The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-28 00:00:00

TEE RIOTS IN NEW YORK.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, July 13.

Tht) enforcement of the conscription has fallen
with the suddenness of a surprise upon the people of
New York. So lately as a fortnight ago no one
believed that the Government would dare to resort
to it ; but, emboldened by the check which General
Meado was enabled to offer to the advancing armies
of General Lee, and still more by the surrender of
Vicksburg, Mr. Lincoln and his advisers have
plucked up heart, and taken astep that may yet prove
to be the most momentous of the war. They calculated
upon the good temper of the people consequent upon
the first promise of success that has rewarded them
for "pegging away." A few days will show whether
or cot toeir confidence has been misplaced. The
drzught commenced on Saturday, and will be con-
tinued during the present week in all the congres-
sional districts of the city. Fearful, apparently, of
the resistance of the working classes, especially of
those of foreign birth, the Government has adopted
the precaution of taking each di,ttict separately,
and of sending a military guard of 400 men to plc-
side ores the turning o the wheel, to see fair play
and to preserve order. The Republican papers and
all the supporters of the Administration take especial
pains to spread abroad the impression that the draught
is a mere formality, that the rebellion is all but sup-
pressed,that the existing armies are more than ample
to give it the coup tie grace, and that none of the
enforced levies will ever be required to do other
than militia duty in the towns and cities where
they will be drawn, and that they will under no
circumstances be incorporated with the armies now
in the field. It is much too early to ascertain to
what extent these representations are believed by
the people most interested. There is no question
that the conscription is in itself intensely un-
popular, and that among the Irish and Germans,
and to a smaller extent among the native-born
Americans, Trades' Unions, and other societies have
been organised in opposition to enforced military
service, and that many valiant resolutions have
been adopted, on paper, in assertion of the determi-
nation of the Americans, like Britons, " never to be
slaves." The doubt is whether the opposition will
take the shape of armed resistanceff doubt which
among the native-born Americans is justified by the
well•known civic cowardice—or, if that epithet be
considered too strong, the respect for law, or what
appears to be law—that characterises the Americans
as a people. They will fight obstinately against a
foreign or a domestic foe, as their past and present
history proves ; but they are reluctant to take
up arms in the street against their own Govern-
ment, however great the provocation, as French-
men, Italians, Poles, or Germans would do, and
have often done. It would not, therefore, be sur-
prising if the only resistance to the draught should
come from the turbulent foreign element that
abounds in this city, or if the Government should,
in case of its assuming any large proportions, re-
solve to overpower it by force of arms. It does not
seem, however, as if any army or portion of an
army to be raised by this means could be of much
service to the Government. The conscription an.
swers its purpose in the South, and is cheerfully
submitted to because the conscripts are inspired with
a burning hatred against the Northern people,
whom they consider tyrants, oppressors, "Yankees,"
and " worse than hyenas" who desire to overrun
their country, exterminate the people, and confis-
cate the property of all classes. But no such danger
affronts the North, and no such passions, either of
hatred or patriotism, exist. In the minority of cases,
where such passions find play they are to be dis-
covered among the non-fighting classes, the pugna-
cious disputants of the pulpit and the lecture-rooms,
and the strong-minded women, whose type is Anna
Dickinson, and whose model gentleman is General
Butler. Whatever these people and the war con-
tractors may think or say, there is a growing feel-
ing throughout the North that the Southerners are
as right in their assertion of the principle of inde-
pendence as they are gallant in defending it, and a
growing disinclination to fight for the emancipa-
tion of negroes and the destruction of the Constitu-
tion, under the protection of which both North and
South had attained so high a pitch of greatness
and prosperity. The feeling is too strong and too
widely diffused to be mistaken. it has not been
weakened by the temporary success of General
Meade, nor would the defeat of the Army of the
Potomac, which the present disposition and strength
of the contending forces do not render at all impro-
bable, have any perceptible effect in diminishing
it. These persons say that if the Union cannot be
preserved by the willing arms of volunteer soldiers,
the Union is dead, and would not be worth the
trouble of resuscitation, if resuscitation were pos-
sible.

JULY 14.

