The New York City draft riots (July 13–16, 1863), sometimes referred to as the Manhattan draft riots and known at the time as Draft Week,^[3] were violent disturbances in Lower Manhattan, widely regarded as the culmination of working-class discontent with new laws passed by Congress that year to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots remain the largest civil and most racially charged urban disturbance in American history.^[4] According to Toby Joyce, the riot represented a "civil war" within the city's Irish community, in that "mostly Irish American rioters confronted police, [while] soldiers, and pro-war politicians ... were also to a considerable extent from the local Irish immigrant community."^[5]

Quick Facts Date, Location ...

New York City Draft Riots of 1863
Part of Opposition to the American Civil War
An illustration in The Illustrated London News depicting armed rioters clashing with Union Army soldiers in New York City
Date	July 13–16, 1863 (1863-07-13 – 1863-07-16)
Location	Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
Caused by	Civil War conscription; racism; competition for jobs between blacks and whites.
Resulted in	Riots ultimately suppressed
Parties
Rioters New York Metropolitan Police Department New York National Guard Union Army
Casualties
Death(s)	119–120[1][2]
Injuries	2,000

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President Abraham Lincoln diverted several regiments of militia and volunteer troops after the Battle of Gettysburg to control the city. The rioters were overwhelmingly Irish working-class men who did not want to fight in the Civil War and resented that wealthier men, who could afford to pay a $300 commutation fee to hire a substitute, were spared from the draft.^[6][7] At the time a typical laborer's wage was between $1.00 and $2.00 a day, and the fee was equivalent to $7,400 in 2023.^[8][9][10]

Initially intended to express anger at the draft, the protests turned into a race riot against African-Americans by Irish rioters. The Irish resented the fact that free blacks were paid more than them and did not need to fear being drafted, whereas the Irish could only avoid the draft by paying $300. The official death toll was listed at either 119 or 120 individuals. Conditions in the city were such that Major General John E. Wool, commander of the Department of the East, said on July 16 that "Martial law ought to be proclaimed, but I have not a sufficient force to enforce it."^[11]

The military did not reach the city until the second day of rioting, by which time the mobs had ransacked or destroyed numerous public buildings, two Protestant churches, the homes of various abolitionists or sympathizers, many black homes, and the Colored Orphan Asylum at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue, which was burned to the ground.^[12] The area's demographics changed as a result of the riot. Many black residents left Manhattan permanently with many moving to Brooklyn. By 1865, the black population had fallen below 11,000 for the first time since 1820.^[12]

New York's economy was tied to the South; by 1822, nearly half of its exports were cotton shipments.^[13] In addition, upstate textile mills processed cotton in manufacturing. New York had such strong business connections to the South that on January 7, 1861, Mayor Fernando Wood, a Democrat, called on the city's Board of Aldermen to "declare the city's independence from Albany and from Washington"; he said it "would have the whole and united support of the Southern States."^[14] When the Union entered the war, New York City had many sympathizers with the South.^[15]

The city was also a continuing destination of immigrants. Since the 1840s, most were from Ireland and Germany. In 1860, nearly 25 percent of the New York City population was German-born, and many did not speak English. During the 1840s and 1850s, journalists had published sensational accounts, directed at the white working class, dramatizing the evils of interracial socializing, relationships, and marriages. Reformers joined the effort.^[12] Newspapers carried derogatory portrayals of black people and ridiculed "black aspirations for equal rights in voting, education, and employment".^{[citation needed]}

The Democratic Party's Tammany Hall political machine had been working to enroll immigrants as U.S. citizens so they could vote in local elections and had strongly recruited Irish. In March 1863, with the war continuing, Congress passed the Enrollment Act to establish a draft for the first time, as more troops were needed. In New York City and other locations, new citizens learned they were expected to register for the draft to fight for their new country. Black men were excluded from the draft as they were largely not considered citizens, and wealthier white men could pay for substitutes.^[12]

New York political offices, including the mayor, were historically held by Democrats before the war, but the election of Abraham Lincoln as president had demonstrated the rise in Republican political power nationally. Newly elected New York City Republican Mayor George Opdyke was mired in profiteering scandals in the months leading up to the riots. The Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863 alarmed much of the white working class in New York, who feared that freed slaves would migrate to the city and add further competition to the labor market. There had already been tensions between black and white workers since the 1850s, particularly at the docks, with free blacks and immigrants competing for low-wage jobs in the city. In March 1863, white longshoremen refused to work with black laborers and rioted, attacking 200 black men.^[12]

