Notes

1. The New York City Draft Riots and their aftermath dominated news on the home front in early August 1863. The federal government passed its first Conscription Act in March 1863, and the first draft took place in July. Democrats opposed the draft as unconstitutional (James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The American Civil War [London: Penguin, 1991] 608–9). The implementation of the draft sparked mob violence in several cities, New York foremost among them. For four days, July 13–16, rioters attacked African Americans, prominent Republicans, and public officers. More than a hundred people were killed; many more black New Yorkers grappled with trauma and destitution (Carla L. Peterson, Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011], 225–53).
2. See Matthew 10:28: "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
3. Fortified city Vicksburg fell to General Ulysses S. Grant's army on July 4, 1863; days later, the Confederate garrison at Port Hudson surrendered. The capture of Vicksburg reopened the Mississippi River to Union vessels and broke a vital Confederate supply line. In the poem, "traitors'" riots shatter a moment of peace and celebration.
4. Abraham Franklin was a black coachman lynched by rioters. An Anglo-African editorial, "Victims of the Mob," published in the issue of August 1, 1863, reported that Franklin had been seized at his mother's house:

   "'Mother! they may kill the body, but they cannot touch the soul!'—was the language used by poor Abraham Franklin, as he was borne from the presence of his mother by the barbarous mob on the morning of the 14 ult. This young man, aged 23, had been an invalid for about two years, and was a confirmed consumptive. When the mob broke into the house they found him in bed. They bore him into the street and there, although he had not raised a finger against them, indeed was not able to do so, they beat him to death, hanged him to a lamp-post, cut his pantaloons off at the knees, cut bits of flesh out of his legs, and afterward set fire to him!"

   Like "An Incident of the New York Riot," the editorial emphasizes Franklin's helplessness and holiness. The mob savages a childlike invalid and violates a space that is both a sickroom and a domestic sanctuary.
   
5. A reference to the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, an infamous episode in the French Wars of Religion. In August 1572 royal troops acting on Catherine de Medici's orders assassinated approximately two hundred Huguenot leaders who had gathered for a wedding; the killings sparked mob violence in Paris and throughout the provinces. For several weeks, Catholics attacked and mutilated thousands of French Protestants. By turning to the French massacre for a parallel atrocity, the poet taps into contemporary anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic prejudice; many of the rioters were reported to be Irish American.
    
   Reportage suggested that Irish Americans played a conspicuous part in the riots. Of the actual composition of the mob, historian Carla Peterson writes that "[s]ome were journeymen in the older artisan trades, while others—mostly Irish Catholic—were common laborers or workers in newer industrial occupations. Over the four days of rioting, the composition of the mob gradually shifted as both native-born Americans and German immigrants retreated. More likely to be skilled workers and property owners, their animosity toward political elites and blacks was not nearly as great as that of the Irish" (Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011], 225).
   
6. Possibly the weekly Delaware County (Pennsylvania) Republican (1833–1895), which covered news from both Danby and Chester, Pennsylvania, or the weekly American Republican (1858–1878), published in West Chester, Pennsylvania. As "An Incident of the New York Riot" appeared in issues of the Christian Recorder and the Liberator dated September 4, 1863, the Anglo-African editors may well have encountered the reprinted text in one of their regular exchanges.