This month we are marking the 160th anniversary of one of the most dramatic moments in New York City history – the Civil War Draft Riots which stormed through the city from July 13 to July 16, 1863.
Thousands of people took to the streets on Manhattan in violent protest, fueled initially by anger over conscription to the Union Army which sent New Yorkers to the front lines of the Civil War. (Or, most specifically, those who couldn’t afford to pay the $300 commutation fee were sent to war.)
In many ways, our own city often seems to have forgotten these significant events.
There are very few memorials or plaques in existence at all to the Draft Riots, a very odd situation given the numerous markers to other tragic and unsettling moments in New York City history.
In particular, given the number of African-Americans who were murdered in the streets during these riots, and the numbers of Black families who fled New York in terror, we think this is a very significant oversight.
In this episode, a remastered, re-edited edition of our 2011 show, we take you through those hellish days of deplorable violence and appalling attacks on abolitionists, Republicans, wealthy citizens, and anybody standing in the way of blind anger. Mobs filled the streets, destroying businesses (from corner stores to Brooks Brothers) and threatening to throw the city into permanent chaos.
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FURTHER LISTENING
Fernando Wood: The Scoundrel Mayor of New York
The Hoaxes and Conspiracies of New York
And did you see this performance from the musical Paradise Square, set during the Draft Riots?
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#302 Gangs of New York (Bowery Boys Movie Club)
#301 Haunted Houses of Old New York
#300 The Forgotten Father of New York City
#299 The Promenade and Preservation of Brooklyn Heights
#298 The Story of Brooklyn Heights
#297 Dr. Hosack's Enchanted Garden: Botany, Medicine, and Discovery in Old New York
Introducing Mob Queens
#296 Talking Trash: The NYC Department of Sanitation
#295 Saving the City: Women of the Progressive Era
#294 That Daredevil Steve Brodie, 'King of the Bowery'
Secret Places of Upper Manhattan
Sip-In At Julius': Gay New York In The 1960s
The Tombs: Five Points' Notorious House of Detention
#290 Bagels: A New York Story
Blood and Shakespeare: The Astor Place Riot of 1849
#288 The World of Tomorrow: The New York World's Fair of 1939
Greenwich Village in the 1960s
Uncovering Hudson Yards
#285 Boss Tweed's House of Corruption
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