Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America

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Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America Pub. Date: 12/27/2005 Publisher: Walker & Company

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Overview

On July 13, 1863, the largest riots in American history broke out on the streets of New York City, nearly destroying in four days the financial, industrial, and commercial hub of the nation. Placing the riots in the context of social tension and reform from the 1840s through the 1870s, Barnet Schecter sheds new light on the Civil War era and on the history of protest and reform in America.

Editorial Reviews

Alison McCulloch

Schecter throws a wide net in his detailed account of the riots, setting the violence amid the racism, political corruption and brutal inequities of the time, looking not only at what inspired the rebellion, but also at what it left in its wake: a seven-year exodus of black residents and a political climate ripe for the "ongoing counterrevolution against Reconstruction."
—The New York Times

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From The Critics

The 1863 draft riots in New York City, the bloodiest in the nation's history, emerge as a microcosm of the convoluted and contradictory politics of the Civil War era in this absorbing study. Historian Schecter (The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution) pens with a gripping account of the five days of rioting. But he also probes beneath the turmoil to examine the ethnic, religious and class conflicts that made the confrontation so explosive. The rioters, largely working-class Irish Catholics, vented their fury at a draft law that exempted those who could pay $300, at the city's WASP Republican business elite and, inflamed by racist demagoguery, at African-Americans with whom they competed for low-wage jobs and status in America's racial hierarchy. Schecter contends that these dynamics played out nationally in the gradual demise of Reconstruction, thus setting the stage for racial and labor conflict in the century to come. Copiously researched and highlighted with a wealth of period commentary, his lucid narrative colorfully recreates a historical watershed and offers a rich exploration of the Civil War's unfinished business. 40 b&w photos, maps, not seen by PW. Agent, Sabine Hrechdakian. (Jan.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780802714398
Publisher: Walker & Company
Publication date: 12/27/2005
Pages: 448
Product dimensions: 6.28 (w) x 9.46 (h) x 1.53 (d)

Meet the Author

Historian Barnet Schecter is the author of The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution. He lives in New York City.

	Prologue : "we have not one devil, but many to contend with"
1	"The rebel horde had invaded Pennsylvania in force"	9
2	The battle lines are drawn : race, class, and religion	29
3	Horace Greeley and the birth of the Republican Party	46
4	Fernando Wood, the "Southern" mayor of New York	59
5	"Slavery must die that the nation might live"	77
6	Emancipation and its enemies	96
7	"A highwayman's call on every American citizen for '$300 or your life'"	113
8	"Down with the rich men!": the New York City draft riots begin	125
9	"Chased, stoned, and beaten" : "a crusade against Negroes"	143
10	Monday night : "the fiery nucleus of the entire riot"	157
11	"Government in the hands of the white race alone"	171
12	"The police cannot much longer sustain the contest"	184
13	Doom or deliverance : Wednesday, July 15 - day three	201
14	"Hellish passions culminating in riots, arson, and murder"	214
15	The final days : Thursday and Friday	224
16	A plot to "make the Northern States a battle-field"	240
17	Aftermath : sitting on two volcanoes	253
18	"Our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country"	269
19	"Villainous threats of laying northern cities in ashes"	286
20	War's end : slavery is dead, the "demon of caste" lives on	298
21	"Condemnation and reversal of Negro suffrage"	310
22	Strange bedfellows : Greeley and the liberal republicans	332
23	A final devil's bargain : the end of reconstruction	353
App	A walking tour of New York	371

