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

by Barnet Schecter (Author) "Far more important than all military events, & more disastrous, & still more ominous of evil for the North than would be a signal defeat..." (more)
Key Phrases: Fernando Wood, United States, Horace Greeley (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The 1863 draft riots in New York City, the bloodiest in the nation's history, emerge as a microcosm of the convoluted and contradictory politics of the Civil War era in this absorbing study. Historian Schecter (The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution) pens with a gripping account of the five days of rioting. But he also probes beneath the turmoil to examine the ethnic, religious and class conflicts that made the confrontation so explosive. The rioters, largely working-class Irish Catholics, vented their fury at a draft law that exempted those who could pay $300, at the city's WASP Republican business elite and, inflamed by racist demagoguery, at African-Americans with whom they competed for low-wage jobs and status in America's racial hierarchy.Schecter contends that these dynamics played out nationally in the gradual demise of Reconstruction, thus setting the stage for racial and labor conflict in the century to come. Copiously researched and highlighted with a wealth of period commentary, his lucid narrative colorfully recreates a historical watershed and offers a rich exploration of the Civil War's unfinished business. 40 b&w photos, maps, not seen by PW.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
When fireman Peter Masterson led a mob's attack on a federal draft office, producing the first murders of New York City's 1863 riot, he ignited social tinder that was not exclusive to New York in mid-nineteenth-century America. Historian Schecter backgrounds his thorough account of the tumult with social disorders that frequently occurred elsewhere. To existing social resentments, particularly of Irish immigrants toward economic competition from blacks, the Civil War added its combustibles, for New York was not stoutly Unionist. Peace Democrats dominated its politics; its business class sympathized with the South; and its Copperhead newspapers denounced the war and the draft. These factors affected the course of events that Schecter masterfully narrates. From Masterson's initial incitement to the frenzy's subsidence several days and hundreds of deaths later, the author moves seamlessly between the conflagration on the street and the frantic attempts of authorities to quell the mayhem, and explains the affair's ramifications on the Reconstruction era. An excellent encapsulation of the war's social context in the North. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company (January 9, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802715087
• ISBN-13: 978-0802715081
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #920,672 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sobering, bizarre, and true, December 31, 2005

By	Brian DAmato (Midwest) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America (Hardcover)

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?

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Most Interesting Reading, January 29, 2006

By	Joe Black - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America (Hardcover)

This bit of American history was unknown to me until I read this book. That alone made it worthwhile. Why it remains under-reported is unclear, but anyone who wants to expand their knowledge of the Civil War beyond the Ken Burns basics should grab this book.

Especially interesting were the descriptions of living conditions in New York, the rabble-rousing, solicitous nature of democratic politicians and the history of urban violence. Many will find irony in the fact that at that time, the Republican party was considered socially liberal and had the support on New York's newspapers.

The only fault I can find with this book is its sometime tedious treatment of minor events and details of the week-long riot. The reader can easily fix that by skipping pages and quickly get caught up in the flow of events. The immensity of detail makes that easy.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well Written and Highly Informative, February 18, 2006

By	David Montgomery (Beaufort, North Carolina) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America (Hardcover)

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 to say, rioting took on its large scale form in the middle of July (ironically at the same time Lee had been defeated at Gettysburg and in the West, Vicksburg had fallen into Union hands). For several days, large scale property destruction, beatings and murders of blacks who happened to venture out alone on the streets, conflicts between the police and state troops and rioters (with more damage done to the rioters), all gave New York the appearance of a city bordering on complete anarchy. To be clear, there were leaders who behaved bravely and nobly while others acted with very little concern or acted to slowly. Some Copperheads and Southerners like Edmund Ruffin saw this as an opportunity to turn the war to the South's advantage by dividing the North and instigating more riots, thus prompting its population to call for peace and recognition of the Southern government. Schecter is very good in describing the rioting from one day to the next and how they moved about. We also get to see it very clearly through the eyes of the witnesses who were active in one way or the other or watched as spectators. Order was restored with the help of military regiments who marched back to the city after the battle of Gettysburg. Throughout the course of the remainder of the war, there would be no further massive rioting as New York had seen, though there would be other racial conflicts in other areas in years to come.

The author ably shows us who some of the major players were in these events both in New York during the riots and those who would become influential in the years following these events. Horace Greeley, Manton Marble, various city, state and military officials, politicians who would rise and fall, locals and ordinary folks who were affected by the riots, influential religious leaders in the Catholic and black congregations and so many others. The years following the end of the War and the Reconstruction efforts in the South to help educate and enfranchise blacks and the failures that resulted, the efforts or lack of from Presidents, Congress, and state officials to secure basic equality for all our citizens, and the growing class gap most evidenced in the Gilded Age are at least partly touched on to give us a glimpse of how the racial and class conflicts most discussed by the author in the New York draft riots would continue to haunt Americans for some time to come.

This is an absorbing narrative that is very effective in putting these riots in a national context. The descriptions of the events surrounding the riots are also well written. This is the only book solely on the riots that I've read so I can't offer a good comparative analysis, but this is a valuable book on the subject.