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As the draft lottery got underway in New York City on Monday morning, thousands of resentful working-class, mostly Irish, citizens gathered to smash up the Provost's offices. Four days of serious rioting followed across much of the city, aimed largely at the more wealthy and especially, African-American residents. Several hundred people lost their lives and only when troops in large numbers were deployed and the draft suspended in the city did the violence die down. This was the largest civil disturbance in American history up to that point. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Rolando Avilla, "New York Draft Riots (1863)," in Steven Danver (ed.), Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History: An Encyclopedia (New York: ABC-CLIO, 2011), I: 435-450.
Record Data
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
Crime/Disasters
Relevance
Major
