WalkerBooks.com

The Devil's Own Work
The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America
Barnet Schecter

Reviews of The Devil's Own Work

"The best work of American history I have read in the past year would be Barnet Schecter's The Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America (Walker & Company). Over the decades there have been a number of fine histories written about this critical moment in our nation's past, most notably Iver Bernstein's The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War, Ernest McKay's The Civil War and New York City, and Adrian Cook's The Armies of the Streets: The New York City Draft Riots of 1863, as well as Peter Quinn's excellent historical novel Banished Children of Eve. Yet Schecter's book surpasses all of them not only in bringing the terrible days of the riots to life but in illustrating their full significance within the context of both New York and American history. As such it inevitably raises questions about the role of war in American society today: what sacrifices it requires and who should be shouldering the burden. The Devil's Own Work is everything a history should be, both relevant and relentlessly cognizant of the past as a different country, written with care, passion, and expertise."—Kevin Baker, American Heritage

"For a powerful look inside the economic, social and political powder keg that was New York City during the Civil War, and a broader examination of conservative forces in the North that opposed the Union war effort and Lincoln's gradual call for emancipation, Schecter's book is an outstanding and compelling source."—Stephen Mauro, Civil War Times

"Barnet Schecter's superbly written new study grips the reader with its bubbling evocation of city life, and its dazzling account of the upheavals that roiled the city's streets that July. It is no easy matter to maintain dramatic verve in recalling an event that ebbed and flowed so indiscriminately, lacked leadership and focus, and featured few heroes and many horrendous incidents of inhumane cruelty. But Schecter tells the story brilliantly, offering a genuine page-turner that should enthrall not only Civil War aficionados, but also any reader who fancies a gripping yarn well-told."—Harold Holzer, North & South Magazine

"Schecter's riveting narrative places the violence, dramatized by Martin Scorcese's Gangs of New York, in a national context, as a microcosm of forces that deferred integration for a century."—USA Today

"...a vivid account of the four days of anarchy..."—Seattle Times

"Superb"—Dean Barnett, The Weekly Standard --Jump to full review

"In The Devil's Own Work, historian Barnet Schecter offers an engaging synthesis on the riots and their causes and effects."—Providence Journal

"The draft riots, an assault on blacks and upper-class property by a predominantly Irish-Catholic mob buried within a white underclass, was an unfolding nightmare captured here in terrific color and context. Barnet Schecter adroitly shows how racial tension, class injustice, ethnic feuds and North-South entanglement not only contributed to the angry reaction in New York to President Abraham Lincoln's imposition of a Union military draft, but how the draft riots negatively affected Reconstruction...Schecter does a fine job of reliving the actual five days of riot terror with captivating narrative, with no better example than the horrific destruction of the Colored Orphan Asylum. He is even better at linkage: Irish Potato Famine to Draft Riots to the debacle that was Reconstruction, indeed bound by devilish ties."—Charleston Post and Courier

"An acute study of perhaps New York City's most barbarous episode...Schecter throws a wide net in his detailed account of the riots, setting the violence amid the racism, political corruption and brutal inequities of the time, looking not only at what inspired the rebellion, but also at what it left in its wake."—Alison McCulloch, The New York Times Book Review

"In "The Devil's Own Work," Barnet Schecter offers a coruscating chronicle of this shameful episode in American history. He might well have contented himself with a blow-by-blow account, but he also lays bare the depth of pro-Southern "copperhead" sentiments in the North -- in New York City in particular -- and the persistence of such sentiments after the war." —Fergus M. Bordewich, The Wall Street Journal-- Read Full Review

"Mr. Schecter's crisp, flashing prose captures the thrill and horror of the riots, the politicians' obsessive intrigues for power and wealth, and the numerous fascinating men and women of all classes, races, and occupations swept up in this "most peculiar battle of the Civil War."" —William Bryk, The New York Sun

"Richly detailed and formidably documented...The bulk of this excellent book is devoted not to the riots themselves, but to the tremendous social unrest that led up to and flowed from them: specifically, the turmoil of Reconstruction. Under the long shadow of the riots fell a century of repression of black civil rights and of harsh treatment of labor protests."—Roger Miller, St. Petersburg Times

