Civil War Draft Riots - History on CSPAN2 now...

[Viva_La_Revolution]

A piece of our history they never taught us in school...


The Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America
Barnet Schecter

Historian Barnet Schecter examines the 1863 draft riots in New York City to chronicle the Reconstruction period after the Civil War. In "The Devil's Own Work," the author talks about the ethnic, religious and class issues that sparked the riots and compares this controversial time to the current social climiate in America. This event was hosted by the Brooklyn Historical Society in New York.

Barnet Schecter is the author of "The City at the Heart of the American Revolution" and "The Battle for New York."

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. the draft order Lincoln signed into law had a clause that was

very unpopular. If you had $300, you could get out of it.

[0007]

2. At least they made no bones about class distinction in those days!

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. as the hopes and opportunities for the blacks rose...

the thousands of new Irish immigrants got worried. They thought all the freed blacks would move north and take their jobs.

history repeats, and repeats. :(

[HockeyMom]

5. I went to school in NYC

and never heard of this. It wasn't until I was researching my family roots did I learn of what I think was called the Conscription Act. I knew from the verbal history of my family that my great-grandfather had fought in the Civil War. He was only 15 years old. My Aunt only told me that he had taken the "identity" of somebody who was older. What really happened was that he was poor and Irish and somebody paid him to take their place. His Civil War records state: "Patrick Sullivan, in lieu of Harry Smith".

Just in the painstaking work of this, I saw many, many Irish sounding names with the attached "in lieu of".

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. Wow. 5000 African Americans were left homeless and pennyless

after the rioters got done with them! :mad:

What started out as a Political protest, became class warfare and a racial pogrom.

[Yupster]

8. And how many African-Americans were killed

in the draft riots in New York City?

Wasn't it hundreds?

The riots started just a few days after the huge federal victory at Gettysburg. Many people will say the south had no chance in winning the Civil War.

I would point to exactly this spot to disagree with them.

If Lee had won the battle of Gettysburg, or even not fought the second and third days of it, the riots would have started with a very large Confederate Army roaming around Pennsylvania.

I see it as quite possible that the riots could have gotten even more out of control and even spread to many other cities. In the meantime the federal army would have not been able to divert troops from Pennsylvania to help quell the riots as they did.

It was a real danger that the war effort could have spun out of controll right there.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

9. He didn't give a number that I recall...

I'll look it up.

He did say that the riots were planned, and originally scheduled for July 4th, but were for some reason cancelled.

Then when Gettysburg and Vicksburg happened on the same day, it set off the original plan.


On edit - http://www.harpweek.com/09Cartoon/BrowseByDateCartoon.asp?Month=August&Date=1

The New York City Draft Riot, with an official death toll of 119 (which many at the time thought too low), remains the bloodiest outbreak of civil disorder in American history.

[demosincebirth]

6. There is a lot of our history that hasn't ever been taught in schools

because it shows that we weren't always the the "knight in shining armor."

[Viva_La_Revolution]

7. The irony of the riots. in the 1820's the Irish immigrants were taking

the jobs from the blacks. Then during the Civil war, and these riots, the Irish were worked into a lather by the Whites by claiming that all those newly freed blacks would be coming for their jobs.

Spin is nothing new.