study guide 1 - reading b harris - New York City Draft Riots of July 1863.

Intro Question: What name would the first sixteen pages of Leslie Harris's account produce if you had to name the event from them alone?

The first sixteen pages describe decades of structural failure — federal rulings, segregation, displacement, violence, and political exclusion — not a sudden riot. The through‑line is Black New Yorkers losing rights, land, jobs, safety, and citizenship across the antebellum period. The narrative frames July $1863$ as the culmination of this long crisis, so the event would be named something like “The Failures of the City” or “The Long Crisis of Black Freedom,” not “the Draft Riots.”

Draft exemption: legal grounds + $1857$ decision

Black New Yorkers were exempt from the $1863$ draft because they were not considered U.S. citizens, and the draft applied only to citizens; this exclusion rested on the Supreme Court’s $1857$ Dred Scott decision.

“Blacks, who were not considered citizens, were exempt from the draft.” “In $1857$, the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision explicitly stated that blacks…were not citizens of the United States under the Constitution.”

This exemption was exclusion, not privilege: they were barred from citizenship and therefore barred from conscription.

The four population figures + proportional decline

Harris gives four numbers for NYC’s Black population:

• $1840$: $16,358$
• $1850$: $13,815$
• $1855$: ~$11,740$
• $1860$: $12,472$

“Between $1840$ and $1850$, it fell…from $16,358$ to $13,815$.” “Five years after…$1850$…the black population…declined…to approximately $11,740$.” “The population rebounded slightly in $1860$, to $12,472$.”

Highest: $16,358$ ($1840$) Lowest: $11,740$ ($1855$)

Proportional decline: $\frac{16,358 - 11,740}{16,358} \approx 28.2\text{\%}$

So the decline was about $28\text{\%}$.

Three riot targets unrelated to conscription

Each of these had no connection to the draft lottery:

• Colored Orphan Asylum – a charitable institution for Black children (“The crowd…advanced upon the Institution…[and] set fire to the building.”)
• Abby Hopper Gibbons’s home – a white reformer’s residence (“Rioters burned the home of Abby Hopper Gibbons, prison reformer…”)
• Philip White’s drugstore – a Black businessman’s shop (“A mob threatened black drugstore owner Philip White…”)

Other valid answers include Hart’s Alley, brothels/dance halls near the docks, and interracial boarding houses.

What the Longshoreman’s Association said it wanted, and when

Speaker: Harris (the historian), summarizing the Association’s stated goals. Timing: During the Draft Riots, in the section on dockside violence (pp. 21–22). What they said they wanted: They wanted to exclude Black workers from the docks entirely—to remove “all evidence of a black and interracial social life” and to assert white labor’s dominance.

“White longshoremen took advantage of the chaos…to attempt to remove all evidence of a black and interracial social life from the area near the docks.”

This is Harris’s narration, not a quoted statement from the Association itself.

Three episodes where white New Yorkers acted against the crowd

Harris records three distinct moments:

1. The Irish bystander at the orphanage
   • Stake: He was defending Black children.
   • He cried, “If there is a man among you…come and help these poor children,” and the mob “appeared ready to tear him to pieces.”
2. Philip White’s Irish neighbors
   • Stake: He had extended them credit; they protected a benefactor.
   • “His Irish neighbors drove the mob away, for he had often extended them credit.”
3. Hart’s Alley residents (Black and white together)
   • Stake: Defending their shared homes and neighborhood.
   • Residents “together…poured hot starch on [the rioters], driving them from the neighborhood.”

Fate of the Colored Orphan Asylum

Where it went: First to $51\text{st}$ Street, then in $1867$ to $143\text{rd}$ Street between Amsterdam and Broadway. What that neighborhood would later be called: Harlem.

“The orphanage relocated to $51\text{st}$ Street for four years before moving…to $143\text{rd}$ Street…in what would become…Harlem.”

Why this matters for Day 3: Because Harlem becomes the major center of Black life in the $20\text{th}$ century, and the asylum’s relocation shows how the Draft Riots helped push Black institutions northward, shaping Harlem’s later emergence.

What the Union League Club organized in March $1864$ + observers’ comments

Event: A massive public parade of the Twentieth U.S. Colored Infantry from the Union League Club to the Hudson River.

“On March $5$, $1864$, the black regiment processed…before a crowd of one hundred thousand…”

Observers said: The soldiers were disciplined, sober, orderly, and did not break ranks.

“Not one of its members disobeyed orders…no one used intoxicating drinks…their marching was very creditable.”

Why put that in print? Because elites wanted to counter racist claims from the Draft Riots—showing Black soldiers as model citizens and loyal Union supporters, contrasting them with the disorderly white mobs of July $1863$.

What Caused the Riots?

• The Conscription Act: Congress passed a new law in $1863$ to draft men into the Union Army as the war dragged on.
• "Rich Man's War": The law allowed wealthy men to pay $\$300$ (a huge sum at the time) or hire a substitute to avoid serving, making working-class and immigrant laborers feel targeted.
• Racial Fears: Many white workers—predominantly Irish immigrants—feared that freeing enslaved Black people would flood the North with cheap labor and force them to fight a war solely to emancipate African Americans.

How the Violence Unfolded

• Attacks on Government & Wealthy: On July $13$, crowds of angry workers attacked draft offices, cut telegraph lines, burned down the homes of the wealthy, and targeted Republican newspaper offices.
• Racial Pogroms: The protests quickly degraded into brutal racial violence. White mobs hunted down Black New Yorkers in the streets, beating, torturing, hanging, and lynching them.
• Destruction: The mob burned down the Colored Orphan Asylum, which housed hundreds of children (though the kids escaped safely), and attacked interracial neighborhoods and docks.

How It Ended

• Federal Troops: President Abraham Lincoln sent thousands of federal troops straight from the Battle of Gettysburg back to New York City.
• Restoring Order: By July $16$, the army and police suppressed the riots, using extreme force (including artillery) to clear the streets.
• Casualties: Official death tolls ranged from $119$ to $120$ people, though some historians estimate hundreds more died, making it the largest civil insurrection in U.S. history outside of the Civil War itself.