Irish Americans In The Civil War Essay

Flash forward to the hot summer of 1863, the height of the Civil War. New York City was seething with racial and religious resentment, and on July 13th when government officials attempted to enforce the draft, tensions erupted into a four day streak of mayhem, murder, and racism, with Irish working men spearheading the movement. The Enrollment Act called for the conscription of all males between the ages of 20-45 to fight for the Union, with the exception of the wealthiest, who could afford the $300 avoidance fee. This infuriated Irish laborers; they saw the Civil War as only benefiting the rich, and the battle became known as the “rich man’s war, poor man’s battle.” Free blacks were exempt from the draft as well, as they were not yet considered American citizens, which furthered the Irish worker’s feelings of inequality. Laborers had long doubted their job stability with the potential influx of free blacks from the South, and saw this as an opportunity to voice two of their grievances. (Draft Riot of 1863). As giant crowds assembled at the city’s Provost Marshall’s office on that muggy morning,
Irish Americans were referred to as “negroes turned inside out” while African Americans assumed the nickname “smoked Irish” (Ignatiev 41). The two ethnic groups made up the basis of the urban proletariat, so competition naturally rose. As the labor movement exploded in popularity tensions only exacerbated. There were a number of uniting Irish American figures who helped advance African Americans in the labor movement, most notably Terence V. Powderly, the head of the Knights of Labor, which was the only racially inclusive labor union. However there was an ugly underbelly of the Irish participation in the movement, which aimed towards undermining black involvement. Noel Ignatiev describes their effort in terms of becoming