Congress passed the first federal conscription act in 1863, applying to men between twenty-five and forty-five. Exempted were draftees who could provide a substitute or pay a bounty of three hundred dollars. The first draft lottery was scheduled for July 11, a Saturday. By the following Monday, a mob of protesters had rampaged through the provost marshal's uptown headquarters at Third Avenue and Forty-Sixth Street in the prelude to the nation's bloodiest domestic uprising, except for the Civil War itself. At least 105 people died, with hundreds more soldiers, police officers, and civilians wounded. Order was restored four days later, after five Union regiments were summoned from Gettysburg and the Common Council, urged on by Boss Tweed, the Democratic ward-heeler, appropriated $2 million for poor draftees who could not afford to pay the $300 exemption fee.
The instrument that triggered the Draft Riots was innocuous enough. It was a small wooden barrel rotated with a crank and mounted on a bracket. The draft wheel (one for the Seventh Congressional District on the Lower East Side is in the collection of the New-York Historical Society) contained the names, addresses, and occupations of potential draftees.
Southern cotton was king in New York, as a commodity to be traded and shipped overseas and to be manufactured into finished clothing, towels, and other accessories, Under Mayor Fernando Wood, New York had even considered seceding in solidarity with the Confederacy and forming a sovereign Tri-Insula composed of Manhattan, Long Island, and Staten Island. The city was flush with import tariffs being diverted to Washington by the federal government. No surprise that Abe Lincoln lost New York City in 1860, although he carried New York State. Once war was declared, though, New York would furnish more draftees and volunteers than any other state.
TEXT ABOVE FROM SAM ROBERTS 101 OBJECTS
The New York City draft riots of July 13-16, 1863, were violent disturbances triggered by the enforcement of the draft for the American Civil War. Primarily instigated by working-class white citizens, the riots reflected racial tensions and economic frustrations, exacerbated by the ability of wealthier men to avoid conscription by paying a commutation fee. The riots resulted in extensive property damage, the lynching of African Americans, and the deaths of numerous individuals. Federal troops eventually quelled the violence.