I had written thus far yesterday, when the report
reached me that the most serious riot that had ever
occurred in America had broken out in the upper
congressional district of the city, where the draught
had first commenced, and that a mob of men and
women variously estimated at from 20,000 t 040,000,
had suddenly appeared, acting without concert or
known leaders, and were committing havoc that,
unless speedily checked, might lead to awful loss of
life and immense destruction of property. The
report, though possibly exaggerated as to the
numbers of the rioters, was in other respects true.
The pent-up passions of the multitude had broken
loose, and there was imminent peril of a catas-
trophe that might have delivered the city to
the unrestrained possession of a populace that
had tasted blood and grown furious on the diet.
The readers of this correspondenco have been
from time to time informed that the working classes
_were oot only disgusted with the war and all re-
lating.ic to it ; that they did not sympathise with or
e any interest in the abolition of slavery, except
to condemn it ; that they looked upon the negroes
with mistrust and dislike ; that they felt the bur-
den of the war in the enhancement of the price of
food and clothing, and of every article of comfort
and necessity; and that, above _all, they were op-
Posed to the principle of a conscription and had
banded
All these themselves into secret societies to resist it.
motives of action came into play yester-
day' and Wei_ intensified
of the L' by the sympathy and sup-
portin immense :men, who turned out into the streets
nmbers to incite their sons, brothers,
fathers, husbands
lovers to the work of de-
struction. The or
listsi of those who were draughted in
the Ninth District
Were published in the evenin
papers on gatardayg
i•epeated 'in the Sunday
journals. This
their doom that the unstlee was the only notice of
all day on Sanday
theortunates had received; and
excited groups of lists were studied
working ' by
street corners, at church or men, gathered at
less tranquil resorts of e aPel doors, and at the
ager-hee
shops, and hotel bars, The,crh r saloons, grog-
draught was loud and universal,
l 1 opposition to the
to be illegal, unfair in its mode It was declared
of operations,
exempting from personal service the na as
rich enough to pay 300 dollars, andaina - -"a was
tion of power on the part of the Fedean Govern.ho
ment which could not be submitted to irnal
that still claimed to be free. It was allegeda country
in one
of the Sunday journals that no less a person than
Mr. Horatio Seymour, Governor of the State, had
declared his opinion that the act of Congress was
unconstitutional and could not be enforced; and
that
its legality would be tested before the recognised tri-
bunals of New York. This statement, which ought to
have allayed the agitation of the people, produced a
contrary effect. Early in the day gangs of workmen
went from workshop to workshop to call upon their
fellows to leave their labour and proceed to the
building in the Third-avenue where the formalities
of the draught were to be resumed. By 11 o'clock
slTtneihousands of persons had collected. They com-
menced by throwing stones at the windows. They
next rushed into the office, seized the wheel by which
the lots were drawn and broke it into fragments, got
hold of the enrolment lists and tore them into shreds,
thus rendering the prosecution of the draught im-
possible until a new enrolment had been completed
—assaulted and severely ill-treated the functionaries
employed, and were debating what was next to be
done, when a man suddenly appeared on the plat-
form with a pail of turpentine, which he deliberately
poured upon the floor. A lucifer match was imme-
diately applied, the turpentine blazed up furiously,

