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.
Chapter 1. My God, We Are Ruined!
Chapter 4. The Great Riot Year
Chapter 5. The War of the Pennies
Chapter 6. Immigrants and Know-Nothings
Chapter 7. A Trio of Tammany Rogues
Chapter 8. Lurching Toward the Precipice
Chapter 10. From New York to Bleeding Kansas
Chapter 12. Hard Times and High
Chapter 13. Murder and Rebellion
Chapter 15. The Tall, Dark Horse Stranger
Chapter 17. The Tempest Bursting
Chapter 19. New York to the Rescue
Chapter 20. Immigrants Join the Fight
Chapter 22. Seeing the Elephant; or, The Great Skedaddle
Chapter 24. The Shoddy Aristocracy
Chapter 25. We Are Coming, Father Abraham
Chapter 26. Three Cheers for Ericsson
Chapter 27. I Goes to Fight mit Sigel
Chapter 28. The Dead of Antietam
Chapter 29. Sambo’s Right to Be Kilt
Chapter 30. Burnside Falls, Sickles Rises
Chapter 31. Grafted into the Army
Chapter 32. Dan Sickles, Hero or Villain?
Chapter 33. The Volcano Erupts
Chapter 34. Tweed to the Rescue
Chapter 35. The Fire in the Rear
Chapter 36. New York City’s Burning
Chapter 38. A “Hippodrome of Sorrow”
Chapter 40. Anything to Beat Grant
Chapter 41. Scandals and Scams