Draft Riots Reading 2

As the draft riots commenced on the second and third day, the mob seemed to always have a meeting time and place even if it wasn't precisely spoken. They all new where to find each other. Once again, African Americans were the target of the mob's anger because of the chain effect mentality they held about the draft, the war, and slavery. The continuance of the riots exhibited the unfolding of the savagery in the people as well as the developing role of the lower class and working class women participating in the riots.

Often times mob behavior will take humans from civilization to barbarism, allowing the people to leave their moral compass behind and be guided by the sadistic actions of the masses. Almost every drawing which was published in newspapers depicted the rioters as savage and inhumane. The cartoons "How to escape the draft," "Looting of a Drug Store," and "Murder or Colonel O'Brien" all provide images where the attackers have lost their human qualities and have become savages, with no true reasons for attacking the people they killed or burning the houses of the innocent. The descriptions of the diagrams describe the rioters as "animalistic" and "exhibiting animal-like features" which compares to the same imagery used in other written articles and excerpts from the era including multiple works from J.T. Headley, commenting that "the spirit of hell seemed to have entered the hearts of these men" and by William O. Stoddard the idea that the protests "unchained these wolves from their dens of sloth and self-indulgence and crime." These implications of inhumane behavior demonstrate how dangerous the aggressors were to their victims as well as to the law enforcement and the government as the two worked to both protect the victims and try and negotiate terms with the lawless murderers to bring the rioting to a close.

The idea I found most intriguing in the set of second riot readings was the mentioning of the involvement of women in the riots. Women of the upper classes during the 1860s were not as involved in politics or the economy, in part because women were discriminated against by the male population for their supposed inferiority and frailness. Also, it was considered the men's duty to provide for the family. In the lower and middle classes however, the women needed to be more involved in political, economical, and social matters because often times they were forced to work to provide for their family and males and females had more equality in the lower classes. One of the depictions of the murder of colonel O'Brien includes women in the photo because "women had long participated in the rough-and-tumble politics of the streets in working-class neighborhoods." Women lived hard life styles and were not going to be sitting around while the men trashed the streets because the draft affected their families and they needed to protest too. An exert from a book by William O. Stoddard on the murder of Colonel O'Brien also proceeds to mention that when he was taken from the threshold of his home, "both males and females took part in the brutal transaction." The savage behaviors as mentioned in the paragraph above were not descriptions for only men. The women's mentality was a bloodthirsty, murderous, and thieving mindset as well as all the men. The women had just as much at stake as anyone else and would not go down without a battle.

In regards to the damage that was done and the money which was appropriated for the New York rioters, I am curious as to whether the citizens of the city had taxes placed on them afterwards to help pay for the damage they created or if the government took care of the payment by itself, possibly in fear that it could cause another uprising from the mob.

Draft Riots Reading 1

The New York draft riots were some of the bloodiest civilian occurrences in our nation's history, and I find it hard to believe that this is the first that I have learned of this gruesome event. I have taken part in numerous history classes, but never have I covered this important event in detail let alone in passing. I am thankful I have the chance to be made aware of the draft riots which took place in the city. If only high school classes could go more into depth on topics such as this one.

One fact which was a common thread through a few of the primary sources was the idea that the mob and rioters were a very mixed group of citizens yet they all seemed to work together to destroy homes, offices, and people. Frank Leslie's picture which was published in a newsletter depicted men wearing various outfits to show the diversity of the rioters. A couple of the men are wearing what appears to be work clothes or just clothes of lower quality, one man is wearing a suit with striped pants, and the last man on the right is wearing a soldier's uniform. The anger that touched many citizens in the United States over the draft, unified the rich and the poor and anyone in between to fight for a cause which they believed in. This idea of diversity was also reinforced in the article by J.T. Headley where he comments that "a more wild, savage, and heterogeneous-looking mass could not be imagined" also showing the unity of the mob through their anger and their common goal to destroy anything and anyone who is correlated with the draft.

The theme of murdering and lynching the black population was present in both the primary sources as well as in the movie, Gangs of New York. In another exert from a book by J.T Headley covering the attack on the colored orphan asylum, the rioters attacked this long standing unit because "there would have been no draft but for the war- there would have been no war but for slavery. But the slaves were black, ergo, all blacks are responsible for the war." Even if the children involved had no direct connections to slavery, the mob needed to target their anger at something and chose the race which they believed should be held responsible for the entire draft necessity. In Gangs of New York, a colored man in the Dead Rabbits gang was beaten and lynched for his color, with the same picture which shows the murder and mutilation of William Jones in the primary source packet flashing before the screen, as if the murder of the gang member was symbolizing the lynching of William Jones. The cruelty which the mob stopped too was disgraceful and disgusting to read about and watch in the movie. An event like the discrimination and savageness which these citizens displayed in New York City are unimaginable to me in today's world.

After watching the movie and partaking in the readings, I am more clear as to the reasons supporting the mob's motives, however I would be interested in a primary source written by someone who was actually in the mob. I believe this in sight would help to further develop a perspective on the motives for the riots. The question I have is what became of the aftermath of the draft? Did New Yorkers still get drafted? Were there repercussions for their actions?