The exact death toll during the New York draft riots is unknown, but according to historian James M. McPherson, 119 or 120 people were killed.^[26] Although other estimates list the death toll as high as 1,200.^[27] Violence by longshoremen against black men was especially fierce in the docks area:^[12]

West of Broadway, below Twenty-sixth, all was quiet at 9 o'clock last night. A crowd was at the corner of Seventh avenue and Twenty-seventh Street at that time. This was the scene of the hanging of a negro in the morning, and another at 6 o'clock in the evening. The body of the one hung in the morning presented a shocking appearance at the Station-House. His fingers and toes had been sliced off, and there was scarcely an inch of his flesh which was not gashed. Late in the afternoon, a negro was dragged out of his house in West Twenty-seventh street, beaten down on the sidewalk, pounded in a horrible manner, and then hanged to a tree.^[28]

In all, eleven black men were hanged over five days.^[29] Among the murdered blacks was the seven-year-old nephew of Bermudian First Sergeant Robert John Simmons of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, whose account of fighting in South Carolina, written on the approach to Fort Wagner July 18, 1863, was to be published in the New York Tribune on December 23, 1863 (Simmons having died in August of wounds received in the attack on Fort Wagner).^{[citation needed]}

The most reliable estimates indicate at least 2,000 people were injured. Herbert Asbury, the author of the 1928 book Gangs of New York, upon which the 2002 film was based, puts the figure much higher, at 2,000 killed and 8,000 wounded,^[30] a number that some dispute.^[31] Total property damage was about $1–5 million (equivalent to $19.4 million – $97.2 million in 2023^[32]).^[30][33] The city treasury later indemnified one-quarter of the amount.^{[citation needed]}

Historian Samuel Eliot Morison wrote that the riots were "equivalent to a Confederate victory".^[33] Fifty buildings, including two Protestant churches and the Colored Orphan Asylum, were burned to the ground. The orphans at the asylum were first put under siege, then the building was set on fire, before all those who attempted to escape were forced to walk through a "beating line" of white rioters holding clubs. To escape, they would need to run through the gauntlet as the rioters viciously attacked them. Many did not manage the escape. 4,000 federal troops had to be pulled out of the Gettysburg Campaign to suppress the riots, troops that could have aided in pursuing the battered Army of Northern Virginia as it retreated out of Union territory.^[23] During the riots, landlords, fearing that the mob would destroy their buildings, drove black residents from their homes. As a result of the violence against them, hundreds of black people left New York, including physician James McCune Smith and his family, moving to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, or New Jersey.^[12]

The white elite in New York organized to provide relief to black riot victims, helping them find new work and homes. The Union League Club and the Committee of Merchants for the Relief of Colored People provided nearly $40,000 to 2,500 victims of the riots. By 1865 the black population in the city had dropped to under 10,000, the lowest since 1820. The white working-class riots had changed the demographics of the city, and white residents exerted their control in the workplace; they became "unequivocally divided" from the black population.^[12]

On August 19, the government resumed the draft in New York. It was completed within 10 days without further incident. Fewer men were drafted than had been feared by the white working class: of the 750,000 selected nationwide for conscription, only about 45,000 were sent into active duty.^[34]

While the rioting mainly involved the white working class, middle and upper-class New Yorkers had split sentiments on the draft and use of federal power or martial law to enforce it. Many wealthy Democratic businessmen sought to have the draft declared unconstitutional. Tammany Democrats did not seek to have the draft declared unconstitutional, but they helped pay the commutation fees for those who were drafted.^[35]

In December 1863, the Union League Club recruited more than 2,000 black soldiers, outfitted and trained them, honoring and sending men off with a parade through the city to the Hudson River docks in March 1864. A crowd of 100,000 watched the procession, which was led by police and members of the Union League Club.^[12][36][37]

New York's support for the Union cause continued, however grudgingly, and gradually Southern sympathies declined in the city. New York banks eventually financed the Civil War, and the state's industries were more productive than those of the entire Confederacy. By the end of the war, more than 450,000 soldiers, sailors, and militia had enlisted from New York State, which was the most populous state at the time. A total of 46,000 military men from New York State died during the war, more from disease than wounds, as was typical of most combatants.^[14]

• Fishing Creek Confederacy
• History of New York City (1855–1897)
• List of ethnic riots#United States
• List of expulsions of African Americans
• List of identities in The Gangs of New York § Draft riots
• List of incidents of civil unrest in New York City
• List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States
• List of massacres in the United States
• Lynching in the United States
• Mass racial violence in the United States
• Opposition to the American Civil War
• Racism against Black Americans
• Racism in the United States