City of Sedition: The History of New York City during the Civil War

by John Strausbaugh

Overview

In a single definitive narrative, City of Sedition tells the spellbinding story of the huge-and hugely conflicted-role New York City played in the Civil War.

No city was more of a help to Abraham Lincoln and the Union war effort, or more of a hindrance. No city raised more men, money, and materiel for the war, and no city raised more hell against it. It was a city of patriots, war heroes, and abolitionists, but simultaneously a city of antiwar protest, draft resistance, and sedition.

Without his New York supporters, it's highly unlikely Lincoln would have made it to the White House. Yet, because of the city's vital and intimate business ties to the Cotton South, the majority of New Yorkers never voted for him and were openly hostile to him and his politics. Throughout the war New York City was a nest of antiwar "Copperheads" and a haven for deserters and draft dodgers. New Yorkers would react to Lincoln's wartime policies with the deadliest rioting in American history. The city's political leaders would create a bureaucracy solely devoted to helping New Yorkers evade service in Lincoln's army. Rampant war profiteering would create an entirely new class of New York millionaires, the "shoddy aristocracy." New York newspapers would be among the most vilely racist and vehemently antiwar in the country. Some editors would call on their readers to revolt and commit treason; a few New Yorkers would answer that call. They would assist Confederate terrorists in an attempt to burn their own city down, and collude with Lincoln's assassin.

Here in City of Sedition, a gallery of fascinating New Yorkers comes to life, the likes of Horace Greeley, Walt Whitman, Julia Ward Howe, Boss Tweed, Thomas Nast, Matthew Brady, and Herman Melville. This book follows the fortunes of these figures and chronicles how many New Yorkers seized the opportunities the conflict presented to amass capital, create new industries, and expand their markets, laying the foundation for the city's-and the nation's-growth. WINNER OF THE FLETCHER PRATT AWARD FOR BEST NON-FICTION BOOK

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781455584178
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	07/03/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	650,285
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

John Strausbaugh has been writing about the culture and history of New York City for a quarter of a century. City of Sedition, his singular history of New York City's role in and during the Civil War, won the Fletcher Pratt Award for Best Non-Fiction Book of 2016; The Village, his epic history of Greenwich Village, has been widely praised and was selected as one of Kirkus Review's best books of the year (2013). His previous books include Black Like You, a history of blackface minstrelsy; and E: Reflections on the Birth of the Elvis Faith.

