The first and chief point in the struggle for the control of the organization was, as usual, the control of the Tammany Society. Both factions were alive to this necessity. On April 13, 1858, 150 members of the society met at the Westchester House, Bowery and Broome streets, where it was announced that 212 members were pledged to vote for Anti-Wood Sachems. Some of these members were seeking the ascendency for their own benefit, while others were not active in politics at all, but had become disgusted with Wood’s methods and men. At the election, six days later, the Anti-Wood ticket, headed by Isaac V. Fowler and Nelson J. Waterbury, won by a majority of nearly 100, 378 members voting. More than twenty members who had not been at an election of the society for twenty years or more, and a large number who had eschewed voting for ten years, hastened, some from distances, to deposit their votes. Three came from Hudson, a number from Albany, two from Washington, and one from Cincinnati. The result was Wood’s forced withdrawal from the organization. He immediately started a Democratic organization opposed to Tammany and upon the same lines. It was known generally as “Mozart Hall,” from the name of the assembly room in which it met. Wood denounced Tammany, declaring that its nominees were chosen by five members of the Tammany Society, in a parlor, and ferociously expressed his determination to wage war upon the society as long as he lived until (this reservation was added) “it opened its doors.” Each hall, as a matter of political business, made the most virtuous and the strongest claims of being the true Democratic organization. Each execrated the other and announced itself as the sole, valiant, sincere upholder of Democracy. Wood’s enemies made haste to guarantee their ascendency when, on December 28, the Sachems ordered elections for the committees to be held on December 30, thus giving but _one day’s_ notice of the event. Moreover, they forced upon all persons accepting membership in the committees, a pledge that in case of their election they would support the Tammany organization and all nominations made under its authority, and disclaim allegiance to any other organization, party or clique. The election of delegates to the various nominating conventions, in the Fall of 1858, was attended by the customary disorder. Wood’s partizans were everywhere inciting trouble. At O’Connell’s Hall, on Mulberry street, a crowd, seeing that the result was unfavorable to their side, split the ballot boxes and threw them into the street. The “Dead Rabbits,” scenting trouble, appeared hastily, and a fight ensued on Hester street, in which two of them were shot.