1863 Saratoga Summer Read online

  “Lass, we’ll go to the lobby and wait there for your da. At least then we’ll have some idea of what’s going on,” he murmured, taking her bag from her lap. “Now, Sinead, now,” he added in a tone that would tolerate no further argument.

  ~*~

  By sun-up, disturbing reports of crowds roaming the streets filtered into police headquarters on Mulberry Street. By eight-thirty, an urgent dispatch went out from headquarters—Troubles brewing. Telegraph lines cut. Rush large force.

  People poured out of tenements and boarding houses. They began to barricade specific areas within the city, cutting down telegraph poles that connected local police precincts to the Central office. Rioters pulled down fences surrounding vacant lots to make huge clubs and battering rams.

  Some rushed toward the trains high above ground. They stopped Second and Third Avenue railroad cars. New Haven commuter trains were stoned. Irish women, working together for a change pulled up the tracks of the Fourth Avenue line with crowbars.

  A scowl etched on his face, Bowes swiveled around in his seat, trying to look everywhere at once. He roamed streets and paths he seldom used, trying to get through the rash of people converging on the area.

  “Come up here on the driver’s bench with me, laddie.” He gestured to Egan while dodging irate knots of rioters. “This doesn’t look good to my way of thinking. I believe we’re going to have a sorry ride,” he groused, in a voice shaking with annoyance and dread.

  Egan swung himself up and over the carriage seat, sitting a foot taller, next to Bowes. “Don’t be forgetting, Bowes Brennan. I’m a horseman like yourself. We’ll manage.” His face cracked in a brief smile. “Where are all these folks going, anyway?”

  “To the draft office, I’m thinking. But this crowd ye see, mostly Irish to boot and marching around with little on their minds but creating trouble, are the dregs of the city’s foreign folks. Come from the filthiest cellars and dens of the city, they have, and this morning they’re running about, seeking others just like themselves. They’re going to make a fuss, for sure.”

  “And they’re increasing, everywhere I look. Coming out of every building we pass,” Egan said, craning his neck to see the road behind, which was slowly filling with more and more people.

  Bowes shook his head in bewilderment. Hundreds of workers, many of whom he recognized from driving them to railroads, machine shops, shipyards and iron foundries, began streaming up the West side. The carriage was caught in the middle, pushed along by those following.

  Fear built in him for the troubles he felt were coming far too fast. He tried to keep the carriage on the edge of what was becoming a far-ranging gang of folks, but they hemmed the carriage in with sheer numbers. Along the way, they closed shops, factories and construction sites then, together with building and street laborers working for uptown contractors, moved on to a brief, loud meeting in Central Park.

  No matter which way Bowes turned the horses to get to the hotel, the streets were packed with marauding gangs of angry men and women. At the moment, he dared not cross their lines without incurring a fight. He let them drag the carriage toward Central Park, figuring it would be better if he knew exactly what was going on.

  As if with some preplanned signal, one or two groups of workmen employed on the Central Park Project left their employment and marched back downtown from their workstations. What with people moving uptown and downtown at the same time, the carriage slowed almost to a stop. The horses began to prance in place. Rollie, the gray gelding on the left lifted a front foot from the ground and pawed the air.

  “Dammit, man. Keep those animals under control,” shrieked one man who was being shoved to one side.

  Rondo, the gray on the right, swung his huge head into the crowd. A man screamed, clutched his ear and hopped around on one foot. “Ye damned fool horse. Can’t ye be watching yer parts?” He shook his fist at the horse.

  “Don’t ye be laying a hand on that animal,” Bowes hollered back.

  Egan stood, as if ready to jump out to pummel the man.

  “No, laddie. Sit.” Shaking like a leaf, Bowes took the opportunity of a break in the crowd to shuffle the horses off to one side of two different groups. There, from their high vantage point. Egan and he watched gangs march to places where large bodies of men worked, cajoling, inducing or forcing them to leave and follow the fast-growing mob.

  “Come along,” a red-haired man shouted. “Don’t be letting them take ye away from yer families and friends.”

