The Draft Riots May Have Cost Hundreds of Lives
The exact cost in human lives of the 1863 Draft Riots has never been accurately determined, but it may have been in the hundreds.
The rioting finally came to an end, and it was estimated that hundreds of people had been killed or wounded. On July 17 the New York Times published a list of police casualties, and also published a separate list of dozens of rioters who had been killed and whose bodies were in the hands of coroners.
This magazine illustration depicts the scene outside a morgue, as relatives came to identify bodies of those killed in the week of rioting.
The precise number of casualties has always been debated, with the suspicion being that some dead rioters were quickly buried and never accounted for in official tallies. But the most reasonable estimate is that less than 200 civilians had been killed and perhaps 1,000 wounded.
In the weeks following the riots, New Yorkers debated the underlying causes, and the New York Times on July 24, 1863, reported, "The public mind is fast settling down into a conviction that the late outbreak was the result of a deliberate plot, devised and managed by men of talent, who did not at all appear on the scene."
The article noted that the city had been quite peaceful up until the first sudden outbreak on violence on Monday morning, July 13, and therefore the initial attacks may not have been spontaneous. The article also noted that rioters cut the telegraph wires by which various police precincts communicated, making the response to rioting much more difficult.
The rioting finally came to an end, and it was estimated that hundreds of people had been killed or wounded. On July 17 the New York Times published a list of police casualties, and also published a separate list of dozens of rioters who had been killed and whose bodies were in the hands of coroners.
This magazine illustration depicts the scene outside a morgue, as relatives came to identify bodies of those killed in the week of rioting.
The precise number of casualties has always been debated, with the suspicion being that some dead rioters were quickly buried and never accounted for in official tallies. But the most reasonable estimate is that less than 200 civilians had been killed and perhaps 1,000 wounded.
In the weeks following the riots, New Yorkers debated the underlying causes, and the New York Times on July 24, 1863, reported, "The public mind is fast settling down into a conviction that the late outbreak was the result of a deliberate plot, devised and managed by men of talent, who did not at all appear on the scene."
The article noted that the city had been quite peaceful up until the first sudden outbreak on violence on Monday morning, July 13, and therefore the initial attacks may not have been spontaneous. The article also noted that rioters cut the telegraph wires by which various police precincts communicated, making the response to rioting much more difficult.
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