Anti-Lincoln Gangs of New York

Lew Rockwell ^ | 1/4/02 | Thomas J. DiLorenzo

[billbears]

Martin Scorcese’s new movie, "The Gangs of New York," is remarkable in that it accurately portrays the New York City working class’s violent opposition to the Lincoln administration during the War for Southern Independence. At one point in the movie, as the caskets of dead New Yorkers are piled up on the docks, a large crowd chants, "New York should secede!" "New York should secede!"

In another scene Irish immigrants who have been in the U.S. for only a few days are told to sign one piece of paper that grants them citizenship and another one that enrolls them in the Union army. They are completely unaware of their fate: One immigrant asks, "Where are we going?" "Tennessee" is the answer, to which he responds: "Where’s that?" These men were to go down south to ostensibly teach the grandchildren of Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry what it really means to be an American. Thousands of them would be slaughtered after being ordered by General Ulysses S. Grant to charge into Robert E. Lee’s well-entrenched army.

The climax of the movie is the New York City draft riots of July 1863. The government began enforcing Lincoln’s conscription law, accurately depicted in a newspaper headline in the film as "The First Federal Conscription Law." The wealthy Republican industrialists and bankers who were the backbone of the Republican Party saw to it that Lincoln’s conscription law would spare their own male children by allowing one to buy one’s way out of the draft for $300. This led to violent protests against the inequity of "a rich man’s war." In the film a young draftee confronts one of Lincoln’s conscription enforcers by screaming into his face, "Who the hell has $300?!" "Who the hell has $300?!"

The draftees knew perfectly well who has $300, so that in mid July of 1863 they went on a week-long rampage, targeting the houses and property of the Republican Party elite of New York City. New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, who had become a Republican Party mouthpiece, is shown running for his life from a dinner party at a palace-like residence in the good part of town as the draft protesters break the windows and loot the house. As Iver Bernstein wrote in The New York City Draft Riots, "Rioters tore through expensive Republican homes on Lexington Avenue and took – or more often destroyed – pictures with gilt frames, elegant pier glasses, sofas, chairs, clocks, furniture of every kind."

Scorcese and his producers obviously did their homework and must have read Bernstein’s book. All during the scene of the draft riots there is a reading of headlines describing the events. Having read extensively about the draft riots myself, I recognized almost all of this script as being accurate, such as the burning down of a black orphanage and of the offices of Greeley’s newspaper.

Another perfectly accurate portrayal is the hunting down and murdering of any and all black people who were unfortunate enough to be on the streets of New York. Since Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had recently declared emancipation to be a purpose of the war, the draft protesters vented their hatred for Lincoln and his war on the hapless black people of New York City. There are scenes in the movie of black men being beaten to death and lynched, which once again is perfectly accurate.

Just as realistic is the scene where thousands of federal troops are called up from the recently concluded Battle of Gettysburg and ordered to fire indiscriminately into the crowds. Hundreds of unarmed draft protesters, including women and children, are gunned down and are shown laying dead in the streets. This really happened, and is well documented in Bernstein’s book and elsewhere, but most Americans have never heard of it (naturally). Gunships are also shown bombarding the parts of the city where the rioting was taking place.

An eyewitness to the riots was Colonel Arthur Fremantle, the British emissary to the Confederate government who happened to be heading back to England at the time from the Port of New York. In his memoirs of his time with Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia entitled Three Months in the Southern States, Fremantle wrote of the riots:

The reports of outrages, hangings, and murder, were now most alarming, the terror and anxiety were universal. All shops were shut: all carriages and omnibuses had ceased running. No colored man or woman was visible or safe in the streets, or even in his own dwelling. Telegraphs were cut, and railroad tracks torn up. The draft was suspended, and the mob evidently had the upper hand. The people who can’t pay $300 naturally hate being forced to fight in order to liberate the very race who they are most anxious should be slaves. It is their direct interest not only that all slaves should remain slaves, but that the free Northern Negroes who compete with them for labor should be sent to the South also.

Scorcese and his producers must also have read Fremantle’s book as well as The Fremantle Diary, which also discusses the draft riots.

"The Gangs of New York" is truly remarkable for its accurate portrayal of anti-Lincoln protesters in New York City in 1863, which has to be the most politically incorrect movie segment of the past several decades. This should pique the public’s curiosity about the true history of Lincoln’s war. It is a good prelude to an even more stunning cinematic event about Lincoln’s war, the movie "Gods and Generals," which is scheduled for release on February 27.

[billbears]

Hadn't seen the movie yet, but may have to give it a chance this weekend

[billbears]

Another example of abe's 'peaceful' actions. Southern ping

[Grand Old Partisan]

Every one of those New York rioters was a Democrat, just as were their Confederate rebel pals in the South. See www.republicanbasics.com for the truth about the Grand Old Party.

[billbears]

Every one of those New York rioters was a Democrat, just as were their Confederate rebel pals in the South. See www.republicanbasics.com for the truth about the Grand Old Party.

LOL. I hate to break it to the party loyal but many things Democrats of that time espoused were what Republicans of today believe. See party flip-flop from 1940-1970. Thanks. Don't need to go to another worship abe site

[sheltonmac]

"Every one of those New York rioters was a Democrat."

