In a single definitive narrative, City of Sedition tells the
spellbinding story of the huge-and hugely conflicted-role New York City
played in the Civil War.
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.
Here in City of Sedition, a gallery of fascinating New Yorkers comes
to life, the likes of Horace Greeley, Walt Whitman, Julia Ward Howe,
Boss Tweed, Thomas Nast, Matthew Brady, and Herman Melville. This book
follows the fortunes of these figures and chronicles how many New
Yorkers seized the opportunities the conflict presented to amass
capital, create new industries, and expand their markets, laying the
foundation for the city's-and the nation's-growth. WINNER OF THE
FLETCHER PRATT AWARD FOR BEST NON-FICTION BOOK
