Children Killed During 1863 NYC Draft Riots

I was at the Municipal Archives, researching one black man who was killed during the July, 1863 Draft Riots in New York City, when I noticed a lot of children were killed during the riots as well. If you don’t know about the riots, you can google it, but for three days people went on the rampage here in New York City. I don’t know a lot about it myself, and I’m getting the sense that scholars disagree about just what the riot was about, but for now I want to note the children who died.

I started looking into it, and I believe more children died than what I initially found, but here are the names listed in the Coroner’s Inquest Journals. A number of children, some of whom were participating in the riot, were killed when soldiers fired on rioters at the Armory at 2nd Avenue and 21st Street

Unnamed boy, 13, who died from injuries received at Armory.
Jane Barry, 10, killed by furniture thrown out of the window of the Colored Orphan Asylum.
William Boyle, 19, shot by soldiers on 7/16.
Mary Ann Carmody, 10, shot 10th Avenue and 42nd Street.
Patrick Casey, 10, gun shot, 7/15, 42nd Street near 11th Avenue.
William Conway, 14, gunshot.
John Costello, 12, burned to death at the Armory.
Peter Farrell, 13, gun shot, 10th Avenue.
Charles Fisbeck, Jr., 10, gun shot at Armoy.
Patrick Garvey, 14, shot by soldiers, 11th Avenue, 7/16.
Ellen Kirke, 2, gun shot, at 206 East 35th Street.
William Joyce, 19, gun shot, 7/16.
James Lee, 19, blows from riot.
Elizabeth Marshall, 6, gun shot, 7/15.
Francis McCabe, 18, gun shot, 36th Street and 9th Avenue.
William [Murphy or Mulley] 9, shot by “negro”, 32nd Street near 6th Avenue, 7/15.
Honora Murphy, 11, shot, 7/14.
William Stevens, 3, gun shot, 7/14.
William Henry Thompson, 10, shot by military while rioting, 7/14.
Catherine Waters, 12, shot by military while rioting, 7/14.

I didn’t know which picture to post today, but this one seems kinda appropriate. It’s a picture of an arrest in Washington Square Park that I passed by last week. I was a little taken aback by the holiday atmosphere of the crowd around the arrested man, but I don’t know the backstory.

Arrest

Stacy Horn

I've written six non-fiction books, the most recent is Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York.

View all posts by Stacy Horn →

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