  “Think of yer bairns,” a rotund man wheedled another, whose arm he linked with his own.

  “Don’t be dictated to,” cried another. “Let’s give them officials hell!”

  The crowd’s numbers increased to thousands and pushed the carriage along with them.

  “Och laddie,” Bowes yelled to Egan. “I’ve never been so fearful in all me born days. I’m moving these horses. I hope we can get out of here with all our pieces.” He clutched the reins with a tight fist, instead of the easy hands he ordinarily used, and noticed Egan hanging onto the sides of the carriage with white-knuckled hands. Bowes had to hand it to the lad. He didn’t cry out in terror, not even once.

  By nine o’clock in the morning, the unruly, disorganized mob had grown to five thousand. By the time they reached the draft office at 677 Third Avenue, it had swelled to fifteen thousand. At ten-thirty, with a huge crowd in attendance and guarded by sixty hurriedly gathered policemen, the draft lottery selection process started up.

  A group of Irishmen chanted, “We’ll not fight yer rotten war. We’ll not fight yer bluidy war!” They pushed to the doors of the draft office. Not even the contingent of police could contain them.

  A tall, thin man, who stood on a large rock nearby, bellowed above the crowd. “We’ve already lost too many of our fellows fightin’ fer this country.” He raised a fist in the air, “Got get ‘em, ladies!” he cried and charged through the front door of the building.

  “This country vomits on us,” a stout female with a barking voice shrieked, followed quickly by the clashing clang of pots being clapped together by several of the women staggering behind her.

  A chorus of “ayes” reverberated from the people, who picked up another chant. “No draft…No draft…No draft…” They hooted and called. People stamped their feet.

  The noise was deafening. Egan couldn’t believe his eyes or his ear. Not even during the famine had folks acted with such abandon. In the distance, the light of several torches flashed.

  Bowes wriggled his nose. The smell of fire made him want to sneeze. The violence Bowes knew was coming began in earnest.

  Enraged people beat through the scanty police guard and smashed the doors of the office building. They pushed and shoved each other to get inside. The men carrying the torches ran from the back of the crowd into the building and set fire to the draft office.

  Flames streaked out the window, and smoke rose to fan the sky. The Black Joke Fire Engine Company, Number thirty-three, arrived in full regalia, ostensibly to fight the fire.

  Bowes identified several, having shared many a pint with them at Clancy’s Saloon. He pointed them out to Egan. “See, that fireman over there?” He pointed to a particularly tall man with an enormous engorged belly covered by a red shirt. “‘Tis me friend McCarthy. Have a pint and a hand of cards with him every now and again.”

  He glanced at Egan. The boy’s stare was fixed on the fire truck and his mouth hung open. “Old McCarthy told me the men of the thirty-three were in a good old fury at having lost their exemption from the war. They’ll not be taking this kindly, today, I’m afraid.”

  The firemen formed a line. They wound a long hose from their fire wagon, tied it off to a tree and held off the police who were trying to stop the gangs. When other firemen came to quench the flames coming from the building, they forced them back until they couldn’t get close enough to splay out their hoses.

  Egan gasped in almost a howl, “My God, Bowes. What are they doing?” He screeched
the question over the sound of the crowd cheering.

  It was obvious to Bowes what they were doing. The firemen of the Black Joke must have decided over the weekend to halt the draft proceedings and to destroy any evidence fellows in their unit had been drafted. “Och, Jaysus,” he screamed with an inward breath. “Och, they’re going to be doing things would shame their mothers from this earth.”

  The two men watched with fear and horror, as the firemen stoned the building and drove off the police reinforcements who rushed to the scene. Bowes and Egan watched the men from the Black Joke smash the draft wheel. With great glee, they poured turpentine everywhere, fired the structure even further and drove away every fire company, which came to assist in putting out the fire.

  The smell of smoke inundated the area and hung over the crowd. People screamed in both delight and terror as the flames seemed to touch the sky. Bowes horses reared in their traces. The heat, coupled with the humidity of the already hot day, took the energy out of everyone. The crowd slowly grew silent. Muffled conversations surfaced with each puff of smoke. The people stood and watched.

