St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1883-07-27
The Draft Riots Of 1863.
From Morgan Dix's Memoir of His Father, Ge

From Morgan Dix's Memoir of His Father, Gen
Dix.
The story of those terrible days of
July has been fully told. | shall not
give it here, though an eyewitness of
the confused and bloody scene. The
trouble began, as have said, on Sat
urday. the 18th: nearly Il week had
passed before we knew that we were
safe. | was living at that time in the
old rectOry of the parish, 30 Narick
street. The house stood in Il danger
Gus quarter. The large garden was
separated in the rear by mere brick
wall from st. Johu's lane and York
street, which were inhabited almost
exclusively by colored people. At st.
Johns chapel, which stood close by,
we had Il large Sunday school of col
Orcd children. 1t will he remembered
that by some dull mob-logic, the riot
ers ascribed the public troubles to the
negro, and made that unfortunate race
the subject of incessant assault. In
tending to leave the city on Monday,
| was stopped 10y the rumor of coming
evil, and dared not be absent at that
trying time. | remember one of my
servants flying into my library that
evening, with pale face, and telling me
that, while passing through ClarksOn
street on some errand, she had seen
colOred man hanging on a tree, and
men and women setting him on fire as
he dangled from the branches. | treat
ed the story lightly, and told her it
must have been an ef1igy, but she con
stantly affirmed that it was true and
she was right, as ! subsequently ascer-
tanned. That night, or the following
one, the streets behind the rectory were
sacked by the mob. saw their attack
from an upper window of my house,
and heard the bursting in of doors, the
crash of glass, and the roaring of
voices, with shrieks and cries-a YER
table pandemonium. Next day |
learned that an attack was planned on
st. Johns chapel, apparently for no
other reason than that we had our col
Ored school there. By prompt appli-
cation to the authorities got a watch
set on the church, and a squadron of
Dragons stood all night drawn up out
side my garden wall, ready for the riot
ers if they should come. Meanwhile,
at Il dozen different points throughout
the city battles were i'll progress and
never was greater valOr displayed than
by the police, who threw themselves,
lion-ike, upon the wild beasts, in the
proportion generally of 100 to 5000,
taking no prisoners, and Strewing the
streets with dead and wounded wher-
ever their swift and terrible blows fell
| Thus the days wore on, with dust and
smoke, with fire and flame with sack
of private dwellings and burning of
charitable institutions, armOries, and
draft stations; with blood and wounds
and every imaginable instance of atroc-
| ity 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 batteries
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 between the
regulars and the insurgents streets
were swept again and again by grape,
! houses were stOrmed at the point of
the bayonet, rioters were picked off by
sharpshooters as they fired on the
troops from the hOuse-tOps; men were
hurled, dying or dead, into the streets
by the thoroughly enraged soldiery !;
until at last, sullen and cOwed, and
thoroughly whipped and beaten, the
miserable wretches gave way at every
point and confessed the power of the
law. 1t has never been known how
many persisted in those awful days.
According to the lowest estimate some
200 OF the rioters must have been
4. killed, and five or six times that num-
Der wounded but they hid their losses
as far as possible, and disposed of their
dead i'll silence and darkness.