Letter from Assistant Adjutant-General H.C. Rodgers to Brigadier General Thomas Howard Ruger (1833–1907)

On July 13th, 1863, the largest racially charged riots in the history of the United States occurred in New York City. In March of that year Congress passed the Enrollment Act, the first national draft in U.S. history. Since Black men were ineligible for conscription—they were not considered citizens—and wealthy white men could hire a substitute, the men of the working classes saw that the war’s future depended on them. Then and now, the riots are frequently attributed to Irish immigrants’ outrage at the draft. But the larger context includes racialized fear stoked by the political organization Tammany Hall and leading and local newspapers, as well as New York City’s economic connections to the Confederacy. This was primarily through trade in cotton, which employed a large proportion of the lower-class Irish immigrant population.

From July 13th, the second day of the draft, through the 16th, white mobs ransacked, damaged, or burned the homes of Blacks and abolitionists, Protestant churches that provided services to Blacks, and the Colored Orphan Asylum at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue. Black people were systematically attacked, with some dragged from their homes, beaten or murdered on the streets, hanged in public, or forced into the rivers to drown. While there is no official death toll, the numbers range from hundreds to more than 2,000.

The riots were eventually quelled by the arrival of the New York State Militia and Federal troops from Gettysburg. This letter relates to the movement of troops out of New York City to Alexandria, Virginia, one month after the riots.