The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1883-08-10
The Draft Riots Of: 1868.

From Morgan Dix's Memoir OF His Father,
General Dix,
The story of those terrible days of July
has been fully told. Ishall not give it
here, though an eyewitness of the con-
fused and bloody scene. The trouble
began, as ] have said on Saturday, the
18th; nearly q week had passed before
we knew that We were safe. l was liv-
ing at that time in the old rectory of the
parish, so Varick street. The house
stood in dangerous quarter. The large
garden was separated in the rear by a
mere brick wall from st. Johns lane and
York street, which were inhabited al
most exclusively by colored people. At
st. Johns chapel, which stood close by,
we had large Sunday school of colored
children. It will be remembered that,
by some dull mob.logic. the rioters as
cribed the public troubles to the negro,
and made that unfortunate race the
subject of incessant assaults. In.
tending to. leave the city on Mon
day, was stopped by the rumor of COM
in. evil and dared not venture to be alb
sent at that trying time. 1 remember
one ofmy servants flying into my libra
ry that evening, with pale face, and tell
ing me that, while passing through
GARRISON street on some errand, she had
seen colored man hanging on tree.
and men and women setting him on
fire as he dangled from the branches. I
treated the story lightly, and told her it
must have been an efigy, but she con-
stantly affirmed that it was true; and
said she was right, as subsequently, as
ctoS lint ri, I, co111
one, the streets behind the rectory were
from the upper window of my house
and heard tie bursting in of doors, the
crash of glass and the roaring of voices.
with shrieks and cries-veritable pande-
monium. Next day I learned that an
attack was planned on st Joseph's chap
ell, apparently for no other reason than
that we had our colored school there.
BY prompt application to
the authorities Il got a
watch set on the church. and SQUAD
ron of dragons stood all night drawn
up outside my garden wall, ready for
the rioters if they should come. Mean
while, at a dozen different points
throughout the city battles were in pro-
gress; and never was greater valor dis.
played than by the police, who threw
themselves, lion.like, upon the wild
beasts, in the proportion generally of
100 to 5000; taking no prisoners, and
strewing the streets wit. dead and woun-
ded wherever their swift ami terrible
blows fell. Thus the days wore on, with
fire and flame; with sack of private
dwellings and burning of charitable in
stitu.ions, armDries and draft stations;
with blood and wounds, ana every i'm
aginable instance of atrocity on the part
of the maddened mob, till regiments
hurriedly withdrawn from the front,
came speeding back to the city,
and we saw the grim bat
teries and weather-stained and dusty
soldiers tramping into our leading streets
as if into a town just taken by siege.
There was some terrific fighting be-
tween the regulars and the Insurgents;
streets were swept again and again by
grape; houses were stormed at the point
of the bayonet, rioters we're picked off
by sharpshc oters as they fired on the
troops from the house-tops; men were
hurled, dying or dead, into the streets
by the thoroughly enraged- soIdiery;
until at last, sullen and cowed, and thor
oughly whipped AMI beaten, the miser-
able wretches gave way at every point
and confessed the power ofthe law. It
has never been known how many per.
ished in those awful days. According
to the lowest estimate some 1870 o the
rioters must have been killed, d five
or six times that number wounded; but
they hid their losses as far as possible,
and disposed of their dead in silence
and darkness.