Abraham Franklin was a black coachman lynched by rioters. An 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!"

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" ( [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011], 225).