New York City draft riots

In July of eighteen sixty three, the intersection of Baxter and Worth Streets served as a primary flashpoint for the deadliest civil insurrection in American history. As the federal government began enforcing a military draft to sustain the Civil War, thousands of laborers gathered here to protest the exemption policy that allowed wealthy men to buy their way out of service. Tensions exploded when a mob turned their anger against the local African American population, viewing them as both economic competitors and the target of their political grievances. The violence transformed these narrow streets into a landscape of arson and assault, forcing authorities to eventually recall regiments from the battlefield at Gettysburg to restore order.