At 10:30, the draft lottery got underway with the large crowd of protestors assembled outside. No one seemed to know what to do next until a fire engine company, Engine Company Number 33, arrived. The firemen set the provost marshal’s office on fire, and the riot was ignited.

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One way to understand the impact of the violence is to examine firsthand accounts of the events, like those of Martha Derby Perry. She left a detailed record of her experiences in letters to her family in Boston, which she later published in her husband’s 1906 book, Letters From a Surgeon.

John Perry was a student at Harvard Medical School when the Civil War broke out. He joined the Union Army before completing his studies and was assigned as assistant surgeon with the 20th Massachusetts Volunteers. In the spring of 1863, Perry suffered a severe leg fracture in a horseback-riding accident and was transported to New York City, where he could recuperate with his wife and her family. Unfortunately, Perry could not locate a surgeon to set his broken leg. As he wrote, ‘At last, in sheer desperation, I asked my wife’s brother to find splints, plaster and bandages and we, together, set my leg with good and permanent results.’

The chapter in Dr. Perry’s book concerning the Draft Riots was written by Martha Perry while her husband was recovering, ‘waiting with keen impatience for the time when he could return to his regiment.’ The noise below caught her attention that Mon-day: ‘On the first day of the riot, in the early morning, I heard loud and continued cheers at the head of the street, and supposed it must be news of some great victory. In considerable excitement I hurried downstairs to hear particulars, but soon found that the shouts came from the rioters who were on their way to work. About noon that same day we became aware of a confused roar; as it increased, I flew to my window, and saw rushing up Lexington Avenue, within a few paces of our house, a great mob of men, women and children…’

Even though many of the men were armed and ‘fairly fiendish,’ Martha ‘drew the cot upon which John was lying, his injured leg in a plaster cast, up to the window, and threw his military coat over his shoulders, utterly unconscious of the fact that if the shoulder straps had been noticed by the rioters they would have shot him, so blind was their fury against the army. The mass of humanity soon passed, setting fire to several houses quite near us, for no other reason, we heard afterward, than that a policeman, whom they suddenly saw and chased, ran inside one of the gates, hoping to find refuge. The poor man was almost beaten to death, and the house, with those adjoining, burned.

‘At all points fires burst forth, and that night the city was illuminated by them. I counted from the roof of our house five fires just about us.’

The next day, Mrs. Perry remembered, ‘was a fearful one. Men, both colored and white, were murdered within two blocks of us, some being hung to the nearest lamppost, and others shot. An army officer was walking in the street near our house, when a rioter was seen to kneel on the sidewalk, take aim, fire and kill him, then coolly start on his way unmolested. I saw the Third Avenue street car rails torn up by the mob. Throughout the day there were frequent conflicts between the military and the rioters, in which the latter were often victorious, being partially organized, and well armed with various weapons taken from the stores they had plundered.

‘I passed the hours of that dreadful night listening to the bedlam about us; to the drunken yells and coarse laughter of the rioters wandering aimlessly through the streets, and to the shouts of a mob plundering houses a block away.’

On the third day of the riots, Mrs. Perry heard that the rioters were murdering black citizens. ‘Hurrying to the kitchen,’ she recalled, ‘I found our colored servants ghastly with terror, and cautioned them to keep closely within doors. One of them told me that she had ventured out early that morning to clean the front door, and that the passing Irish, both men and women, had sworn at her so violently, saying that she and her like had caused all the trouble, that she finally rushed into the house for shelter.

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