[Airbornelawyer]

Wednesday, July 15

Day 3 began with efforts to find a political solution. New York City Democrats began working on a plan to fund Commutation Fees for poor draftees who wanted to buy their way out. New York's Democratic Governor issued the following proclamation, drafted the night before:

"To the People of the City of New York: A riotous demonstration in your city, originating in opposition to the conscription of soldiers for the military service of the United States, has swelled into vast proportions, directing its fury against the lives and property of peaceful citizens. I know that many of those who have participated in these proceedings would not have allowed themselves to be carried to such extremes of violence and of wrong except under an apprehension of injustice; but such persons are reminded that the only opposition to the conscription which can be allowed is an appeal to the courts. The right of every citizen to make such an appeal will be maintained, and the decision of the courts must be respected and obeyed by rulers and people alike. No other course is consistent with the maintenance of the laws, the peace and order of the city, and the safety of its inhabitants. Riotous proceedings must and shall be put down. The laws of the State of New York must be enforced, its peace and order maintained, and the lives and property of all its citizens protected at every hazard.

"The rights of every citizen will be properly guarded and defended by the Chief Magistrate of the State.

"I do therefore call upon all persons engaged in these riotous proceedings to retire to their homes and employments, declaring to them that unless they do so at once I shall use all the power necessary to restore the peace and order of the city.

"I also call upon all well-disposed persons, not enrolled for the preservation of order, to pursue their ordinary avocations. Let all citizens stand firmly by the constituted authorities, sustaining law and order in the city, and ready to answer any such demand as circumstances may render necessary for me to make upon their services; and they may rely upon a rigid enforcement of the laws of the State against all who violate them

"Horatio Seymour, Governor.

A notice ("Notice for the Purpose of Perfecting A Citizens' Organization") was issued calling on citizen volunteers to assemble at various places to be placed under army and National Guard command. The citizen volunteers were to be placed as security in quieter areas to free up police and soldiers to deal with the rioters.

The military presence had grown. Gunboats patrolled the East and Hudson Rivers, and that morning, six more arrived, with 90 guns. At the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Lt. Comdr. R. W. Meade organized a Naval Brigade. Within the brigade, Captain J. C. Grayson, USMC, took command of a force of 180 Marines in a battalion of two companies, which then deployed to City Hall.

A battery of the 3rd Battalion German Heavy Artillery under Lt. Col. Louis Schirmer, who had been assigned in May to raise an artillery regiment among the Germans of New York City, was deployed to City Hall. Schirmer, who would later command the 15th New York Heavy Artillery in the Petersburg campaign, was soon sent north.

A disabled black coachman, Abraham Franklin, had gone to see to his elderly mother. The mob dragged him ut of her house and at the corner of 7th Ave and 27th Street, he was beaten and lynched. Schirmer arrived with artillery and a militia company of the 11th New York Volunteer Infantry ("Ellsworth's Zouaves"), who dispersed the mob. Police cut Franklin down, finding him still alive. The force was soon called away to another riot scene, and the mob returned, hanging him again and then mutilating his corpse. A 16 year old Irash butcher, Patrick Butler, reportedly dragged Franklin's corpse through the streets by his genitals.

Other lynchings and murders took place around the city. On July 13, Peter Heuston, a 63 year old Mohawk veteran of the Mexican War, had been mistaken for black and beaten. He died several days later. William Henry Nichols was attacked on July 15. In the "Report of the Merchants' Committee for the Relief of Colored People Suffering from the Late Riots in The City of New York," his mother described it thusly:

I had arrived from Philadelphia, the previous Monday evening, before any indications of the riot were known, and was temporarily stopping, on Wednesday, July 15th, at the house of my son, No. 147 East 28th street.

At 3 o'clock of that day the mob arrived and immediately commenced an attack with terrific yells, and a shower of stones and bricks, upon the house. In the next room to where I was sitting was a poor woman, who had been confined with a child on Sunday, three days previous. Some of the rioters broke through the front door with pick axes, and came rushing into the room where this poor woman lay, and commenced to pull the clothes from off her.

Knowing that their rage was chiefly directed against men, I hid my son behind me and ran with him through the back door, down into the basement. In a little while I saw the innocent babe, of three days old, come crashing down into the yard; some of the rioters had dashed it out of the back window, killing it instantly. In a few minutes streams of water came pouring down into the basement, the mob had cut the Croton water-pipes with their axes. Fearing we should be drowned in the cellar, (there were ten of us, mostly women and children, there) I took my boy and flew past the dead body of the babe, out to the rear of the yard, hoping to escape with him through an open lot into 29th street; but here, to our horror and dismay, we met the mob again; I, with my son, had climbed the fence, but the sight of those maddened demons so affected me that I fell back, fainting, into the yard; my son jumped down from the fence to pick me up, and a dozen of the rioters came leaping over the fence after him.

As they surrounded us my son exclaimed, "save my mother, gentlemen, if you kill me." "Well, we will kill you," they answered; and with that two ruffians seized him, each taking hold of an arm, while a third, armed with a crow-bar, calling upon them to stand and hold his arms apart, deliberately struck him a heavy blow over the head, felling him, like a bullock, to the ground. (He died in the N. Y. hospital two days after). I believe if I were to live a hundred years I would never forget that scene, or cease to hear the horrid voices of that demoniacal mob resounding in my ears.

They then drove me over the fence, and as I was passing over, one of the mob seized a pocket-book, which he saw in my bosom, and in his eagerness to get it tore the dress off my shoulders.

I, with several others, then ran to the 29th street Station House, but we were here refused admittance, and told by the Captain that we were frightened without cause. A gentleman who accompanied us told the Captain of the facts, but we were all turned away.

I then went down to my husband's, in Broome Street, and there I encountered another mob, who, before I could escape commenced stoning me. They beat me severely.

I reached the house but found my husband had left for Rahway. Scarcely knowing what I did, I then wandered, bewildered and sick, in the direction he had taken, and towards Philadelphia, and reached Jersey City, where a kind, Christian gentleman, Mr. Arthur Lynch, found me, and took me to his house, where his good wife nursed me for over two weeks, while I was very sick.

I am a member of the Baptist Church, and if it were not for my trust in Christ I do not know how I could have endured it.

Much of the rioting that day was focused on black homes and individuals. One case the Report noted was that of a Mrs. Simmons, driven from her home at 147 East 28th and losing everything she owned. While the riots were going on in New York, her son was outside Charleston. He was taken prisoner by the Confederates during the assault of the 54th Massachusetts on Battery Wagner on Morris Island on July 18.

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