Table of Contents

Part I Before: City of Confusion

Chapter 1 My God, We Are Ruined! 3

Chapter 2 City of Slavery 10

Chapter 3 City of Confusion 23

Chapter 4 The Great Riot Year 36

Chapter 5 The War of the Pennies 48

Chapter 6 Immigrants and Know-Nothings 55

Chapter 7 A Trio of Tammany Rogues 64

Chapter 8 Lurching Toward the Precipice 72

Chapter 9 Riot and Outrage 83

Chapter 10 From New York to Bleeding Kansas 88

Chapter 11 Leaves of Grass 96

Chapter 12 Hard Times and High 102

Chapter 13 Murder and Rebellion 111

Chapter 14 Slave Ships 119

Chapter 15 The Tall, Dark Horse Stranger 124

Chapter 16 City of Secession 136

Part II During: City of Sedition

Chapter 17 The Tempest Bursting 147

Chapter 18 War! War!! War!!! 155

Chapter 19 New York to the Rescue 163

Chapter 20 Immigrants Join the Fight 173

Chapter 21 The First to Fall 180

Chapter 22 Seeing the Elephant; or, The Great Skedaddle 187

Chapter 23 The Hyenas of War 196

Chapter 24 The Shoddy Aristocracy 201

Chapter 25 We Are Coming, Father Abraham 209

Chapter 26 Three Cheers for Ericsson 223

Chapter 27 I Goes to Fight mit Sigel 231

Chapter 28 The Dead of Antietam 236

Chapter 29 Sambo's Right to Be Kilt 240

Chapter 30 Burnside Falls, Sickles Rises 249

Chapter 31 Grafted into the Army 261

Chapter 32 Dan Sickles, Hero or Villain? 267

Chapter 35 The Volcano Erupts 273

Chapter 34 Tweed to the Rescue 288

Chapter 35 The Fire in the Rear 298

Chapter 36 New York City's Burning 311

Chapter 37 Last Acts 318

Chapter 38 A "Hippodrome of Sorrow" 328

Part III After: City of Gilt

Chapter 39 The Postwar Boom 339

Chapter 40 Anything to Beat Grant 349

Chapter 41 Scandals and Scams 359

Chapter 42 Old Soldiers 366

Epilogue 371

Acknowledgments 373

Notes 375

Bibliography 393

Index 403

Editorial Reviews

"The real war will never get in the books." So wrote Walt Whitman in Specimen Days. But Strausbaugh's City of Sedition comes captivatingly close in its account of the vexed and often ambivalent role New York and its citizens played in the not-so-Civil War…Strausbaugh weaves an ambitious and sprawling narrative while piecing together a crazy quilt of historical facts and fascinating anecdotes. He convincingly undermines myths…

The New York Times Book Review - Paula Uruburu

05/30/2016
Strausbaugh follows 2013’s The Village, an encyclopedic history of New York City’s Greenwich Village, with an expert look at the city in the tumultuous years leading up to and through the Civil War. “New York City would play a huge role in the war, but it would be a hugely confused and conflicted one,” he writes. “No city would be more of a help to Lincoln and the Union war effort, or more of a hindrance.” As Strausbaugh focuses on the array of colorful characters who influenced events—including newsman Horace Greeley, abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, and Tammany Hall leader William “Boss” Tweed—he spins a complex tale of a rapidly growing and changing city where immigration, slavery, and politics all had immense roles to play. This is an entertaining, informative, and educational narrative, though the density of rich detail can get the reader bogged down; Strausbaugh sometimes pays too much attention to pivotal individuals in the maelstrom of events. He ranges over the better part of a century to thoroughly and confidently capture the full scope of the story, resulting in an almost epic saga. Agent: Chris Calhoun, Chris Calhoun Agency. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"For anyone raised on the notion that, during the Civil War, the northern states stood strongly united against slavery and behind Abraham Lincoln, John Strausbaugh's insightful CITY OF SEDITION will offer a potent and engaging antidote. Training his focus on the vibrant, chaotic city of New York, Strausbaugh sheds valuable light on the ambivalence and complexity with which Civil War America responded to thorny problems of class, race, and disunion."—John Matteson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Eden's Outcasts and The Lives of Margaret Fuller

"An engrossing account of a fascinating time and place in American history. Strausbaugh gives us some of the great figures of the republic, along with Confederate spies, Irish mobs, and some of the most shameless scoundrels in the city's history. A constant page-turner that also delves deep into a complex and surprising era."—Kevin Baker, author of The Big Crowd and Paradise Alley

"What a terrific job! Strausbaugh paints New York in a vortex of treason and war, profit and chaos, idealism, energy, and murderous violence. CITY OF SEDITION is bright, urgent, and fast as a fire truck."—Richard Brookhiser, author of Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

"For Abraham Lincoln, New York City was both a boon and a bane: a source of vital support and bitter recrimination. In this gripping, highly original book, John Strausbaugh guides us through a city at war with itself-a tale he tells with nuance, verve, and great discernment."—Kevin Peraino, author of Lincoln in the World: The Making of a Statesman and the Dawn of American Power

"John Strausbaugh's new work opens the door . . . as no book has done before. Deeply researched and written with flair by an acknowledged authority on the history of the metropolis, CITY OF SEDITION leaves no doubt that 150 years ago New York was already 'a helluva town.'"—William C. Davis, author of Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee-The War they Fought, the Peace They Forged

"CITY OF SEDITION is a rich feast of outrageous incidents, larger-than-life characters, and often astonishing revelations. John Strausbaugh expertly reveals how a deeply divided New York gave Abraham Lincoln 'more help and more trouble' during the Civil War than any other city in the Union."—Gary Krist, author of City of Scoundrels and Empire of Sin

"This capstone urban study of superb scholarship is highly recommended for U.S. and regional historians, Civil War scholars, metropolitan specialists, and general readers alike."—Library Journal, Starred Review

Strausbaugh - journalist and free-range historian, author of rousing books on Greenwich Village, racial appropriation, and geriatric rockers - reexamines a strange chapter in city history that's not exactly unknown...but rarely seen in full...Edifyingly fascinating.—Vulture.com

"Strausbaugh...flanks the era's familiar protagonists with a boisterous chorus of idiosyncratic New Yorkers...in this kaleidoscopic, detail-filled account."—The New York Times

"...a richly layered and often surprising history, as crowded and fast-paced as a Manhattan sidewalk."—Shelf Awareness

