Four days of violence in New York City to protest the inequities of American Civil War conscription.
The law permitted draftees to buy their way out of army service for $300, a sum relatively few men could afford. When the drawing of names began on July 11, mobs of Irish and other foreign-born workers surged into the streets, burning draft headquarters and other buildings, and assaulting blacks, who they had feared would take their jobs. About 100 people (mostly rioters) died.