  With a chest feeling like it would break apart, Bowes knew it was time to flee before the mob turned even more violent. “Egan, hang on, laddie. We have to be getting out of here. Our lives will be worth nothing with this group of lunatics.” He tried to turn the horses around but folks were standing in his way. Inch by inch, the animals were able to sidle over a bit.

  Breath short, Bowes dropped a rein when the mob’s fury fell on a detachment of thirty-two militiamen who were racing into the fray. His hand flew up to his mouth in horror.

  Burly men beat and kicked one soldier to death before turning on another, whom they grabbed. They tossed him back and forth over the top of the crowd. The soldier shrieked and cried. He kicked out at those who held him, trying to get loose.

  A gang of strong men finally got their hands on him. Holding the poor soldier above them, tossing and turning him in the air, they took him to the top of rocks near the office. Urine stained the soldier’s pants. Onlookers were caught up in the actions, their eyes glowing, faces flushed with maniacal ecstasy.

  Men stripped the uniform off him, pointed to his private parts and hollered. After beating the mortified man almost to jelly, they threw him over a precipice some twenty feet high, onto hard rocks beneath. His blood spattered over the crowd. Women in the mob, holding the hands of small children screeched their approval, laughing and cheering. He died without much of a struggle.

  His body shaking in disbelief and tears rolling from his eyes, Egan grabbed for the one rein Bowes let hang loosely from his grip. He pulled it taut, grabbed the other and shoved Bowes with his hip. “Move over man. I’ll get the animals turned around if it kills me.”

  He leaped over Bowes to switch seats and reached for the whip. He cracked it over the horses’ heads.

  The animals screamed their protest. Feet high in the air, they swerved into the crowd of people, who shoved each other aside to make way for the great beasts. In a mad frenzy, People struck out at the horses, trying to beat them to a standstill. Many swore and threw whatever object they clutched in their hands.

  A squad of men sent by the police to form a line across Third Avenue marched north toward the burning draft office. They were met by the mob throwing paving stones. The squad broke and ran.

  The incident gave Egan a chance to get the horses further out onto the edges of the crowd where he found more room to maneuver. The devastating action of the people brought more tears to his eyes. Not even in the worst of the famine years had he seen such atrocities done by one group of people to another.

  “Tell me which way to go, Bowes. We’ve got to get out of here the best way we can. We have got to get to that hotel.”

  It was already eleven-thirty in the morning. Rumor raced through the crowd that the federal draft was officially suspended in all of New York. Members of the mob cheered then moved on to other areas.

  A man on the fringe of the crowds shouted. “There are skirmishes spreading throughout the city.

  Someone screamed with laughter. Another bellowed. “Detachments of police are being sent into other areas instead of this one. I guess we’re all over the city.”

  “A bunch of Irishers stomped them and smashed their faces,” a German immigrant squealed with glee.” They stripped their bodies.”

  Three men scrabbled onto a tall rock. One reached the top and raised his arms high above his head and brayed, “A gang just came from other parts. They told me, anyone even suspected of giving refuge to the police are being burned. Finally, the Metropolitan Police are getting theirs.”

  With those words ringing in their ears and the smoke sitting on their shoulders, Egan and Bowes fled across town to the Fifth Avenue Hotel. No matter what street they traveled on, they saw the resentment of the city’s immigrant poor. Their rage exploded at every street corner with act after act of destruction and all either Bowes or Egan could do is flee.

  Chapter Eleven

  Egan watched the crowds of rampaging men and women, causing havoc wherever they went. They marauded up and down the avenues. It shocked and frightened Egan that people could act in such base, uncivilized ways. The scenes on Third Avenue, the appalling destruction he saw, made him want to gag. The ever-present nausea he felt while at sea came back tenfold.