"The most lethal urban riot in American history, the New York City draft riots in July 1863 were not an isolated event. Barnet Schecter provides the most detailed narrative of the riots, and also places them within the national context of the Civil War and the local context of ethnic, racial, and political conflict during the decades from the 1840s to the 1870s. The experience of New York's African American community receives more attention in The Devil's Own Work than in any other study." —James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom

"In The Devil's Own Work, Barnet Schecter has given us a fascinating look at the explosive witches' brew of resentment and rage that ignited deadly Civil War draft riots and which continued to haunt the nation for another hundred years thereafter. It's all here in this thought-provoking and meticulously rendered work: race and class, protest and reform, and a myriad of colorful voices. —Jay Winik, author of April 1865: The Month That Saved America

"Barnet Schecter opens a vivid, wide-angle lens on New York City's 1863 draft riots, exposing not only the harrowing experiences of participants on all sides, but also the long roots and deep consequences of this four-day spasm of violent protest. A pivotal moment in the larger Civil War, and part of a Southern attempt to exploit Northern dissent, the riots were also a turning point in American race relations--and in attitudes toward labor, immigrants, and an evolving class society. Schecter tells his story in readable language and largely through the eyes of those who lived it, making the book an absorbing journey though this controversial passage in our history." —Kenneth D. Ackerman, author of Boss Tweed

"At last, the real war has got into the books. Barnet Schecter's The Devil's Own Work is a masterpiece of historical writing, the first work to place the New York City draft riots in their full context." —Kevin Baker, author of Paradise Alley

"Barnet Schecter has brought the terrible days of death, fire, and looting in Gotham to life with vivid prose and thorough research. The Devil's Own Work is a fascinating account of the most important civil disturbance in all of American history." —Kenneth T. Jackson, Columbia University, editor-in-chief, The Encyclopedia of New York City

Barnet Schecter unearths the political and social roots of the Civil War Draft Riots and traces their reach as they influenced the fate of Reconstruction and the struggle for American democracy. Ambitious in its arguments and generous with its detail, The Devil's Own Work carefully dissects the Riots to provide new insights and challenges to those interested in the history of New York City and the Civil War. —Craig Steven Wilder, Professor of History, Dartmouth College

"A gripping story, clearly and accurately centering the riots in the context of political power relationships: New York City Democratic Party leaders, with pro-Confederate sympathies, played upon class, ethnic, and religious animosities and antiblack racism to mobilize white working people in support of their party's objectives in reshaping the national agenda, first for the Civil War and later for Reconstruction... Highly recommended."—Library Journal

"The 1863 draft riots in New York City, the bloodiest in the nation's history, emerge as a microcosm of the convoluted and contradictory politics of the Civil War era in this absorbing study. Historian Schecter (The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution) pens with a gripping account of the five days of rioting. But he also probes beneath the turmoil to examine the ethnic, religious, and class conflicts that made the confrontation so explosive. The rioters, largely working-class Irish Catholics, vented their fury at a draft law that exempted those who could pay $300, at the city's WASP Republican business elite and, inflamed by racist demagoguery, at African-Americans with whom they competed for low-wage jobs and status in America's racial hierarchy. Schecter contends that these dynamics played out nationally in the gradual demise of Reconstruction, thus setting the stage for racial and labor conflict in the century to come. Copiously researched and highlighted with a wealth of period commentary, his lucid narrative colorfully recreates a historical watershed and offers a rich exploration of the Civil War's unfinished business."—Publishers Weekly

"When fireman Peter Masterson led a mob's attack on a federal draft office, producing the first murders of New York City's 1863 riot, he ignited social tinder that was not exclusive to New York in mid-nineteenth-century America. Historian Schecter backgrounds his thorough account of the tumult with social disorders that frequently occurred elsewhere. To existing social resentments, particularly of Irish immigrants toward economic competition from blacks, the Civil War added its combustibles, for New York was not stoutly Unionist. Peace Democrats dominated its politics; its business class sympathized with the South; and its Copperhead newspapers denounced the war and the draft. These factors affected the course of events that Schecter masterfully narrates. From Masterson's initial incitement to the frenzy's subsidence several days and hundreds of deaths later, the author moves seamlessly between the conflagration on the street and the frantic attempts of authorities to quell the mayhem, and explains the affair's ramifications on the Reconstruction era. An excellent encapsulation of the war's social context in the North. "
—Gilbert Taylor, Booklist

About Barnet Schecter