And you know this because...? Are you implying that only leftist liberals would protest an unjust war?

[Grand Old Partisan]

During the Civil War, if you were against the Constitution and the U.S. flag you were a Democrat. Patriots were Republicans. New York City has always been Democrat.

[Pharmboy]

I saw it on Saturday. Three hours long: I don't think I blinked throughout the whole movie and wished it had gone on for another 3 hours. It was very un-PC as Rockwell says. Do not miss it.

[laconic]

Strange, I had the curious idea that if you came to this country and wanted to live here, you fought for it when you were needed. The Irish immigrants weren't forced to bear an unfair share of the fighting. Read McPherson's book; the Irish regiments on both sides fought extremely well in many notable engagements, but Irish immigrants actually constituted less of a percentage of the Union Army than their share of the population would indicate. Moreover, rich men fought in the war on both sides; often, ther richest man in a northern town would clothe, feed and arm his volunteer regiment from his town in return for leading it. A fine example is Robert Gould Shaw of Massachusetts, from one of the wealthiest families in the state, who died leading the 54th Regiment of free black men into battle in Charleston. If Lincoln was so unpopular with the troops "forced" into the Union Army, why is it that the Union troops were given leave to go home in 1864 to vote and voted for Lincoln in overwhelming numbers? In addition, the idea of New York's secession wasn't a sometime thing; the mayor of the heavily-cotton dependent seaport pushed for it before the war even began. In reply, Lincoln said "its like the doorstop of the home deciding its going to play house on its own".

[scouse]

The immediate cause of the draft riots of the workers was their conscription for military duty. The New York "World" of Saturday, July 18, 1863, editorially regards the riots as the "spontaneous outburst of popular passion, primarily at the draft, next at the $300 exemption clause..." which provided that the propertied class could shift the blood tax which the war demanded on to the shoulders of the working class. Section 80 of the Regulations of the War Department made provision for "Certificates of exemption (and discharge) from the draft by reason of having provided a substitute or of having paid commutation money," $300. As J. T. Headley recounts the situation in "The Great Riots of New York," "most of those drawn were laboring men, or poor mechanics, who were unable to hire a substitute....

This paragraph is from an article written in the 1930s and can be found at :"http://www.weisbord.org/FourSixSeven.htm". Some interesting reading at this website and gives one an insight into the liberal psyche.

[Sam's Army]

Ok, folks. Repeat after me:

"Lincoln was EEEEeeevvvvvvvvvilll.....Lincoln was EEEEEeeeevvvvvvvvvvvvvilllll....."

[Centurion2000]

bump .... hmm maybe I'll have to go check this one out.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Fewer than 10% of Union soldiers were draftees, compared to nearly half for the Confederates. Also, when their three-year enlistments ended in the summer of 1864, 3/4 of the Union army volunteered to re-enlist for the duration. Rebel armies, on the other hand, started to melt away.

[joesnuffy]

Absolutely...

[Sam's Army]

"lincoln did not have a contract with the people to do what he did"

Sounds like a pro-reparations argument.

[Austin Willard Wright]

What party flip? In 1940, most Democrats were against color-blind policies. Today, most Democrats are also against color blind policies.

[joesnuffy]

Martin Scorcese’s new anti war film....to awaken a sense of vietnam era draft resistance and rioting if GW tries to bring back the draft....
Re-vitalizing the lie...that only the poh be goin' off tuh war....
Most of the Vietnam vets were volunteers...white with two years of college...
California's white middle class hit the hardest....per capita
The whorlywood liberal elite.....strikes again..and dumb ass Americans line up and pay a premium for their brainwashing....
Heh though.....dats entertainment

[Man of the Right]

This article is naive.

NYC secession was a dead letter by the time of the draft riot (Jul., 1863). The City's corrupt former mayor, Fernando Wood, had proposed NYC secession in Jan., 1861, 2 1/2 years earlier. In 1862 Wood was denied renomination by Tammany based in part on his extremism and he was defeated by a Republican, George Opdyke, in a three-way race that fall. Elsewhere, Democrats did very well in the election. The moderate Opdyke was mayor at the time of the riot.

At the time of the riot, Lee was retreating across the Potomac. Grant was besieging Vicksburg a thousand miles away. No New York regiments were serving with Grant. New Yorkers served with Meade in Maryland or garrisoned DC and other points.

The draft was a bigger factor in the manpower-starved South than in the North. Only 8% of Union soldiers were conscripted in the Civil War compared to 25% of Confederate soldiers. So if there's a draft bogey, it's Davis, not Lincoln. The governors of Georgia (Joe Brown) and North Carolina (Zebulon Vance) were bitter opponents of the draft, the Confederate national government, and Davis.

The level of violence in the riot is unknown. Estimates of deaths range from below 100 to above 3,000. Most historians lean toward the lower figure.

The riot was the most violent civil disturbance in U.S. history excluding the Civil War itself. The movie dramatizes it into a revolution. It wasn't. The civil authorities lost control of much of the City for two days. Elsewhere and outside the city, life went on normally.

[Non-Sequitur]

Hadn't seen the movie yet, but may have to give it a chance this weekend.

I saw it last Friday, and the only surprise to me is that Tommy took this long to work it into one of his columns. I have no doubt that you will find it as 'historically accurate' as DiLusional did.