The drafting began there on Saturday morning,
July 11. On Monday morning, July 13, the famous riot broke out. It was
an appalling storm of rage on the part of the lower classes; during
three days terror and barbarism controlled the great city, and in its
streets countless bloody and hideous massacres were perpetrated. Negroes
especially were hanged and otherwise slain most cruelly. The governor
was so inefficient that he was charged, of course extravagantly, with
being secretly in league with the ringleaders. A thousand or more lives,
as it was roughly estimated, were lost in this mad and brutal fury,
before order was again restored. The government gave the populace a
short time to cool, and then sent 10,000 troops into the city and
proceeded with the business without further interruption. A smaller
outbreak took place in Boston, but was promptly suppressed. In other
places it was threatened, but did not occur. In spite of all, the
President continued to execute the law. Yet although by this means the
armies might be kept full, the new men were very inferior to those who
had responded voluntarily to the earlier calls. Every knave in the
country adopted the lucrative and tolerably safe occupation of
"bounty-jumping," and every worthless loafer was sent to the front,
whence he escaped at the first opportunity to sell himself anew and to
be counted again. The material of the army suffered great depreciation,
which was only imperfectly offset by the improvement of the military
machine, whereby a more effective discipline, resembling that of
European professionalism, was enforced.
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