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Anonymous

Posted March 21, 2006

Expansive, Rivetting, Deatailed Account of Civil Unrest

Barnet Schecter¿s magisterial study of the five day insurrection that erupted in New York City, ¿The Devil¿s Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America¿, is one of those historical accounts that illuminate more than just the times the work is set in. By providing a multilayered analysis to the issues that marked this breakdown of social order, and through a deft, perfect-pitch, use of basic sources, Mr. Schecter lets the contemporary voices of those living through these events and, at times, driving them, speak for themselves. The result is a tableau of compelling immediacy that is rarely seen in a historical study. Some of the expected characters are here: Lincoln, Seward and Lee, etc. but it is the less well-known characters of that era that permit the real force of the book to be felt. By knitting together and contrasting the recorded dialogue of the restive ferment of the slums of New York and Boston with the tense interchanges originating in the mahoganied board-rooms of these same cities Mr. Schecter recreates the social tensions of these turbulent times. With what seems to be an unerring sense of how the character of a subject will define for him the peculiar social reality that he may act in, we meet figures who by virtue of the author¿s skill and sympathy are never rendered as simple, one-dimensional heroes or villains. Landmark works in any field of study require that a sense of scope, sensitivity and balance be observed throughout the effort. But such traits alone cannot mark it as memorable. For this the electricity of personal exchanges in statehouses, boardrooms and back alleys must be captured in their raw force and then be woven in into a narrative that flows with seeming effortlessness, from it its own momentum. This is what Mr. Schecter has accomplished.

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Anonymous

Posted January 17, 2006

Civil War Unrest

Over the years I've read many Civil War books that have mentoned the New York Draft Riots,but have never gone into great detail about the event until now.By July 1863 the fate of the Union hung in the balance.While an anxious Pres.Lincoln and a nation awaited word on the titanic clash that was taking place in a town called Gettysburg,military officials were gearing up for the draft.Battles at Antietam,Fredericksburg,and Chancellorsville had depleted the Union Army's ranks.The Irish already weary of the war (The Irish Brigade had suffered grievous losses at Antitam and Fredericksburg)were further enraged by the $300 it cost to buy a replacement.They also resented the fact that their jobs would go to the blacks while they were off fighting.It only takes a few to roil the masses,which is what exactly took place.Three days of rioting left hundreds dead and wounded,it took an army unit returning from Gettysburg to help put down the insurrection.The book records many of the atrocities committed by the Irish mobs towards the blacks (lynching,dismemberment)but also documents the valor of many Irish towards the blacks.The burning of the Colored Orphanage comes to mind.This book can be read by both historian or someone who doesn't know much about the Civil War and wants to learn more. A solid addition to any Civil War library.

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Anonymous

Posted January 5, 2006

The Definitive Book on the Civil War Draft Riots and Aftermath

Barnet Schecter's new book is much more than an in-depth examination of one of America's most deadly civil disturbances, it is a tour de force rendering of the many problems the newly 'Re-United' States suffered through during the entire Reconstruction Era (1865-1877). Schecter's exhaustive look at the real causes behind the July 1863 'Draft' Riots is certain to make this book the definitive account of those several tragic days yet, he doesn't end his compelling story when authorities finally -- with the help of Federal troops -- brought the violence to a halt on July 17, 1863. Schecter traces the post-riot effects that the economic, racial and political forces unleashed during the riots had on the attempts to 'reconstruct' the South and achieve social justice for all Americans during the Reconstruction Era. The research is impeccable, the narrative is compelling and the entire book is an outstanding 'window on the past,' chronicling an entire era. Supplementing this 'must-have' book is a delightful appendix, the author's 'Walking Tour Guide to Civil War New York' that readers may use to discover the surprising history of that era still to be found in America's greatest city. I enthusiastically recommend Barnet Schecter's outstanding new book, as well as his previous book, 'The Battle for New York,' an outstanding account of Washington's battles from Long Island/Brooklyn to Ft. Washington during the Revolutionary War in 1776. Like 'Civil War Draft Riots,' Schecter has provided an informative and very interesting walking tour guide for 'The Battle for New York' (also available at Barnes & Noble).

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Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America

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Overview

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Editorial Reviews

Alison McCulloch

From The Critics

Product Details

Meet the Author

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Expansive, Rivetting, Deatailed Account of Civil Unrest

Civil War Unrest

The Definitive Book on the Civil War Draft Riots and Aftermath