and in less than half an hour afterwards the whole
edifice was in a blaze from the basement to the roof.
The firemen arrived to extinguish the con t. ration.
I' hey were received by the mob with 1 d cheers,
hut were not permitted to throw water o he flames.
The fire spread rapidly until eight co uous houses
were enveloped in one common destr ction. The
crowd assisted the terrified inmates to escape, but
otherwise manifested a stern resolution to suffer no
interference with their vengeance. Their next
business was to tear up the iron of the street rail-
ways, to prevent the passage of cars with troops or
police to the rescue, and to provide themselves with
weapons. This done, they cut the telegraphic wires
in all directions, and broke up into several separate
mobs, each bent on its own purpose, or going
wherever chance conducted it. • Of course, such a
riot became the holiday of all the rowdies, black-
guards, and thieves of this city, who, scenting
plunder as the crow scents carrion, turned out in
large numbers to swell the volume and disgrace the
character of the crowd. Hitherto no blood had
been shed. A detachment of the Provost Guard
that had been hastily sent from the Park Barracks,
to prevent further destruction, if they could not re-
store order, arrived at Forty-fit st-street, in the very
heart and focus of the riot, and found their further
progress impeded by a dense mass of people,
and pelted
sup-
posed to amount to 5,000 or 6,000, who received
them with shouts and yells of execration,
them with stones and brickbats. Thus hemmed in
and surrounded, and
in danger of being torn to
pieces, they fired a deadly volley into the crowd,
knows whether or not they received orders to fire,
and about 20 people fell mortally wounded. No one
ted and unauthorised act of their own fear; but
or whether the fatal discharge was the unpremedi-
ta
the as might have been expected, was
only to
the fury
of the multitude. The
consequence,add to
Provost Guard no sooner fired than it retreated, pur-
sued by the crowd. The men threw away theirfire-
arms-to facilitate their escape, and these being picked
up by their pursuers seemed to suggest to the mob
that in a future conflict with the troops it would be
necessary they should have muskets and rifles. Seve•
ral soldiers and policemen—it is not yet known how
many—were killed, and the crowd, growing larger
nd more furious as it rolled, invaded an armoury on
the Second-avenue, belonging to Mr. Opdyke, the
Mayor of New York, where a large store of arms and
ammunition for which this gentleman and his
brother had contracted to supply the Government
was known to exist. It was defended for a short time
by the servants and workpeople of Mr. Opdyke.
But all resistance was vain. The people overflowed
into the building like an advancing sea, and in a few
minutes the musketry and ammunition, were seized
and distributed among the insurgents. Whatever
was not of a nature to be made available as a weapon
was destroyed. This done the torch was applied
to every corner of the edifice, which in a short time
was in such a blaze as would have defied all the
efforts of all the firemen of New York to extinguish.
While this scene was being enacted another body of
rioters, who had chased an obnoxious soldier or po-
liceman into a large stone house at the corner of
Lexington-avenue, surrounded the building, and
demanded that he should be given up. The cry
was raised that the house belonged to a " shoddy
contractor," who had made a fortune out of the war.
The allegation, true or false, was fatal to the house.
The mob burst into it, tore down the pictures from
the walls, cut them to pieces with their knives, or
dug holes in them with railroad iron, demo-
lished a large and costly pianoforte, threw the
fragments out of the windows, took the books
from the library and set fire to them in the street,
broke open pantry and larder, wine cellar, and
plate chest, closet and wardrobe, and carried
off every portable article of value and the wearing
apparel of the male and female members of
the household as trophies of their achievement.
Finally they set fire to the building ; and, watching
the progress of the flames until they were quite
assured that the work of destruction would be
complete, marched off to commit new outrages.
The next place that received a visit was the
splendid house of Mr. Opdyke, the Mayor, in the
Fifth-avenue, a gentleman, particularly noted for
the fervour of his war sentiments, the richness of
his contracts, and the vehemence of his Black Re-
publicanism, or philanthropic love for the negroes.
Cries were raised to gut and fire the house, and in
one moment more the thing would have been done
had it not been for the opportune presence and
judicious speech of one of the city judges, Mr.
Barnard, who endeavoured to calm the fury of the
mob. Having obtained a hearing, from a doorstep, 11
he bade them remember that Mr. Opdyke was the
legally elected chief magistrate of the city, and as
such entitled to their respect and obedience. He
entreated them not to sully their just cause by acts
of violence. He declared that, in his opinion, as a
lawyer and a judge, the Conscription Act was ille-
gal and unconstitutional, and added that, if any
citizen, taken from his home in pursuance of that
act, applied by his counsel for a writ of habeas corpus
before him, he would grant the writ, and bring the
question to a test in the state and city of New York.
This restored the crowd to good humour, and with
three cheers for the judge they proceeded on their
way, leaving Mr. Opdyke's mansion unmolested.
But, although opposition to the draught was the
main motive that impelled the people to these law-
less deeds, another passion took possession of them
as the day wore on. In their hatred of the war and
the draught which had grown out of- it, they re-
membered that Mr. Lincoln by his Proclamation of
Emancipation had so embittered the South as to
render a restoration of the Union impossible.
Hatred of the war, and hatred of the negro, whom
they supposed to be the cause of it, were equally
strong in their minds. No negro could venture
into the crowd without insult or danger. One un-
fortunate man of, colour, being hooted and pelted
with brickbats and brought to bay by a furious gang
of assailants, drew a revolver from his breast and
shot the foremost man,dead. He was immediately
pursued by a mob of hundreds of excited ruffians,
seized, thrown to the ground, beaten on the head
'with clubs and pieces of iron, stamped and spat
upon, and next, after every shred of clothing had
been stripped from his back, hung stark naked from
a lamp-post, and pelted with stones and mud by an
assemblage of juvenile ruffians, from the age of 12
upwards. After dangling for a few minutes all the
available combustible rubbish of the neighbourhood
was piled under his feet and set fire to, the maniac
crowd dancing around in a frenzy of blood and hor-
ror. In another part of the city a second negro met a
similar fate ; and towards 6in the evening a body of
evpersons, breathing vengeance
eragainsta
race—most of whom this day
in New York would have been glad to exchange the
s i
that thousand
unhappy
peril of liberty in the North for the security of
Southern slavery and protection—marched up to a
large building, called the " Coloured Orphan
Home," an institution, as its name implies, devoted
to the maintenance and education of orphan negro
children. Giving the inmates an hour to escape,
they declared their intention to set fire to the build-
ing, which intention theyruthlessly carried into exe-
cution at the appointed time. One life only appears
to have been lost—that of a poor negro child, who
was accidentally trampled to death in the rush of
the inmates to escape destruction. Amid scenes like
these, the local authorities being almost if not en-
tirely powerless to resist the progress of the insur-
gents, the
night darkened down upon.
would have
leadership Was a city that
been doomed to destruction if the mob
ion.llntgs
had had as much leadership Want as it had ferocity. But
tnaonre
douirseec°terudb.ulsft.they had been there
•
prevent it from seizing
*actions a Wee m
neither plannedspo n-
providing
every arsenal and armoury
100,000 the city,
100,000 men, Fortunmaitnedlytn, was nothing to
arms and ammunition for
the local authority had
and •
despatch troops to the
vulnerable
tnperraesbelne
coefotfhese stool.
msuoffistcive
o'clock at night, the sky—„e: mischief. At 11
mist, as hot almost as a vapour bath bY a dense hot
the lurid glare of a dozen fires ianthrewas lit up by
the town, and 40,000 or 50,000 riotersierent parts of
disturbed possession of the streets. There
before ids nyo
break if it had not been for the sudden downefft -
a drenching rain-storm that cleared the thorou
hot
fares in a few minutes. The fain continued gfor-
several hours,—a better conservator of the public
peace than ten thousand soldiers might have proved
in fine weather.

This morning the riots were resumed at daybreak.