Gangs of New York: Question

[damonrpayne]

Saw this on cable last night. Not a bad movie. Does anyone know if the events going on in the background are historically accurate? For example, Irish coming off the boats and being told "Here is your certificate of citizenship, and here is your document making you a member of the union army" etc.

[Amy]

Hey Damon!

I enjoyed this movie too, although it's been a while since I've seen it.

From what I understand, a lot of the movie is based on fact (as far as the actual gangs, condition of Five Points and historical references), as well as the huge influx of Irish Immigrants at the time (potato famine).

As with all movies, I'm quite certain many aspects are exaggerated for dramatic effect, specifically the over-done violence, crime, and poverty, which was absolutely present, but probably not as dramatic.

[damonrpayne]

I'm sure the conditions were accurate, I was mostly wondering about the conscription of immigrants "Welcome to the country, here's your gun you're going to fight"

[thebes]

Not sure if they got them off the boat like that but the rich could buy their way out or simply pay someone to take their place. A lot of Irish showed up destitute and were offerd a few bucks to enlist by these same folks.

Here's a very simple history of what went on in New York at that time:

A City Divided: New York and the Civil War

This 850 word essay describes New York during the Civil War, a city where antiwar sentiment mixed with entrenched class and racial tensions. In the summer of 1863, the Union military draft sparked four days of rioting unprecedented in American history.

While the Civil War pitted North against South, some locations confounded that stark regional split. New York was one of those places, a city of divided loyalties and complex class, racial, and economic interests. While most New Yorkers supported the war at its outset, significant forces urged conciliation with the Confederacy. From Wall Street financiers, to commercial shippers, to merchants selling manufactured goods to a South that produced little of its own, the New York City economy depended heavily on southern cotton. In response to the divisive Compromise of 1850, a group of merchants formed the Union Safety Committee, which pledged to resist every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest. During the war years, Mayor Fernando Wood, a Peace Democrat, led opposition to the war in the city, which grew as the wartime economy floundered and casualties mounted.

By 1860, one of every four of New York Citys 800,000 residents was an Irish-born immigrant. While many labored in several of the citys skilled trades, the vast majority of Irish immigrants worked as unskilled laborers on the docks, as ditch diggers and street pavers, and as cartmen and coal heavers. In several of these occupations they competed directly with African-American workers. African Americans had lived and worked in New York City--some as slaves, some as free people--since well before the Revolutionary War, and had established churches, newspapers, literary societies, and free schools. Black workers lived in close proximity to white workers in racially mixed communities that dotted the lower half of Manhattan.

When the Civil War began in 1861, large numbers of New York Citys white workers did not embrace the fight to preserve the Union. Many resented the war effort, which brought economic hardship and increasing unemployment to working-class neighborhoods. Competition for jobs between Irish and black workers, already intense before the war, increased dramatically, and racial tensions mounted in work places and in working-class neighborhoods throughout the city. Among New Yorkers, African Americans and middle-class and wealthy Republicans tended to support abolition; most of the white working-class did not, fearing competition for jobs from thousands of newly emancipated slaves.

On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in the rebellious Confederate states. The proclamation transformed the Norths reason for fighting the Civil War. By summer 1863, the Union army, which had been entirely white when the war started, began recruiting African-American soldiers, who would soon be fighting and dying to defend the Union and to destroy the institution of slavery.

But the Norths sagging military fortunes did not immediately change with these developments. In late spring 1863, Confederate forces, led by General Robert E. Lee, invaded the North through Virginias Shenandoah Valley. Thousands of Union troops, many volunteers from New York City, rushed to Pennsylvania to defend the Union. Fear swept New York City; if the Confederate army prevailed at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, southern troops could potentially invade the defenseless city within a matter of days.

Though Union forces ultimately prevailed at Gettysburg and drove the Confederate army back into the South, tensions remained high in New York City, largely as a result of the imminent enforcement of the National Conscription Act. Passed by Congress in March 1863, the act made all single men aged twenty to forty-five and married men up to thirty-five subject to a draft lottery. In addition, the act allowed drafted men to avoid conscription entirely by supplying someone to take their place or to pay the government a three hundred-dollar exemption fee. Not surprisingly, only the wealthy could afford to buy their way out of the draft.

The National Conscription Act exacerbated long-simmering class tensions and the deprivations brought on by wartime inflation; it was especially unpopular among the citys immigrant white working class. When it was enacted on July 11, 1863, it touched off the worst rioting Americans had ever seen. People and buildings representing Protestant missionaries, Republican draft officials, war production, wealthy businessmen, and African Americans suffered the worst of the crowds wrath, and after four days more than 119 New Yorkers were dead. Soon after the riots were quelled by federal troops, the northern war effort finally started to bear fruit and the citys economy rebounded (aided by the re-legalization of the cotton trade with the rebel states).

But wartime anxiety was not quite finished for New Yorkers. In October 1864, local Copperheads (northern Confederate sympathizers) met with Confederate secret agents to plan uprisings in several northern cities on the upcoming election day. That plan was quashed by federal troops, and the Copperheads, sensing that the Confederates were destined to lose the war, withdrew from the scheme. But Confederate agents proceeded with their plan, and on the night of November 25th, the conspirators set fires in ten downtown hotels and in the American Museum, Niblos Theater, and the Winter Garden. In each case the fires were quickly extinguished, and the culprits escaped to Canada. Only one of the conspirators, Robert Cobb Kennedy, was subsequently captured after re-entering the United States; he was later tried and executed.

