The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War

by Iver Bernstein

Book Overview

For five days in July 1863, at the height of the Civil War, New York City was under siege. Angry rioters burned draft offices, closed factories, destroyed railroad tracks and telegraph lines, and hunted policemen and soldiers. Before long, the rioters turned their murderous wrath against the black community. In the end, at least 105 people were killed, making the draft riots the most violent insurrection in American history.

In this vividly...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195071301
• ISBN13: 9780195071306
• Release Date: October 1991
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Race & Class In Civil War America

This is a fine, insightful study of the New York "Draft" Riots, which were about far more than military conscription. It does have some problems of organization and repetition, as others note. Overly harsh critics probably assume that this is a conventional, event-oriented tale of the riots themselves, but Bernstein's forte is analysis rather than narrative. He explains their context, causes and importance for understanding urban tensions in an era of intense stuggles over freedom, industrialization, work, wages, immigration, assimilation and exclusion. He tells the story well enough (though a coherent chronology is hard to locate), focusing on what it reveals about a period of fundamental change in US history. See also T. Anbinder, "Five Points;" N. Ignatiev, "How the Irish Became White;" and the hoary tome by H. Asbury, "Gangs of New York."