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
Meanwhile, events were assuming an alarming aspect in the western part
of the city. Early in the morning men began to assemble here in separate
groups, as if in accordance with a previous arrangement, and at last
moved quietly north along the various avenues. Women, also, like camp
followers, took the same direction in crowds. They were thus divided
into separate gangs, apparently to take each avenue in their progress,
and make a clean sweep. The factories and workshops were visited, and
the men compelled to knock off work and join them, while the proprietors
were threatened with the destruction of their property, if they made any
opposition. The separate crowds were thus swelled at almost every step,
and armed with sticks, and clubs, and every conceivable weapon they
could lay hands on, they moved north towards some point which had
evidently been selected as a place of rendezvous. This proved to be a
vacant lot near Central Park, and soon the living streams began to flow
into it, and a more wild, savage, and heterogeneous-looking mass could
not be imagined. After a short consultation they again took up the
line of march, and in two separate bodies, moved down Fifth and Sixth
Avenues, until they reached Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh Streets, when
they turned directly east.
The number composing this first mob has been so differently estimated,
that it would be impossible from reports merely, to approximate the
truth. A pretty accurate idea, however, can be gained of its immense
size, from a statement made by Mr. King, son of President King, of
Columbia College. Struck by its magnitude, he had the curiosity to get
some estimate of it by timing its progress, and he found that although
it filled the broad street from curbstone to curbstone, and was moving
rapidly, it took between twenty and twenty-five minutes for it to pass a
single point.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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