[Amy]

Yes, the immigrants were drafted en masse during the Civil War (not sure about stepping off the boats either, though). The fact that wealthy people could get out of the draft for about 300 bucks didn't help morale either, which led to the draft riots in NY during the war. I'll have to look up that stepping off the boat idea. I know immigrants were recruited heavily by people in country to use their vote to further their political agendas. I'm sure they were approached immediately for this purpose. "Hurry up, become a citizen, so you can vote for me!!"

[dragonfyr]

Dramatic license aside, the historical context of the film is extremely accurate! And realizing the extreme complexity that extended far beyond the demographic that Scorsese focused upon, an admirable achievement and introduction to a much larger part of history and the dynamics of what was to become the modern city.

The <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Tweed organization and the draft/conscription issue was very real, as well the unscrupulous activities of recruiters (pursuant to the National Conscription Act of March 1863) who would resort to almost anything to earn their commissions! And this was before the Conscription Act allowed the wholesale arrest of the draftees!

The movie depicts a large portion of the social dynamic, but does not really address many of the various details of the larger issues resulting in the Draft Riots - especially illustrated as the movie's combatants that were focused upon were caught almost totally by surprise by the larger events (the draft riot).

Regarding the Draft aspect, the Union Congress passed the National Conscription Act partly in response to the Confederacy implementing a draft in April, 1862, whereby the President was allowed to recruit an army through a draft of all able-bodied male citizens between the ages of twenty and forty-five years. And while the draft was a technically a lottery system, any draftee could exempt himself from military service by paying a $300.00 fee. But the provisions of the law also enabled the summary arrest of any 'draft evader' - meaning they met the 'conditions' for enrollment and who had not paid the $300 exemption fee, and MUCH more! This resulted in a fair amount of enforcement abuse, as well as quite a bit of resentment against the rich, and also against the Blacks who were seem by many as the cause of the war.

In order to suppress the riots, Lincoln sent federal troops straight from the Battle of Gettysburg into New York and called for a suspension of the draft. By the time the mobs were dispersed, approximately 1,000 people were dead or severely wounded. However, about a month later, the draft was reestablished and was completed without incident.

But the movie captured (but could not be expected to explain all of the social forces) the flavor of one aspect of the dynamic and (perhaps a bit quickly) integrated them into the larger context of the final scenes regarding the New York draft riots, and they were NOT exaggerated. Too often unknown and not taught in history classes, the New York Draft Riots were indeed a significant event, and the response of the government as depicted was very accurate. And their study exposes the complexity of the various social forces that gave rise to what we know as the modern large city.

And as no movie of ~2.5 hours in length can detail it all, I think the movie is an excellent introduction to some of the dynamics that characterized early New York, and an excellent example of superb period aethetics and superb acting - especially Daniel Day Lewis , who truly surprised me with his over the top portrait of the Butcher. All in all, a superb introduction to a little known and very complex subject as well as an all around good romp! And partly because of the close tie to history, as well as a superb story, its easily one of my favorite Scorsese movies!

But the actual dynamics and their significance are even more dynamic, complex, and fascinating.

For additional information, may I suggest:

The New York City Draft Riots (Subtitled: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War), by Iver Berstein, Oxford Univ. Press, 1990. ISBN 0-19-505006-1

I might suggest checking out Amazon or Barnes and Noble for inexpensive used copies. Amazon has one for about $4.50. This book, the result of an award winning doctoral dissertation, focuses on the social and political aspects and is not a battlefield diary of the violence. The book is quite good, but not as an action adventure novel as many of the readers reviewing it would have liked.

The movie is an excellent portrait of many of the various social forces at work at the time, especially the cultural dynamics! And an excellent portrayal of the Tweed organization. While I have no knowledge of any of a historical foundation for any of the 'regular' individual characters, it is an excellent dramatization of the dynamics involving the more prominent social and political characters.

Book Review:

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. (Note: Overall, more then 1000 people were killed in the general violence.)

In this vividly written book, Iver Bernstein tells the compelling story of the New York City draft riots. He details how what began as a demonstration against the first federal draft soon expanded into a sweeping assault against the local institutions and personnel of Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party as well as a grotesque race riot. Bernstein identifies participants, dynamics, causes and consequences, and demonstrates that the "winners" and "losers" of the July 1863 crisis were anything but clear, even after five regiments rushed north from Gettysburg restored order. In a tour de force of historical detection, Bernstein shows that to evaluate the significance of the riots we must enter the minds and experiences of a cast of characters--Irish and German immigrant workers, Wall Street businessmen who frantically debated whether to declare martial law, nervous politicians in Washington and at City Hall. Along the way, he offers new perspectives on a wide range of topics: Civil War society and politics, patterns of race, ethnic and class relations, the rise of organized labor, styles of leadership, philanthropy and reform, strains of individualism, and the rise of machine politics in Boss Tweed's Tammany regime.

An in-depth study of one of the most troubling and least understood crises in American history, The New York City Draft Riots is the first book to reveal the broader political and historical context--the complex of social, cultural and political relations--that made the bloody events of July 1863 possible.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

[toddvj]

Some real long posts here, and me with a short attention span. You should pick up the DVD and check out the extras. It seems that the movie was very much historically accurate. They even had a Discovery Channel special on the DVD. I don't usually watch the extras on DVDs but this one helped the movie make a lot more sense. The stuff about the firemen was very interesting.