The New York City draft riots (July 13â16, 1863), (1,000 die) sometimes referred to as the Manhattan draft riots and known at the time as Draft Week, were violent disturbances in Lower Manhattan, widely regarded as the culmination of working-class discontent with new laws passed by Congress that year to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots remain the largest civil and most racially charged urban disturbance in American history. 50,000 people attack New York City’s draft office. Antiabolitionist Irish longshoremen rampaged against blacks in response to Pres. Lincolnâs announcement of military conscription. Mobs lynched a black man and torched the Colored Orphan Asylum.
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