  Screams resounded to the side of him and Egan turned slightly. His gaze rested upon huge columns of smoke rising from burning buildings. He drew in a deep breath, laid a restive hand around the reins of the now-skittish horses and spurred them forward. He instinctively knew he could not allow them to be stopped for any reason.

  With a strong pull on one rein, he brought the carriage out to the fringes of the crowd. By following Bowes’ directions, they made a roundabout cut to the far side of Third Avenue and went west. They traveled over side streets, journeyed into strange alleyways and narrow paths before backtracking over lesser-known thoroughfares to get to the hotel.

  ~*~

  It was well after one o’clock. The day grew hotter and more humid. Heavy clouds of smoke cast dark shadows over the city. Although the density of smoke obscured the hot July sun, it cut off all circulation of air. The streets fumed with the usual rotting debris and excrement, the smell worsened by the stifling heat and humidity.

  The lobby of the hotel grew warmer and warmer, tenser as hours of waiting for news laid its burden upon the folks trapped within the confines of the hotel. Tempers flared amongst the guests and staff who carried the news inside. The manager and his clerks tried to stave off verbal battles between certain members of the staff and those registered as paying guests.

  To Connor and Sinead standing impatiently inside the Fifth Avenue Hotel, looking for Bowes’ carriage, time seemed to drag on minute by minute. Sinead’s main objective was to get home to her son. After overhearing several of the stories filtering in from the outside, she needed to make sure nothing terrible happened to him.

  Although she knew he would come for her, sooner or later, she worried about her da. The fact he was so late frightened her. Connor paced up and down near the outside doors. She tried to keep up with him but his steps were too long.

  “Connor,” she called after him. “Wait. Please…”

  Connor’s steps took him from the door to check on further rumors and back across the lobby to report what he’d heard.

  Constant rumors navigated into the lobby from the street, brought by strangers, who ducked into the hotel for a brief respite from the agonies outside. Connor bent an ear to listen.

  Sinead refused to believe their stories, especially when they made horrific comments against the Irish. “You can’t be believing all people say.”

  “Well, I can smell the smoke, now, can’t I?” was his retort. “So some of it must be true.”

  Sinead temple creased with worry. Would her da be able to get to them if the rumors of the riots and fires were true? An aching desperation to reach Robbie rippled through her. “Robb
ie…”

  “See the man over there?” Connor asked, pointing to an older man in a top hat. “He told me a huge mob gathered at the draft offices, on Third Avenue, just when they were ready to start the lottery. Dissenters burned it to the ground.”

  Connor pointed to another man sitting on a chair near the door, his face blackened with soot. Blotches of blood dampened the front of his shirt and sleeve. “With the help of some of the city’s firemen, I think the man said.”

  “Why, such a thing sounds crazy. Why would people do it?” Sinead’s heart rumbled in her chest. Something terrible was going on outside, and she was stuck in this hotel, unable to do anything about it and or to find the ones she loved.

  “There’s worse.” Connor put a hand on her shoulder. He looked down into her eyes. “I don’t know if you want to hear more, lass?”

  Her body trembled under his hand. He reached over and grabbed a chair, setting it right side up. He took Sinead’s elbow and led her to a chair. “Sit, lass. You won’t be liking what you hear.”

  She sighed. “Aye, but ‘tis best you tell me. I’m fit to burst with worrying over what I don’t know.”

  “I can feel it in you, but bursting will do no good until we find the truth of the matter. We can’t be leaving here until your da and Egan come.”

  “I know. Then tell me what you’ve heard.” Sinead stared up into his saddened dark eyes and wondered about the confidence she felt when she was near him. It was almost as if they known each other before.

  Connor knelt on one foot in front of her, loomed over her and studied her for a moment. “Sinead, lass, the mob. They’re trying to take over the city, burn it to the ground, through riot and mayhem. They’ve done some killing and maiming, they have. And other things too horrible to mention to a lady.”

  She stood and nearly knocked Connor to his feet. “Don’t be saying such things.” She turned to face him. “Don’t be saying such things…” Tears rolled from the corner of her eyes and cascaded down her cheeks.