Talk:New York City draft riots

State militia at the time of the riots

The article on the New York State Guard, where the link from 7th Regiment New York State Militia, points out that the unit was attatched to federal forces and stationed in Baltimore from June 18 to July 5, 1863, while Gettysburg was July 1 to July 3. It looks like they were stationed at Frederick at the time they had to run back to New York City. It seems the riots themselves were the unit's first major action.

Personally, I'm kind of curious about where the idea of sending battle-hardened Gettysburg veterans to put down the riots came from, it sounds like something thought up to move newspapers at the time. Guppy313 03:33, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

YEs but in addition to the 7th came the 152nd New York Volunteers, the 26th Michigan Volunteers. (were they from the Gettysburg campaign.) I think Frederick MD counts as part of the gettysburg campaign. Rjensen 04:13, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

A Michigan unit was involved? That brings me to a question concerning one of my pet issues; if the troops were serving in their federal capacity, did the federal government act out of its own initiative (which wouldn't be surprising at the time), or was it at the request of Albany? If it was at the request of the state, was it the legislature or the governor doing the requesting?

Basically, I'm curious about the trend I see of state governors side-stepping the state legislatures in asking for federal assistance against "domestic Violence" even though they should only have the authority when the state legislature "cannot be convened." For example, the 1992 Los Angeles Riots happened when the California Legislature was taking a three-day weekend, but it was otherwise in session when Governor Pete Wilson asked President George H. W. Bush for federal troops. Personally, I'm curious how far back this trend goes. Guppy313 23:10, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

It turns out Secretary of War Stanton was acting at the request of Mayor Opdyke, so it was essentially the federal government acting on its own initiative. Guppy313 13:46, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Aftermath (Casualties)

While the casualties while listed under the aftermath are definitely factually accurate (greater than 100 dead), they seem to be highly underreported compared to estimates given by Asbury in Gangs of New York (1927). He lists the following "conservative estimates":
-2,000 killed (mostly rioters)
-8,000 wounded

with what I assume are breakdowns of the above totals

-3 police killed and hundreds of police injured
-at least 50 soldiers killed
-18 Negroes lynched and 70 disappeared (probably also lynched)
-more than 100 buildings burned, and 200 looted
-property damages of at about $5,000,000 ($80,000,000 in 2006 dollars) not counting loss of business activity

-only 20 people convicted with average sentence of 5 years

Asbury may not have been the most unbiased author, but none of the estimates are unreasonable and should be included in the article unless directly contradicted by an author with more reliable sources.

--Gprimos1 00:31, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Added that sources differ on counts Jailerdaemon (talk) 06:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Review

Review: this article is being reviewed (additional comments are welcome). Bernstein2291 15:50, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   a (fair representation): b (all significant views):

5. It is stable.

   

6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.

   a (tagged and captioned): b (lack of images does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):

7. Overall:

   a Pass/Fail:

GA Sweeps Review: Pass

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the requirements of the GA criteria. I'm specifically going over all of the "World History-Americas" articles. I made several corrections throughout the article. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a good article. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have edited the article history to reflect this review. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 00:54, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment

I've found numerous sources which state the 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment was used during the Riots, and their CO was killed. They aren't mentioned in this article. Any idea why? --Daysleeper47 (talk) 15:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Rioters Mainly Irish?

The primary source used here may not be trustworthy, anti Irish sentiment was at an all time high at the time. A newspaper accusing a commonly scapegoated ethnic group may not be entirely accurate. Perhaps this should be changed to say "newspapers of the time blamed the Irish" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.19.241.83 (talk) 02:01, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Fictional Portrayals

A Wish After Midnight by Zetta Elliott portrays the riots in the climax of the story as well.--98.150.18.203 (talk) 04:29, 18 June 2010 (UTC)