The Great Riots of New York, 1712 to 1873 Part 17

The line of march finally resolved upon was down Eighth Avenue to Twenty-third Street, and up it to Fifth Avenue, down Fifth Avenue to Fourteenth Street, along it to Union Square, saluting the Lincoln and Was.h.i.+ngton statues as they pa.s.sed, and then down Fourth Avenue to Cooper Inst.i.tute, where the procession would break up.

About one o'clock, a party of men came rus.h.i.+ng down Eighth Avenue, opposite Lamartine Hall, cheering and shouting, led by a man waving a sword cane. As he swung it above his head it parted, disclosing a long dirk. The police immediately advanced and swept the street. Eighth Avenue was cleared from Thirtieth Street to Twenty-eighth Street, and the police formed several deep, leaving only room enough for the cars to pa.s.s.

In the meantime, around police head-quarters, in Mott Street, things wore a serious aspect. From six o'clock in the morning, the various detachments of police kept arriving until Bleecker, Houston, Mulberry, and Mott Streets were dark with the ma.s.sed battalions, ready to move at a moment's notice. Rations were served out to them standing. Early in the day, Governor Hoffman and staff arrived, and were quartered in the Superintendent's room, while General Shaler and staff were quartered in the fire marshal's office. Commissioners Manierre, Smith, and Barr were in their own rooms, receiving reports from the various precincts over the wires. A little after nine a dispatch came, stating that the quarrymen near Central Park had quitted work, and were gathering in excited groups, swearing that the Orangemen should not parade.

Immediately Inspector Jamieson, with two hundred and fifty policemen, was despatched in stages to Forty-seventh Street and Eighth Avenue, to watch the course of events. Another dispatch stated that an attack was threatened on Harper's building, in Franklin Square, and Captain Allaire, of the Seventh Precinct, was hurried off with fifty men to protect it. A little later came the news that the Orangemen had determined to parade at two o'clock, and a police force of five hundred, as we have already stated, were ma.s.sed in Eighth Avenue, opposite Lamartine Hall. About noon, a body of rioters made an attack on the armory, No. 19 Avenue A, in which were a hundred and thirty-eight stands of arms. Fortunately, the janitor of the building saw them in time to fasten the doors before they reached it, and then ran to the nearest police-station for help, from which a dispatch was sent to head-quarters. Captain Mount, with a hundred policemen, was hurried off to the threatened point. He arrived, before the doors were broken in, and falling on the rioters with clubs, drove them in all directions.

During the forenoon, Drill-captain Copeland was given five Companies, and told to seize Hibernia Hall, where arms were being distributed. As he approached, he ordered the mob to disperse, but was answered with taunts and curses, while the women hurled stones at his face. He then gave the order to charge, when the men fell on the crowd with such fury, that they broke and fled in wild confusion. Meanwhile, the detectives had been busy, and secured eighteen of the ring-leaders, whom they marched to police head-quarters.

As the hour for the procession to form drew near, the most intense excitement prevailed at police head-quarters, and the telegraph was watched with anxious solicitude. The terrible punishment inflicted on the rioters in 1863 seemed to have been forgotten by the mob, and it had evidently resolved to try once more its strength with the city authorities. Around the Orange head-quarters a still deeper excitement prevailed. The hum of the vast mult.i.tude seemed like the first murmurings of the coming storm, and many a face turned pale as the Orangemen, with their banners and badges, only ninety in all, pa.s.sed out of the door into the street. John Johnston, their marshal, mounted on a spirited horse, placed himself at their head. In a few minutes, the bayonets of the military force designed to act as an escort could be seen flas.h.i.+ng in the sun, as the troops with measured tread moved steadily forward. Crowds followed them on the sidewalks, or hung from windows and house-tops, while low curses could be heard on every side, especially when the Twenty-second Regiment deliberately loaded their pieces with ball and cartridge. The little band of Orangemen looked serious but firm, while the military officers showed by their preparations and order that they expected b.l.o.o.d.y work. The Orangemen formed line in Twenty-ninth Street, close to the Eighth Avenue, and flung their banners to the breeze. A half an hour later, they were ready to march, and at the order wheeled into Eighth Avenue. At that instant a single shot rang out but a few rods distant. Heads were turned anxiously to see who was. .h.i.t. More was expected as the procession moved on. A strong body of police marched in advance. Next came the Ninth Regiment, followed at a short interval by the Sixth. Then came more police, followed by the little band of Orangemen, flanked on either side, so as fully to protect them, by the Twenty-second and Eighty-fourth Regiments.

