[13] Of this action Talcott Williams (_Tammany Hall_, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1898) says: “For the first time, the Tammany Society, which is only the landlord of the political body which leases its hall, exercised its singular power of deciding between rival organizations.” This, of course, is a decided error. Repeated instances of the activity of the society in this direction have been given in this work. [14] _Assembly Documents_, 1857, II, part 2, No. 127. [15] _Assembly Documents,_ 1858, No. 80. The chaos produced during this dispute was extreme. Members of one force would seize and liberate prisoners taken by the other force, combats were frequent, and peaceable citizens were often unable to secure protection. [16] This riot is briefly treated in Document No. 80. [17] _Proceedings of the Board of Aldermen_, Vol. LXVII, pp. 157-60. [18] _Ibid._, Vol. LXVIII, p. 140. [19] This reference to Seagrist was handed down in an Aldermanic committee’s report some years before: “… Thomas Munday, Nicholas Seagrist, Captain Norris, Mackellar and others were charged with _robbing the funeral pall of Henry Clay_, when his sacred person passed through this city.” _Documents of the Board of Aldermen_, Vol. XXII: No. 43. [20] Cochrane later followed Wood into Mozart Hall, but subsequently returned to Tammany Hall. He was elected to Congress, serving one term. He raised a regiment at the outbreak of the Civil War, and in June, 1862, was made a Brigadier-General. He was elected Attorney-General of the State in 1863. In 1872 he joined the Greeley movement. He held various local offices, both in 1872 and in 1883 being elected to the Presidency of the Board of Aldermen. As late as 1889 he was a Sachem. He died in 1898, in his 85th year. [21] Statement of William M. Tweed before a special investigating committee of the Board of Aldermen, 1877 (_Document No. 8_, _Documents of the Board of Aldermen,_ Vol. II, pp. 15-16). Isaac V. Fowler, Tweed testified, furnished the $2,500 which was paid to Peter R. Voorhis, a Republican member. Tweed further stated, that besides himself there were in the conspiracy Elijah F. Purdy, William C. Conner, Isaac Bell, Jr. (a Sachem) and John R. Briggs. CHAPTER XXII THE CIVIL WAR AND AFTER 1859-1867 The stirring years of the Civil War were drawing near. In this crisis, Tammany, ever pro-slavery, dealt in no equivocal phrases. On November 1, 1859, at a meeting called to order by Isaac V. Fowler, James T. Brady, acting as president, referred to John Brown’s raid as “riot, treason and murder.” Brady and others spoke dolefully of the dire consequences of a continuation of the abolition agitation and prophesied that if the “irrepressible conflict” ever came, it would result in an extermination of the black race.