City of Sedition: The History of New York City during the Civil War

[RJNorton]

Thanks to Bob Cook for sending this information:

City of Sedition: The History of New York City during the Civil War (Hardcover) – August 2, 2016
by John Strausbaugh (Author)

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.

Hardcover: 432 pages
Publisher: Twelve; 1 edition (August 2, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1455584185
ISBN-13: 978-1455584185
Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.5 x 9.2 inches


Amazon.com


JOHN STRAUSBAUGH - CITY OF SEDITION: THE HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY DURING THE CIVIL WAR


Politics and Prose Bookstore: 5015 Connecticut Ave NW Washington, DC
Friday, August 19, 2016 at 7 p.m.


With its influential newspapers, banks, and public figures of the caliber of Henry Ward Beecher, Thomas Nast, Matthew Brady, and others, New York City was crucial to Lincoln’s election as president as well as to his mobilization of support to fight the Southern secessionists. In fact, New York raised more money, men, and materiel for the Union war effort than any other city. At the same time, however, New York’s economy was deeply bound up with that of the Southern cotton-producing states. Anti-Lincoln sentiments ran strong, and the metropolis, a haven for draft dodgers, became the site of an anti-war riot. In this detailed narrative of New York’s complicated role in the Civil War, Strausbaugh, author of The Village and a noted expert on Gotham history, presents the city as a microcosm of the many political, social, and economic tensions that divided the nation.

http://www.politics-prose.com/event/book...-civil-war

[Susan Higginbotham]

We bought this one this weekend. Looks interesting!

[RJNorton]

(08-14-2016 04:52 PM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  We bought this one this weekend. Looks interesting!

Susan - on several occasions we have discussed the role (or lack of it) of the "New York crowd" in respect to Lincoln's assassination. Were these folks involved or not? If you are able to garner exactly how the author feels about this, please let us know. Thanks.

[L Verge]

Just purchased this book for the James O. Hall Research Center, and it looks to be very good material. Wild Bill, I think it's your kind of stuff!

Here's one review: Strausbaugh follows 2013’s The Village, an encyclopedic history of New York City’s Greenwich Village, with an expert look at the city in the tumultuous years leading up to and through the Civil War. “New York City would play a huge role in the war, but it would be a hugely confused and conflicted one,” he writes. “No city would be more of a help to Lincoln and the Union war effort, or more of a hindrance.” As Strausbaugh focuses on the array of colorful characters who influenced events—including newsman Horace Greeley, abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, and Tammany Hall leader William “Boss” Tweed—he spins a complex tale of a rapidly growing and changing city where immigration, slavery, and politics all had immense roles to play. This is an entertaining, informative, and educational narrative, though the density of rich detail can get the reader bogged down; Strausbaugh sometimes pays too much attention to pivotal individuals in the maelstrom of events. He ranges over the better part of a century to thoroughly and confidently capture the full scope of the story, resulting in an almost epic saga.

There are times when I think New York City really should have seceded before the Civil War even began. The forces there control so much of U.S. and international life.

[BettyO]

I just purchased this myself! Can't wait to get into it....

[Tom Bogar]

I finally got time to read City of Sedition and want to share some thoughts with members of this board, since I’m not sure it’s something that will merit your buying it. For one thing, despite its subtitle, “The History of New York City During the Civil War,” the shelling of Ft. Sumter does not occur until page 154. The preceding 17(!) chapters cover four decades of everything that happened in the city, and across the wider nation, in a dog’s breakfast of background information that seems aimed for a general reader who knows little or nothing about the events leading up to, and causing, the Civil War (e.g., the Mexican-American War, the Missouri Compromise, John Brown, etc., etc.) Some statements are head-scratchers, such as the mention of a PA regiment attacked in Baltimore on April 18, 1861, yet none made of the 6th MA in the Pratt St. riot the following day. There’s considerable info about the Booths (Junius Sr. at boozy length), but nothing new, again, for members of this board (and I have to take issue with the author’s assertion that Laura Keene had a torrid affair with Edwin Booth—something that has never been proven). Nearly all of the book’s material is an amalgam of secondary sources. On the back end, it goes well past the CW, into the 1880s. I’m not sure if this panoramic scope was an authorial or an editorial choice, but I rather think members of this board will learn little from it. As for the intervening chapters—those actually during the war, there are countless figures introduced with three-paragraph bios who had little connection with the city other than having been born there, or had some business there, or were related to someone there. Rather than staying (psychologically) in NY, and perceiving how that city felt and processed the war, we jet off to Bull Run, to the Peninsular Campaign, in fact all major battles on land and sea. My humble take? Move along folks, nothing new to see here.

[RJNorton]

Tom, does the book cover the goings-on at 178½ Water Street?

[L Verge]

(10-17-2016 08:24 PM)Tom Bogar Wrote:  I finally got time to read City of Sedition and want to share some thoughts with members of this board, since I’m not sure it’s something that will merit your buying it. For one thing, despite its subtitle, “The History of New York City During the Civil War,” the shelling of Ft. Sumter does not occur until page 154. The preceding 17(!) chapters cover four decades of everything that happened in the city, and across the wider nation, in a dog’s breakfast of background information that seems aimed for a general reader who knows little or nothing about the events leading up to, and causing, the Civil War (e.g., the Mexican-American War, the Missouri Compromise, John Brown, etc., etc.) Some statements are head-scratchers, such as the mention of a PA regiment attacked in Baltimore on April 18, 1861, yet none made of the 6th MA in the Pratt St. riot the following day. There’s considerable info about the Booths (Junius Sr. at boozy length), but nothing new, again, for members of this board (and I have to take issue with the author’s assertion that Laura Keene had a torrid affair with Edwin Booth—something that has never been proven). Nearly all of the book’s material is an amalgam of secondary sources. On the back end, it goes well past the CW, into the 1880s. I’m not sure if this panoramic scope was an authorial or an editorial choice, but I rather think members of this board will learn little from it. As for the intervening chapters—those actually during the war, there are countless figures introduced with three-paragraph bios who had little connection with the city other than having been born there, or had some business there, or were related to someone there. Rather than staying (psychologically) in NY, and perceiving how that city felt and processed the war, we jet off to Bull Run, to the Peninsular Campaign, in fact all major battles on land and sea. My humble take? Move along folks, nothing new to see here.

I never found the time to read this one after I bought it for our research center. I'm disappointed that it doesn't add anything new because its politics and Fernando Wood seem interesting and full of possibilities. The Draft Riots alone could show the temper of the times. Thanks for the review; I always trust your judgment.

[Tom Bogar]

Roger, nothing about Water Street, nor even John Surratt (at all), nor the spurious "Demill & Co." or "Chaffey Co." In fact, all that is here about JWB is watered-down Titone (listed in his bibliography).

Laurie, I did learn some new things about Fernando Wood (slimy, opportunistic, determinedly resilient). And the treatment of the draft riots is extensive and graphic, but presupposes that the reader knew nothing about their occurrence.

[Eva Elisabeth]

I second Laurie. I always enjoy reading reviews, and it's also good to know there also are books one doesn't "have" to have.

(10-18-2016 09:33 AM)Tom Bogar Wrote:  Laurie, I did learn some new things about Fernando Wood (slimy, opportunistic, determinedly resilient).

I "learned" that in the Lincoln movie...