To these succeeded more police. The imposing column was closed up by the Seventh Regiment, arresting all eyes by its even tread and martial bearing. The sidewalks, doorsteps, windows, and roofs were black with people. The band struck up a martial air, and the procession moved on towards Twenty-eighth Street. Just before they reached it, another shot rang clear and sharp above the music. No one was seen to fall, and the march continued. At the corner of Twenty-seventh Street, a group of desperate-looking fellows were a.s.sembled on a wooden shed that projected over the sidewalk. Warned to get down and go away, they hesitated, when a company of soldiers levelled their pieces at them. Uttering defiant threats, they hurried down and disappeared. As the next corner was reached, another shot was fired, followed by a shower of stones. A scene of confusion now ensued. The police fell on the bystanders occupying the sidewalks, and clubbed them right and left without distinction, and the order rolled down the line to the inmates of the houses to shut their windows. Terror now took the place of curiosity; heads disappeared, and the quick, fierce slamming of blinds was heard above the uproar blocks away. The procession kept on till it reached Twenty-fourth Street, when a halt was ordered. The next moment a shot was fired from the second-story windows of a house on the north-east corner. It struck the Eighty-fourth Regiment, and in an instant a line of muskets was pointed at the spot, as though the order to fire was expected. One gun went off, when, without orders, a sudden, unexpected volley rolled down the line of the Sixth, Ninth, and Eighty-fourth Regiments. The officers were wholly taken by surprise at this unprecedented conduct; but, recovering themselves, rushed among the ranks and shouted out their orders to cease firing. But the work was done; and as the smoke slowly lifted in the hot atmosphere, a scene of indescribable confusion presented itself. Men, women, and children, screaming in wild terror, were fleeing in every direction; the strong trampling down the weak, while eleven corpses lay stretched on the sidewalk, some piled across each other. A pause of a few minutes now followed, while the troops reloaded their guns. A new attack was momentarily expected, and no one moved from the ranks to succor the wounded or lift up the dead. Here a dead woman lay across a dead man; there a man streaming with blood was creeping painfully up a doorstep, while crouching, bleeding forms appeared in every direction.

Women from the windows looked down on the ghastly spectacle, gesticulating wildly. The police now cleared the avenue and side streets, when, the dead and wounded were attended to, and the order to move on was given. General Varian, indignant at the conduct of the Eighty-fourth in firing first without orders, sent it to the rear, and replaced it on the flank of the Orangemen with a portion of the Ninth. The procession, as it now resumed its march and moved through Twenty-fourth Street, was a sad and mournful one. The windows were filled with spectators, and crowds lined the sidewalks, but all were silent and serious. Not till it reached Fifth Avenue Hotel were there any greetings of welcome. Here some three thousand people were a.s.sembled, who rent the air with cheers. No more attacks were made, and it reached Cooper Inst.i.tute and disbanded without any further incident.

In the meantime, the scene at the Bellevue Hospital was a sad and painful one. The ambulances kept discharging their b.l.o.o.d.y loads at the door, and groans of distress and shrieks of pain filled the air. Long rows of cots, filled with mangled forms, were stretched on every side, while the tables were covered with bodies, held down, as the surgeons dressed their wounds. The dead were carried to the Morgue, around which, as night came on, a clamorous crowd was gathered, seeking admission, to look after their dead friends. A similar crowd gathered at the door of the Mount Sinai Hospital, filling the air with cries and lamentations.

As darkness settled over the city, wild, rough-looking men from the lowest ranks of society gathered in the street where the slaughter took place, among whom were seen bare-headed women roaming about, making night hideous with their curses.

A pile of dead men's hats stood on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Twenty-fifth Street untouched, and pale faces stooped over pools of blood on the pavement. The stores were all shut; and everything wore a gloomy aspect. The police stood near, revealed in the lamplight, but made no effort to clear the street. It seemed at one time that a serious outbreak would take place, but the night pa.s.sed off quietly, and the riot was ended, and the mob once more taught the terrible lesson it is so apt to forget.

Two of the police and military were killed, and twenty-four wounded; while of the rioters thirty-one were killed, and sixty-seven wounded--making in all one hundred and twenty-eight victims.

There was much indignation expressed at the troops for firing without orders, and firing so wildly as to shoot some of their own men. It was, of course, deserving the deepest condemnation, yet it may have saved greater bloodshed. The fight evidently did not occur at the expected point, and doubtless the result here, prevented one where the mob was better organized, and would have made a more stubborn resistance.

That innocent persons were killed is true; but if they will mingle in with a mob, they must expect to share its fate, and alone must bear the blame. Troops are called out to fire on the people if they persist in violation of the peace and rights of the community. Of this all are fully aware, and hence take the risk of being shot. Soldiers cannot be expected to discriminate in a mob. If the military are not to fire on a crowd of rioters until no women and children, can be seen in it, they had better stay at home.

To a casual observer, this calling out of seven hundred policemen and several regiments of soldiers, in order to let ninety men take a foolish promenade through a few streets, would seem a very absurd and useless display of the power of the city; and the killing of sixty or seventy men a heavy price to pay for such an amus.e.m.e.nt. But it was not ninety Orangemen only that those policemen and soldiers enclosed and s.h.i.+elded.

They had in their keeping the laws and authority of the city, set at defiance by a mob, and also the principle of religious toleration and of equal rights, which were of more consequence than the lives of ten thousand men. The day when New York City allows itself to be dictated to by a mob, and Protestants not be permitted to march as such quietly through the streets, her prosperity and greatness will come to an end.

The taking of life is a serious thing, but it is not to weigh a moment against the preservation of authority and the supremacy of the law.

One thing should not be overlooked--the almost universal faithfulness of the Roman Catholic Irish police to their duty. In this, as well as in the draft riots, they have left a record of which, any city might be proud. To defend Protestant Irishmen against Roman Catholic friends and perhaps relatives, is a severe test of fidelity; but the Irish police have stood it n.o.bly, and won the regard of all good citizens. [Footnote: Twenty-four pages are here added to correct the omission in paging the engravings.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: RECEIVING AND REMOVING DEAD BODIES IN THE MORGUE.]