Beschreibung:

LINCOLN, Abraham. Partly printed document signed, Washington, D. C., 11 July 1863. 1 page, 4to, integral blank, slight traces of mounting on verso of blank integral .
LINCOLN, Abraham. Partly printed document signed, Washington, D. C., 11 July 1863. 1 page, 4to, integral blank, slight traces of mounting on verso of blank integral . "I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF...ORDER THAT A DRAFT BE MADE..." THE MATCH THAT LIT THE NEW YORK CITY DRAFT RIOTS. Just forty-eight hours before rioters took to the streets of New York, Lincoln signs this order calling for the names of "two thousand and six" men, plus "fifty per cent in addition," to be called in the 13th district of New York, then encompassing Montgomery County, just north of Albany. This was, as Lincoln notes in the order, "the first call made by me on the State of New York" under the conscription law enacted on 3 March 1863. And it set off a powder keg of deadly anger in New York City among the mainly Irish, working class laborers certain to be called up in the draft. Wealthier citizens could buy their way out by paying $300 for a substitute (as did Theodore Roosevelt's father), but the draft rioters resented being compelled to fight in what they deemed an abolitionist war. Lincoln signed the New York orders on Saturday. But when workmen took to the streets on Monday, 13 July, they vented their fury not only against the offices of the draft marshal, but against wealthy town houses on Fifth Avenue, the offices of Greeley's pro-war Tribune , and against the city's black citizens. The Tobin Orphanage for black children was burned to the ground (as were some 50 other buildings), and scores were killed over four days of violence that was only quelled with the arrival of troops and militia, some pulled from the battle fronts. The draft was temporarily suspended but resumed without incident on 19 August.