Horatio Seymour and the 1863 Draft

HOBATIO SEYMOUR AND THE 1863 DRAFT Eugene C. Murdock Following the grisly draft riots in New York City, July 13-16, 1863, the angry editor of Harper's Weekly, seeking a major culprit for the murder and destruction, blamed the governor of the state in a fashion which became standard history for two generations: We do not envy the feelings that will fill the breast of the descendants of Horatio Seymour when the time comes for the impartial historian of the war to record the part their ancestor took at its most vital crisis. It will be his duty ... to point out . . . there was no means of filling the depleted ranks of the [Union] army except by the draft; that, in view of this emergency , a Conscription Act . . . had been duly passed and made a law; that when the emergency arose for its execution, it was peacefully submitted to every where except in the city of New York, where it was resisted by . . . burning an orphan asylum, murdering negroes, robbing private individuals, and sacking private houses; and that . . . the Governor of New York addressed the miscreants who had done these deeds as his "friends," and actually advised the National Executive to defer to their views. . . . We are not of those who regard Governor Seymour as a secret accomplice of the [southern] rebels. But we can not help thinking that the historian will have some difficulty in reconciling, on ordinary principles of human conduct, his letters to the President with his oft-repeated and mellifluous professions of loyalty.1 Until lately this judgment of Seymour was affirmed by most historians , although in softer terms. It has been charged that the governor refused to cooperate with the Lincoln administration, encouraged resistance to the draft through inflammatory speeches, argued ceaselessly over technicalities when there was a war to be won, and did everything imaginable to make Lincoln's burden a little heavier. Seymour 's integrity, patriotism, and sincerity were not seriously challenged , but his judgment and exasperating argumentativeness were. In 1938 Stewart Mitchell published the first substantial biography of Seymour, and with it the revision process began. Mitchell, in sum, reported that Seymour had been unjustly treated by historians; not only had he not provoked the riots, but he actually did everything ? Harper's Weekly Aug. 22, 1863, p. 530. 117 118CIVIL WAB HISTOBY possible to put them down. Moreover, the seriousness of the outbreak had been greatly exaggerated. Mitchell concluded that the actual cause of the riots lay either in the stupidity of the national administration or in its deliberate desire to embarrass the governor.2 The book received favorable tributes in the major historical journals,3 and Mitchell's thesis was promptly accepted as the final word by James G. Randall and later by David Donald in his revision of Randall's Civil War and Reconstruction. In the interests of better understanding an important aspect of the Union war effort, a reconsideration is in order. This writer has concluded that Harper's Weekly hit very close to the truth in its contemporary editorial, and that Mitchell badly distorted the truth in his revisionist biography. It is my view that Seymour repeatedly enhanced the administration's problem, specifically in connection with the military draft, and was insincere and politically motivated in much that he did. On the other hand, the Lincoln administration made every reasonable effort to be fair to the governor, went far more than halfway when concessions had to be made, kept him carefully advised of every step it was taking, and exhibited a kind of patience which very few national governments are capable of. The record supports this indictment of Horatio Seymour. • O O One of Seymour's many complaints was that the draft was unnecessary , and that the needs of the Union armies could be met by volunteer enlistments. That the governor was wrong in this opinion is abundantly clear, as volunteering had collapsed with the failure of the Peninsular Campaign in the summer of 1862. A "militia draft" instituted in August of that year4 also failed to produce sufficient troops. By the winter of 1862-1863 it was obvious that a long war lay ahead, and since...