Buffalo riot of 1862

The Buffalo Riot of 1862 was a

, police arrested the ringleaders before the militia was needed.

A central cause of the riot was the Militia Act of 1862, Republican-sponsored legislation in July of that year which expanded President Abraham Lincoln's wartime powers. The bill gave Lincoln the authority to call for a draft of militia men in states with low volunteer numbers, and on August 4th, Lincoln called for a draft of 300,000 of these men for nine months' service.^[1] New York State eventually furnished enough volunteers and avoided the draft altogether, but the mere possibility of a draft angered Buffalo's immigrant stevedores.

Two days after Lincoln's call for a draft, the Buffalo Morning Express reported that men "talked of nothing else, and many faces wore an anxious and troubled expression, bearing witness to the unpleasantness of the idea of shouldering a musket under compulsion."^[2] By August 12th, Buffalo's stevedores were riled up. Meeting at the Western Transportation Company's dock on the Erie Basin, more than two hundred local Irish and German dockworkers gathered to listen to a German speaker, who was standing on a pile of lumber. The speaker criticized Yankees who "had conspired against the German, Irish and Scotch residents of the country, to force them into the army." The riot was eventually quelled by Buffalo Police, and ended with some fourteen rioters jailed.^[3]

References

• "RIOT IN BUFFALO. Strike of Irish and German Stevedores – The Police Force Overpowered – Final Arrest of the Ringleaders". The New York Times. August 13, 1862. Retrieved 2009-06-09. A very serious disturbance occurred yesterday afternoon on the docks, caused by the Irish and German stevedores demanding increased pay for their work, and preventing others from working at the old rates.