Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1888-09-07

H0RS|X f. ssmall body of Grip
W82$A kEZ.pled and sick, but
tsHeZ< y-very ready veterans
e','ss:=sS~ from the front. No
soldier would court any such situation;
any good soldier of that time, l trust,
would have done his whole duty had
he been put forward i'll that crisis. L
trust that 1 and my forty-seven sol
<liers from the Department of the Gulf
would not have shamed our comrades,
had We been, put in to fight against
that hell Of furious resistance to law,
of arson, murder and robbery that
ragged through the great city for almost
a week after July 18th, 1868. That is
all l have right to say.
] have elsewhere in these sketches
told howl Was taken from New Or
leans hospital with these forty-seven,
all sick or wounded from Port Hudson,
as the best squad General Emery could
get in those perilous days when he had
less than two thousand men under his
command to defend the city, and sent
up to Fortress Monroe on steamer in
charge of five hundred Confederate
prisoners. Having delivered them
there, we Went on to New York for
transportation back. and started on our
return July Sth; 1 believe that was the
exact date. The interval of three days
was spent on Governors Island. [ had
two opportunities to go over to the
city, and improved them. I knew that
the draft was about to be enforced, and
/ took some pains to talk with those 1
met about it. 1 heard very little
said on the subject. i saw no
indications of armed resistance, or
any resistance. had occasion to go
to the headquarters of General Wool,
who commanded there, and to get an
order for our transportation back to
New Orleans signed by the General
personally. But heard no whisper of
fear of any rising of the mob. or resist
ance to the draft. Nobody seemed to
realize that the fires of q lurid volcano
were slumbering there, ready to burst
out in blood and destruction at the
signal.
Had our departure been delayed
three days, 1 know we should have
been ordered over to the city, to face
that bowling, devilish mob somewhere.
There were no troops in the city then :;
there was only scant guard in the
forts. Everything was called in that
could avail in that awful crisis, until a
brigade of the Army of the Potomac
could be hurried up to the rescue, and
1T was then known that New York was
safe. During that memorable week
there was a carnival of blood in the
Empire City, beginning i'll organized
resistance to the draft and destruction
OF its headquarters, extending to the
murder OF negroes and the burning of
colored orphan asylums, and then,
gathering in passion and ungovernable
fury and drunkenness, swelling to the
pillagc and arson of buildings indis-
crilninately, and blind killing for the
sake Of blood.
! It was a hideous time! People who
then lived in New York and survived
it, and yet survive it, look back on it
as they would on nightmare.
For days the heroic police performed
miracles Of valor. They charged the
roaring mob everywhere, and without
hesitation, never failing to drive it back
when they came in direct contact with
it, no matter how great the Odds
Marines from the Government ships
that happened to be in the harbor, and
q few regulars from the forts, came
over and rendered veteran service
The employees of great establish
ments, public and private, including
the large newspaper offices and the
6ub-Treasury building in Wall street,
were armed and held in readiness, day
and night, to repel attacks. Many Of
these had boiling water constantly
ready, and hose with which to throw it
on the mob.
It was about the 18th of July that I
my brigade west of the Mis-
sissippi. Accounts Of the riot had al
ready reached New Orleans through
Confederate sources; and the New Or
leans papers published them i'll detail
1 read them in amazement. 1t seemed
next to impossible that the great me-
tropolis which had left only ten days
before so quiet and peaceful, could thus
suddenly have burst forth in riot and
crime. :"
Men have attempted to write histo.
14CS VI UAlOSc oCFcH 1lOIllD1c OdJS LII
New York. The field may be CLEANED,
some approximation to the truth may
be reached, but the whole truth never
can be known. It was saturnala of
horrors, the reign of the worst ele-
ments, lin which the crimes cannot even
be numbered. Many of them were
never known.
Rev. Morgan Dix, in his memoirs of