Speak Out: Last hold out of the Confederacy was Town Line...New York?

Replies (10)

• You are correct BC Stoned! What history books call a "draft riot" in New York City later in the war was actually a battle complete with gunboats shelling parts of the city.

  The movie "Gangs of New York" accurately portrays this. For those who think the war was about equality for African Americans the movie also portrays blacks being murdered by whites during said battle.

  -- Posted by mobushwhacker on Wed, Nov 16, 2011, at 12:07 PM

• Thanks MoBush,

  I had never heard that story before. There is alot of Civil War history in the Northeast that doesn't get much fanfare, such as the Confederate raid on St. Albans, Vermont or the violent protest in New York city over Lincolns decision to go to war.

  -- Posted by Joe Dirte on Wed, Nov 16, 2011, at 12:59 PM

• I watched Gangs of New York a few years ago but never picked up on any of the history other than the social aspects of the rival for local power.

  A quick google and scan of several sites and I find no reference to any cause of the riots other than conscription and that many seen the war resulting in job competition from freed slaves.

  Are there some internet sites to find and read factual history.

  I never heard of it before, but the idea of New York as a free port [I think] would sound logical in that era.

  -- Posted by Old John on Wed, Nov 16, 2011, at 1:29 PM

• Old John,

  I have not studied all the spects of the unrest in New York city during the war, but like you, most reports I read seem to focus on the anger at the consription law approved by Lincoln and the financial impact of the war.

  Many people in New York, rich and poor depended on the ag trade, mainly cotton from the southern states. Union blockades of southern ports crippled the textile and shipping industry in the area. This affected the factory and port owners as well as the employees who worked for them.

  Most of the lower class workers in the city were first generation immigrants who felt newly freed blacks would provide tough competition for the low level jobs they currently held.

  The Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, combined with the conscription act in March 1863, increasing unemployment and Confederate spys working in the city set of the spark for the riots.

  -- Posted by Joe Dirte on Wed, Nov 16, 2011, at 2:40 PM

• My great-great grandfather immigrated from Germany about 1854 and lived in Cincinatti, Ohio for a period of time before settling in southeast Missouri just prior to the Civil War. His brother was killed by bushwhackers during the war.

  While living in Cincinnati, these German immigrants were persecuted by the 'No-Nothing Party', a group which resented immigrants; especially Catholics. This persecution included murders and the burning of churches. The German immigrants competed with native-born Americans, Irish immigrants, and other immigrants for low-paying jobs. Disease was rampant in the cities. Abolitionists encouraged immigrants to move west to the border states in order to swing the votes there.

  I mention these details to demonstrate that there were more issues than just slavery at the time of the Civil War. Times were hard, the country was growing, and many different groups were competing with each other. Although many 'historians' now tell us that the Civil War was simply a disagreement over the morality of slavery, a close study of events reveals that the causes of the war were more complex than we were taught in school. Although the Civil War did settle the issue of slavery in this country, it was only one of the issues which brought the great conflict to a head.

  The Civil War did not end racism or injustice. And the North in many ways was as racist as the South. Freed slaves left the plantations of the South for the 'freedom' of the North. In the northern cities they gathered in slums, took what menial jobs they could, and found that they did not necessarily live a better life than they had lived on the southern plantations. In later years, they found that union workers feared their competition for jobs.

  Under the guise of protecting the rights of local workers on federal projects, the Davis-Bacon Act was later used to protect union workers from the competition of black construction workers who were willing to do the same jobs for less money.

  -- Posted by Robert* on Thu, Nov 17, 2011, at 8:42 PM

• stnmsn8, It was years after I didn't learn any to speak of in school that I discovered history to be intresting and a good tool to understand today's events as well. I learned that economics and politics are interwoven in almost all significant history.

  Prejustice and discrimination, race and religious persecution is almost always rooted in religion or economics/money.

  Union wage and minimum wage is a tool of economic class war. The best way to discriminate against the freed slaves, Irish immagrants, Catholic, immagrants, or any other threat to jobs was to establish a minimum wage via unions. Then when given a choice of paying those of like color and religion the same as those that weren't, there was no financial incentive to set aside the pejustice and bias.

  The wage laws still serve that purpose today.

  My folks originally settled in Pa. Story goes the head of household and wife journeyed back north to pay their taxes and met another more newly imigrated family traveling to claim land a bit further south. Since cold weather still prevailed for a few months to come, the newcomers were invited to find and stay with their family until they could put up a cabin.

  When they returned from paying the taxes [maybe a month later] they found two of their sons engaged to girls of the newly arrived family. Records indicate that the families shared a lot of business interest together and amassed enough wealth to come with Col Bollinger and settle in SEMO.

  -- Posted by Old John on Thu, Nov 17, 2011, at 10:10 PM

• It was during Lincoln's presidency and as a result of the Civil War that the strong federal government took root. Individual and state's rights were trampled upon to 'save the Union'.

  Before the war, a person would state that he was the citizen of a certain state. It was after the war that a person would claim his/her primary allegiance to the United States rather than to the state of his/her residence.

  Before the war, Brother Jonathan was the primary cartoon symbol of the United States. During the war Uncle Sam became the cartoon symbol of the country.

  http://www.sonofthesouth.net/uncle-sam/brother-jonathan.htm

  -- Posted by Robert* on Fri, Nov 18, 2011, at 3:23 PM

• The article points out that united states were treated as a purality of single states before the war and was treated as a singular entity after. The United States are vs The United States is.

  Also Brother as in Johnathan, brothers are more on the same level. Uncle as in Sam indicates an elder, wiser, commanding more respect than a brother.

  I think I once read where the name Sam had to do with the guy that sold rotten pork to the government.

  I still think the leaders of Missouri had no dog in Lincolns fight as they declared neutrality early on. Most in Southeast Missouri were content to be left out of the whole affair and those that decided to join either cause were not thought of as immediate enemies. We know that some close family members took opposite sides early on without malice directed at one another.

  It was when the federal goverment interferred in Missouri's sovereignty by invading St Lous that thinking men became aroused to fight a war in their homelands.

  By then a lot of the choosing which side to fight with depended on which side directly harmed one and his family first.

  -- Posted by Old John on Fri, Nov 18, 2011, at 4:39 PM

• Yesterday I took my out of town guest to the Missouri History Museum to view the Civil War exhibition. The opening displays were all about slavery and the plight of the people involved. No doubt it was an atrocity, but after the brainwashing on the fact that the civil war was about slavery, there was no doubt that I was going to get little out of the rest of it as I was irritated by the attempt to influence my thinking.

  -- Posted by Have_Wheels_Will_Travel on Fri, Nov 18, 2011, at 9:40 PM

• Wheels, I saw that advertised and was tempted to go until I got my orders otherwise. At least the laundry is all caught up. Besides I am in mourning for the sudden death of the prettiest, biggest skunk I ever come close to petting, road kill strikes again! :)

  Family history tells of two brothers that joined opposite sides. When it was all over one relative is recorded as seeking veterans benefits from both sides.

  I met a fellow with the same last name a while back and upon comparing notes we concluded we were decedants of those two brothers. I think we are kinfolk and he claims we are not related. Go figure, old loyalties must run deep.

  -- Posted by Old John on Fri, Nov 18, 2011, at 10:08 PM