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
Colonel Winston, in command, immediately ordered out a force, composed
in part of the military, and in part of enrolled citizens, and with a
battery of two howitzers, under command of Colonel Jardine, of Hawkins'
Zouaves, marched rapidly to the scene of disturbance. Passing down
Nineteenth Street to the avenue, it halted, and unlimbering the pieces,
trained them so as to command the avenue, while the infantry formed in
line to support them. As soon as the rioters saw the guns bearing on
them, they dodged into basements, and mounted to the windows and roofs
of the tenement buildings that abounded in that vicinity. A number
of them armed with muskets and pistols, and the rest with stones and
brick-bats, began a fierce and determined attack on the troops. The
howitzers, loaded with grape and canister, at once swept the street.
After the first discharge, but few ventured to show themselves in the
avenue, until after they heard the report, when they would dodge
from behind corners and fire back. But from the tops of the houses an
incessant fusillade was kept up. The soldiers endeavored to pick them
off, but the rioters presented a small mark compared to that which the
troops, massed in the open streets, furnished; and it was soon apparent
that the fight was unequal. If they had only had a police force to enter
the buildings, and hunt the men from the roofs, the fight would soon
have been over. But the commander, thinking he could not spare a
sufficient number to do this work, or that the soldiers, cumbered
with their muskets, which, after the first discharge, would have to be
clubbed, could make no headway in such a hand-to-hand fight, made no
effort to dislodge the wretches, who loaded and fired with the most
imperturbable coolness. One man was seen to step round the corner, after
the discharge of the battery, and resting his gun on the shoulder of a
fellow-rioter, take as deliberate aim at Colonel Jardine as he would at
a squirrel on the limb of a tree, and fire. The ball struck the colonel
in the thigh, and brought him to the pavement. Other officers shared
his fate, while at every discharge, men would drop in the ranks. The
howitzers rattled their shot on the deserted pavements and walls of the
houses, but did no damage to the only portion of the enemy they had to
fear, while the fight between the infantry and the rioters was like
that between soldiers in the open field and Indians in ambush. Colonel
Winston soon saw that it was madness to keep his men there, to be picked
off in detail, and ordered a retreat. At the first sign of a retrograde
movement, a cry rang along the avenue; and from the side streets, and
basements, and houses, the mob swarmed forth so furiously, that it
assumed huge proportions at once, and chased the retiring soldiers with
yells and taunts, and pressed them so hotly that they could not bring
off all their killed and wounded. Among those left behind was Colonel
Jardine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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