Populated by an epic cast of characters lurching through evocative tableaux at a breakneck pace, Mr. Strausbaugh's book stands alone, but never still.—The Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher

★ 05/01/2016
New York played a central role in the Civil War. No other U.S. city raised more troops, money, and supplies for the conflict—and nowhere was there more opposition against it. By portraying New York as a hub for patriots, war heroes, and abolitionists, Strausbaugh (The Village) also shows that it was an arena of protest, draft evasion, and disloyalty. He writes that New Yorkers reacted to Abraham Lincoln's wartime policies with rioting; that its electorate significantly influenced the presidential campaigns of 1860 and 1864; and that its newspapers were among the most racist, nativist, and antiwar, even to the extent of inciting violence and sedition. Paradoxically, Strausbaugh notes that the same New York banks that funded the spread of the prewar South's plantation system and international slave trade would also provide the start-up capital for the Union's war machine. The inclusion of fascinating biographical cameos such as those of publisher-politician Horace Greeley, politician Boss Tweed, Gen. George McClellan, and songwriter Stephen Foster adds immeasurably to the pace of the narrative. Strausbaugh closes with Lincoln's assassination and the swindles of the Ulysses S. Grant administration. VERDICT This capstone urban study of superb scholarship is highly recommended for U.S. and regional historians, Civil War scholars, metropolitan specialists, and general readers alike.—John Carver Edwards, formerly with Univ. of Georgia Libs.

Library Journal

Narrator Mark Boyett delivers Strausbaugh’s informed and entertaining history of the City of New York during the Civil War and its aftermath. Although he covers the horrific draft riots, crooked elections, and other significant events that took place within the city, he focuses on the achievements and scandals of New Yorkers on the battlefields, in Washington, DC, and around the world. Boyett is an impressive voice actor. His voice evokes a young David McCullough at his gravelly best. Boyett is always easy to understand. His pacing is good, calming but not soporific. He is comfortable with the pronunciation of almost forgotten terms. Strausbaugh searches for comedy in the conduct of his subjects. His style can minimize the tragedy of their time. F.C. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2016 - AudioFile

Narrator Mark Boyett delivers Strausbaugh’s informed and entertaining history of the City of New York during the Civil War and its aftermath. Although he covers the horrific draft riots, crooked elections, and other significant events that took place within the city, he focuses on the achievements and scandals of New Yorkers on the battlefields, in Washington, DC, and around the world. Boyett is an impressive voice actor. His voice evokes a young David McCullough at his gravelly best. Boyett is always easy to understand. His pacing is good, calming but not soporific. He is comfortable with the pronunciation of almost forgotten terms. Strausbaugh searches for comedy in the conduct of his subjects. His style can minimize the tragedy of their time. F.C. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2016 - AudioFile

2016-05-14
A focused study of how the "biggest, wealthiest metropolis in the North" proved as much of a hindrance to the Union war effort as a help. Strausbaugh (The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues, a History of Greenwich Village, 2013, etc.), who has been writing about New York City for 25 years, tells a gritty tale of opportunism and chutzpah involving the financial capital of the riven United States when faced with the shutting down of its two golden commodities: cotton and slaves. Around the time of the secession of the Southern states from the Union, cotton represented "a whopping 40 percent of all the goods shipped out of the port of New York." Not only did the South rely on the New York bankers to finance the expansion of King Cotton—in 1860, the U.S. exported two-thirds of the world's cotton—but the South, which deigned to develop the necessary mills, had to ship the cotton up the coast or across the Atlantic for manufacture. This allowed New Yorkers to take their cut. Moreover, despite the ban on slave-running since 1820, the practice continued illegally, to enormous profit; the author notes that by the 1850s "it was an open secret that New York was the North's major slaving port." At the outbreak of war with the shelling of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor on April 12, 1861, patriotic fervor gripped the numerous penny tabloids, and the immigrant communities mobilized target companies. Yet Strausbaugh emphasizes how the struggle by poor immigrants to wrestle employment from the freed blacks led to animosity and even rioting. While this contingent would have never fought over the cause of slavery, the abolitionists and progressives were vociferous, as represented by Horace Greeley's New-York Tribune. New York rebounded nicely with war profiteering, creating a whole new class of "shabby aristocracy." A narrative that smoothly and engagingly incorporates many stories of the war that have been told separately elsewhere.

Kirkus Reviews