The Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America

Thank heavens for independent scholars! Barnet Schecter is rapidly becoming one of the best chroniclers of New York's history. His previous book, "The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution", was an eye-opening revelation at how this city was the true "heart" of our separation from England, and how we (and Boston, as well) were that country's main target for conquest in 1776. Utilizing the same narrative style of writing, Barnet Schecter tackles the week-long convulsion in New York City four score and seven years later. "The Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America" fills a void in most histories of the Civil War: the fighting that took place OFF the battlefields of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, etc. These were the wars that were waged in newspapers, city halls, and, ultimately, the streets of major cities across America. Mr. Schecter is careful to explain that the New York City draft riots were not the only anti-war, anti-emancipation riots during the Civil War. But it was the largest. It was the worst. (While most New York historians claim that around 100 people were killed during the riots, Mr. Schecter rightfully, I believe, puts the number at 500, at the very least.) The actual riots occupy only the middle one hundred or so pages of the book. Mr. Schecter devotes an appropriate amount of time to examining the roots of the riots: the racism, the class animosities, the mistrust between Nativists and immigrants, and so on. In the weeks and months immediately before the cataclysm, we see battle lines being drawn: Greeley vs. Marble, Democrats vs. Republicans, poor whites vs. poor blacks; in fact, it seems like it was almost everyone vs. the beseiged African-American population. When the five days of rioting are discussed, the sense of prevailing confusion and chaos--the near anarchy--are as expertly conveyed as the awful scenes of violence. The final third of the book is, in many ways, more tragic than the uprising. It is here where Mr. Schecter discusses the aftermath of the riots over the next two decades. Basically, the reconstruction of America fails. The North and the South do not fully unify. The working class does not get the respect it deserves. (Instead, it is treated with more brutality and unfairness.) Worst of all, African-Americans are not truly emancipated. The enmity and violence visited upon them, because they are never addressed, just worsens. And why were they never addressed? Mr. Barnet just comes out and says it: because most people never really wanted to. Therefore, it would takes decades before America would heal or truly reconstruct. "The Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America" is a sobering book, true, but it holds our fascination. The details about the quirky politicians, newspapermen, observers and participants breathe life into people who have been dead for almost 150 years. The maps and generous sp

Barnet Schecter's magisterial study of the five day insurrection that erupted in New York City, "The Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America", is one of those historical accounts that illuminate more than just the times the work is set in. By providing a multilayered analysis to the issues that marked this breakdown of social order, and through a deft, perfect-pitch, use of basic sources, Mr. Schecter lets the contemporary voices of those living through these events and, at times, driving them, speak for themselves. The result is a tableau of compelling immediacy that is rarely seen in a historical study. Some of the expected characters are here: Lincoln, Seward and Lee, etc. but it is the less well-known characters of that era that permit the real force of the book to be felt. By knitting together and contrasting the recorded dialogue of the restive ferment of the slums of New York and Boston with the tense interchanges originating in the mahoganied board-rooms of these same cities Mr. Schecter recreates the social tensions of these turbulent times. With what seems to be an unerring sense of how the character of a subject will define for him the peculiar social reality that he may act in, we meet figures who by virtue of the author's skill and sympathy are never rendered as simple, one-dimensional heroes or villains. Landmark works in any field of study require that a sense of scope, sensitivity and balance be observed throughout the effort. But such traits alone cannot mark it as memorable. For this the electricity of personal exchanges in statehouses, boardrooms and back alleys must be captured in their raw force and then be woven in into a narrative that flows with seeming effortlessness, from it its own momentum. This is what Mr. Schecter has accomplished.

The Devil's Own Work by Barnet Schecter is a highly informative book on the New York City Draft Riots of July 1863. In addition, he focuses on the events leading up to and resulted after the riots, who some of the participants were, and what legacy this period of American history has left. The subtitle also points out that the Reconstruction period is the other main focus of his book, which he believes began with the Emancipation Proclamation. The first part of the book seems a bit disjointed at times as he tries to discuss so many events occurring around the same time frame of the New York riots, as well as previous events that led up to the Civil War and the growing racial and class tensions that would most notably erupt in New York City. Schecter properly gives us this context to view the events leading up to the riots as well as events playing out in the national crisis. We get a brief discussion of the military campaigns between the Union armies and Lee's forces, a history of events that led up to the Civil War and the growing class differences that were emerging in many urban settings like New York. Some of these periods and events he includes are Andrew Jackson's attack on the bank and the rise of capitalism, the wave of immigrants coming into New York, the birth of the Republican party and the growing divisions in the Democratic party, and so forth. Schecter is effective in showing us the divisions between the politics playing out in the North during the war. We learn of the Lincoln Administration efforts to win the war and its eventual support of Emancipation for blacks, the role of the Radical Republicans, War Democrats and Peace Democrats, and of course those well known Copperheads who often sympathized with the South and were fierce critics of the Lincoln Administration and the effort to liberate blacks. But in addition to national politics, there is a great focus on the politics of New York City, a bedrock of Democratic strength. Schecter gives us a good summary of the editorial rivalries, the rise of Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed, various mayors and leaders like Fernando Wood, Gov. Seymour, and so many others, and the role blacks, Irish Americans, and others played in the city's politics and how growing conflict was mounting. That aspect of the Conscription Act that Schecter states had a huge impact on the emerging conflict in New York(the $300 that could be paid to be exempted from serving) was ably exploited by agitators including some of the Copperheads to issue a call of resistance saying this was against the poor workers (especially the Irish) who were already suffering heavy casualties in the war and was unfair to the city in terms of meeting a quota for troops. The issue of black emancipation and black competition for Northern jobs was also exploited by some of the more racist agitators. Many city and state leaders were slow in trying to stop the potential eruption that would occur once the draft call began. Needless

Well, I'm only on page 110, but I couldn't resist being the first reader reviewer (disclosure: Barnet and I went to school together). This is a highly engaging and detailed account of the urban paroxysm of 1863, but it's more than that. Having chronicled the siege of New York during the Revolutionary War in his first book, Schecter has turned to the second of the city's three major conflagrations (the third being of course 9/11, with the nearly bloodless English victory over the Dutch in 1664 not really counting) and has produced an essential addition to any self-respecting shelf on the world's greatest city. Many people these days may have formed their main impressions of the riots from the last scenes of Martin Scorsese's film "Gangs of New York." The reality given here is quite different but even more shocking. And although "The Devil's Own Work" is similarly peopled by colorful and often grotesque characters, its mood is if anything more like Luc Sante's books, or like the original "Gangs" by Herbert Asbury. More importantly, Schecter's book is incisive and very readable military history. One of the book's most thoughtful features is a "walking tour" appendix which points out almost all the key locations in the text, some of which are still enough like their 1864 selves to give you a touch of the time-traveler's shiver -- or is it more of a prescient apprehension that events very much like these could easily happen here again?