New---Rebel Agents Plot Terror Against NYC Financial District

A Vast and Fiendish Plot: The Confederate Attack on New York City, Clint Johnson, Citadel Press, 308 pp., index, 25 illustrations, selected bibliography, notes, $15.95.

The Confederate agents' attempt to burn Manhattan is one of the Civil War's intriguing and compelling stories. Clint Johnson's story of the attack on the city is an engaging presentation of motivations and personalities. The chemistry of the incendiaries is broadly covered and the reasons for the non-ignition of the devices. Solid, yet fast moving, the narrative does not linger to long on any one character or activity.

During the night of November 25, 1864 an incendiary chemical, known as Greek Fire, was planned to ignite spontaneously on contact with air at almost 20 hotels. The reasons for the failure in part the chemistry of the devices, the planning by the principals, and the nature of the plan. Johnson states if the schedule had been pushed back from 8p to 3a then the fires would not have been discovered by guest.
If the docks had been targeted then oxygen supply for the ignition would not have been a problem.

The motivation was payback for a Federal raid that took the life of Confederate cavalry leader, John Hunt Morgan who was out of uniform at the time of his death, and retribution for the destruction of barns in the Shenandoah Valley by the Federal army under Sheridan in 1864. The feelings behind the fires are similar to Jubal Early's burning of Chambersburg Pennsylvania in the summer of 1864 in response to Federal burning of the Virginia Military Institute in the late spring of 1864. Johnson sets the Confederate mis-adventure within the war's path through civilian populations.

Hoping to damage the Lincoln administration, the Confederate cabinet coached the agents top decided make the assault before election day. Help from Copperheads was expected. Discovery of the plot five days the fires were to occur promoted the administration to rush Federal troops into the city. As the Copperheads back out of the plan two of eight Confederate agents retreated into Canada. The remaining six agents went ahead with the attempt.

Early in the story, Johnson dwells on how New York financial powers were tied to the South and why Copperheads were prevalent in New York City. The credit, insurance, and merchant marine industries were closely linked to The Cotton Kingdom before the war. Yet, it is hard to understand the link between the agents, the financial districts interest in terminating the war and the selection of targets. Why burn the financial district when it was the financial district that most desired peace and could pressure the administration to produce it?

Johnson sometimes introduces topics, characters and incidents which appear to lead away from the main thrust of the story, such as the Battle of Gettysburg. Also, there are some unsupported generalizations regarding John Hunt Morgan's death as being a genuine contributing factor to the agents desire to burn New York City. Post-war memoirs are taken at face value by Johnson and at times don't seem to bear very well the weight of some conclusions. Yet, the book is enjoyable and is readily accessible to most readers.

Text by CWL.

Second Image: The Lost Museum Archive

CWL--True Crime In Postbellum NYC

A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth Century New York, Timothy J. Gilfoyle, W. W. Norton Publishing, notes, illustrations, appendices, 2006, $35.00.

A remarkable document was created by George Appo, a career criminal in 19th century New York City. His autobiography, in a typewritten manuscript form, was stored in Box 32 of Society for the Prevention of Crime Papers in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Columbia University, in New York City. In an exemplary effort of historical research, Timothy J. Gilfoyle, history professor at Loyola University in Chicago has extensively annotated portions Appo’s autobiography.

Remarkably, the author has chosen not to include the entire 98 page autobiography as an appendix. Portions of the document appear at the beginning of A Pickpocket’s Tale and are cited in the chapters. Gilfoyle’s curious approach is successful in telling two stories: a life story of Appo and the story of the New York City and state criminal justice system and the environment it tried to control. The subtitle of the book is The Underworld of Nineteenth Century New York. George Appo is representative of a world beneath the financial and high culture world of NYC. Punished as a juvenile, he was committed to a reform school ship that sailed to Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. He went to Ossinging (Sing Sing) and Clinton prisons four times; he spent a year on Blackwell’s Island and had six incarcerations in the Tombs, both located in NYC. He spent a year in Pennsylvania’s Eastern Penitentiary. Murderer? Mob enforcer? Rapist? No, Appo was a pickpocket who was unaligned with any politician, policeman or gang. An allegiance with any of these three forces would have kept him out of prison.

In the course of the book, Gilfoyle explains the conditions and contexts in which Appo lived his life of crime and was punished for it. As an independent pickpocket and a team player in a ‘green goods’ (selling allegedly counterfeit money and hen switching it with it for blank paper) racket, he was shot and cut. Appo suffered from an addiction to opium. Gilfoyle skillfully provides a history of opium, how it is smoked and where, a history of counterfeiting and how it tapped into Americans ‘get something for nothing’ attitudes. Gilfoyle explains why pickpocketing was prevalent and easy. In a world of no checking accounts and the publics partial reliance on both hard currency and cool cash, citizens would normally carry nothing but cash in clothing that had three to six outside pockets.