New York City draft riots

The New York City draft riots , known at the time as Draft Week, were violent disturbances in Lower Manhattan, widely regarded as the culmination of white 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 most racially-charged urban disturbance in American history.
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln diverted several regiments of militia and volunteer troops after the Battle of Gettysburg to control the city. The rioters were overwhelmingly white working-class men, mostly Irish or of Irish descent, who feared free black people competing for work and resented that wealthier men, who could afford to pay a $300 commutation fee to hire a substitute, were spared from the draft.

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