The Armies of the Streets: The New York City Draft Riots of 1863 (review)

266civil war history marized in the introduction and his postwar career is not mentioned at all. Major strategy decisions and battles are disposed of in single paragraphs. Instead, the author has attempted an in-depth analysis of Sherman's theory and practice of the concept of "total war," i.e., war against civilians. The result is basically two books in one. In Part One, an almost psychiatric examination of Sherman's personality and character is utilized to chronicle his development of the total war philosophy. It is here that Walters is at his best, as, by means of quotations from the personal correspondence of Sherman and his family and friends, as well as official records, he presents the thoughts and feelings of the general. However, the picture of the man thus painted by the author is so extremely uncomplimentary that one may be left with a nagging question as to whether the issue has been presented fairly and without a preconceived prejudice. It is in Part Two, a description of the application of the concept by Sherman's troops, that Walters rapidly loses the interest of the reader. Taking Sherman from the fall of Vicksburg to the Carolinas, this half of the book consists of countless excerpts from contemporary letters, diaries, newspapers and reports detailing the destruction of property by federal soldiers and the resulting hardships suffered by the populace . Filling over one hundred pages with such repetitious material goes far beyond what is necessary to establish that total war, as waged by Sherman, was not a pleasant experience for those living through it. These pages could have been put to far better use if the author had devoted them to a more detailed and unbiased discussion of whether it was necessary to put the concept of total war into practice during the Civil War. Marshall D. Krolick Chicago, Illinois The Armies of the Streets: The New York City Draft Riots of 1863. By Adrian Cook. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1974. Pp. 323. $14.50.) Much of this volume is, as the author himself admits, "blood-and-thunder penny dreadful" (p. ix). In two hundred pages of text, Cook chronicles the week of lootings, Iynchings, beatings, burnings, and the marching of police uptown and downtown in tedious detail. Having thoroughly researched both the municipal records and the National Archives, Cook touches on virtually every incident of the hectic days. Only the author's lively style and his penchant for apportioning praise and blame in bold colors relieves the wearying recital. Cook's glance into the sources of civil disorder is speculative rather than definitive. He sees the need for an emotional release from the drabness of urban life, ethnic and economic differences, "the weakness, venality, and popular ill-repute of . . . agencies of social control" (p. 38) BOOK REVIEWS267 as contributory factors. In his first chapter, the author propounds the suggestive idea that by 1863 New York had reached the maximum geographic limits possible before advances in transportation technology . It was a time when the "safety valve jammed" (p. 5). He does not appear, however, to have profited from Seymour Mandlebaum's suggestive study in the same period. For the immediate causes of the riots, Cook points to the traditional ones—the Lincoln administration's violations of civil liberties, the draft in general, and the substitution clause in particular. Cook terms falacious , however, the argument that the riots were "sparked and fueled by white workers' . . . fears of competition from cheap black labor" (pp. 204-5). Prejudice of long standing was alone sufficient to give the riot its racist element. The four appendices list the casualties and the participants of the anti-draft demonstration, but analysis of this wealth of information is limited. Just a handful of those arrested were convicted; very few had police records; only a few had served in the army. Most of the rioters were young, male, and Irish; most came from the "bottom of the social pyramid" (p. 196). The death toll, inflated both by contemporaries and historians, was only 119. Cook's findings are neither new nor unexpected . Cook limits his study by avoiding several areas of inquiry which, though time consuming, might have proved...