what was the new york city draft riots
New York City draft riots The New York City draft riots (July 13â€“16, 1863), known at the time as Draft Week,[3] were violent disturbances in Lower Manhattan, widely regarded as the culmination of working-class discontent with new laws passed by Congress that year to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots remain the largest civil and racially charged insurrection in American history, aside from the Civil War itself.[4]