A riot is the language of the unheard – Martin Luther King
The day of Meagher’s Kearny Cross presentation coincided with Lee’s second invasion of the North. In his speech that day, Meagher made it clear he was no Peace Democrat, or Copperhead, as they were called. “I trust that from this hour there shall be no supplications for peace, since those supplications have flung open the gates, and invited the enemy to cross the Potomac,” Meagher said. “This is not a moment to mince words… I for one cannot but regard any one who utters ‘peace’ from this moment out as a confirmed and branded traitor.” At a banquet in his honour a couple of days later, Meagher spoke again for the war effort saying to great applause that it was “only the bankrupt money brokers who sued for peace to repair their shattered fortunes.”
Minus a command, Meagher turned once more to Irish matters. Though Meagher had rejected James Stephens’ overtures in 1858, the Fenian Cavanagh believed he wanted to join the organisation since St Patrick’s Day 1861 when he got witnessed them march through New York under the green flag, though that may have been just Meagher verbal exuberance. Two years later Meagher was now ready and he wrote to O’Mahony wanting to discuss another possible outbreak of war between America and England. When they met on July 11, O’Mahony formally admitted Meagher to the Brotherhood. Stephens was delighted that Meagher had joined the organisation and asked O’Mahony to urge Meagher to help recruitment in Waterford which he called “the most backward spot in Munster.”
However Meagher couldn’t help regretting his letter of resignation from the army. Meagher wrote to Lincoln offering his services once more. The president eagerly accepted Meagher’s offer to raise 3000 troops. But Meagher misjudged the extent of the growing Irish hatred of the war. While he believed Irish hopes were best served with the restoration of the Union, most Irish supported the Peace Democrats who wanted an immediate negotiated peace. Many Irish detested the Emancipation Proclamation thinking that black people would take their jobs, and Lincoln made matters worse with his first Conscription Act on March 3. The draft applied to all white men aged between 20 and 45. Wealthy draftees could buy their way out of service for $300 or else by paying substitutes to take their places.
Meagher called a meeting to raise a new Brigade. His timing was abysmal. It was the day the first draftees were drawn out of a lottery in Irish-dominated Lower New York. Among those drawn were volunteer firefighters from the “Black Joke” Engine Company, named for an 1812 warship. The Black Joke was renowned for its violent behavior, fortifying its engine house with a howitzer to defend it from rival fire fighting units. They decided to attack the draft office when it opened that Monday morning. News of the plan quickly spread across neighbouring wards and a huge crowd gathered outside the office on Monday. The Black Joke crew charged in, smashed the place up, spread turpentine on the floor and set the place ablaze. When they attacked police and provost marshals, the crowd started looting and pulling down telegraph poles. Neighbouring houses burned and when a police superintendent arrived, he was savagely beaten and left for dead.
The East Side streets quickly became a full-blown riot. British Guards officer Arthur Fremantle was heading home to England after three months touring the Confederacy when he came upon the rioters near Fifth Avenue. Fremantle saw buildings on fire and the crowd prevented the fire brigade from attending. Soldiers were jeered while a black man took refuge among them amid cries of “kill all niggers”. Fremantle asked what the black man had done to deserve it. “Oh sir, they hate them here; they are the innocent cause of all these troubles,” the by-stander told him.
Troops and artillery rushed in to protect City Hall. But they did nothing when rioters attacked the Coloured Orphan Asylum at Fifth Avenue amid shouts of “burn the niggers’ nest.” They also attacked firemen attending the subsequent blaze. Irish colonel Henry O’Brien led 150 men from the 11th New York to clear the crowd with two six-pounder guns. His house was burned down and when he arrived home the mob beat him to death and dragged him through the streets. Outside pro-war Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune office, the crowd shouted “down with the old white coat (Greeley’s nickname) who thinks a naygar is as good as an Irishman.” Irish longshoremen, who lost their jobs to former slaves when they went on strike, burned grain elevators to the ground, though reports that they killed blacks were false.
The 69th’s Robert Nugent had unwisely agreed to the War Department’s request to conduct the New York ballot. Rioters attempted to burn down his house, entering a room that contained portraits of Nugent, Meagher and Corcoran, where they supposedly “slashed the pictures of Nugent and Meagher” but left the picture of Fenian Corcoran untouched. However riot historian Adrian Cook thinks the rumour Nugent’s house was attacked was false. The unwell Archbishop Dagger Hughes made a half-hearted call for restraint but told a public meeting “I cannot see a rioter’s face among you.” Republican newspapers condemned a speech from New York Democrat governor Horatio Seymour at City Hall where he reportedly called rioters “my friends” and promised to end the draft. The bloodshed did not end until War Secretary Stanton sent five regiments from Gettysburg to restore order. Around 150 people died and countless buildings were destroyed.
Meagher was missing in action, hiding in New York while the riots took place around him, fearful that not just his portrait was in danger. When O’Mahony later asked him if could have stopped the violence, Meagher replied, “Not at all. The people those days were in a mood of mind to tear me limb from limb if they caught hold of me.” On July 13 he wrote to Stanton asking that his letter of resignation be withdrawn. Meagher’s Methodist admirer from Belfast, George Pepper, invited him to Ohio to speak on behalf of the Union Democrats in an election for governor against the Peace Democrats, though just before he was due to head west, Meagher declined due to a clashing appointment in Washington.
On September 23 he wrote a letter to the union committee of Ohio apologising for his absence and urged Ohio voters not to elect Copperhead leader Clement Vallandigham as governor. General Ambrose Burnside fresh from his Fredericksburg fiasco now commanded the Military District of Ohio where he had issued General Order Number 38, which warned that the “habit of declaring sympathies for the enemy” would not be tolerated. Vallandigham fell foul of the order after expressing opposition for the war. He was convicted by court martial and forcibly exiled to the Confederacy. He then moved to Canada but was nominated in absentia by Ohian Democrats outraged at Lincoln’s removal of his habeas corpus and free speech rights. Meagher threw his support behind Pepper’s man, pro-Union War Democrat John Brough. By electing Brough, Meagher said, “Ohio stands true to the splendid soldiers who from the rocks of Gettysburg, hurled back an invasion” whereas a Vallandigham victory would mean Ohio “turns her back on these brave men.” Almost in passing, the letter contains Meagher’s first public thoughts about the riots and he found a way to blame the Peace Democrats instead of the Irish when he noted “the Peace meetings and riots of New York” and other places were where “Copperheads abound” and their “venom, as well as the slime, the fangs, as well as the slippery skin, of the reptiles, warn the community of danger.” Nevertheless Meagher was putting his own reputation in danger as he unmoored himself from the common Irish position on the war.
Woolly Days 
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