue, and
stopped and emptied every car as it approached, and filled it with
soldiers, to be carried to the upper part of the city. Acton, too, had
sent round to collect all the stages still running in Broadway and the
Bowery, and in a short time they came rumbling into Mulberry Street,
forming a long line in front of head-quarters. A telegram from Second
Avenue demanded immediate help, and the police were bundled into them
and hurried off. One driver refused to stir, saying, roughly, he was
not hired to carry policemen. Acton had no time to argue the case, and
quickly turning to a policeman, he said: "Put that man in cell Number
92." In a twinkling he was jerked from his seat and hurried away.
Turning to another policeman, he said: "Mount that box and drive." The
next moment the stage, with a long string of others, loaded inside and
out with the bluecoats, was whirling through the streets. He had done
the same with the Sixth Avenue cars. The son-in-law of George Law
remonstrated, saying that it would provoke the mob to tear down the
railroad buildings. There was no time to stand on ceremony; the cars
were seized, and the company, to save their property, paid a large sum
to the ringleaders of the rioters. In fact, a great many factories and
buildings were bought off in the same way; so that the leaders drove
quite a thriving business.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account