The state of New York during the American Civil War was a major influence in national politics, the Union war effort, and the media coverage of the war. New York was the most populous state in the Union during the Civil War, and provided more troops to the U.S. army than any other state, as well as several significant military commanders and leaders. New York sent 400,000 men to the armed forces during the war. 22,000 soldiers died from combat wounds; 30,000 died from disease or accidents; 36 were executed. The state government spent $38 million on the war effort; counties, cities and towns spent another $111 million, especially for recruiting bonuses.
The voters were sharply divided politically. A significant anti-war movement emerged, particularly in the mid- to late-war years. The Democrats were divided between War Democrats who supported the war and Copperheads who wanted an early peace. Republicans divided between moderates who supported Lincoln, and Radical Republicans who demanded harsh treatment of the rebel states. New York provided William H. Seward as Lincoln's Secretary of State, as well as several important voices in Congress.
The press, largely based in New York City, helped shape and mold state and national opinion. The New York Tribune influenced Republican editorials across the country. Influential magazines included Harper's Weekly and Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. Thomas Nast was among the early political cartoonists.
In the decades after the war ended, numerous memorials and monuments were erected across New York to commemorate specific regiments, units, and officers associated with the war effort. Several archives and repositories, as well as historical societies, hold archives and collections of relics and artifacts.
Military recruitment
Upstate New York was among the leaders in the revolutions in transportation, agriculture, and industry. Turnpikes, canals, including the Erie Canal, and railroads connected eastern cities with western markets. New York's farmland was some of the most productive in the nation. The Genesee country became known as the breadbasket of the nation for its extraordinary grain production. Rapid-flowing rivers offered power for major industrial sites. Following these expanding economic opportunities, people, including African Americans and European Americans of many different backgrounds, poured into Upstate New York. They came from several different cultures, New England Yankees, Dutch and Yorkers from eastern New York, Germans and Scots Irish from Pennsylvania, and immigrants from England and Ireland.
New York provided between 400,000 and 460,000 men during the war, nearly 21% of all the men in the state and more than half of those under the age of 30. By the time of the Battle of the First Bull Run, the state had deployed 38 regiments of infantry top the federal government; by the end of 1862, the Empire State had fielded 101 regiments of militia, infantry, artillery, cavalry, and engineers. Of the total enlistment, more than 130,000 were foreign-born, including 20,000 from British North American possessions such as Canada. 51,000 were Irish and 37,000 German. The average age of the New York soldiers was 25 years, 7 months, although many younger men and boys may have lied about their age in order to enlist.
By the time the Civil War ended in 1865, New York had provided the Union Army with 27 regiments of cavalry, 15 regiments of artillery, 8 of engineers, and 248 of infantry. Federal records indicate 4,125 free blacks from New York served in the Union Army, and three full regiments of United States Colored Troops were raised and organized in New York—the 20th, 26th, and 31st USCT.
Among the more prominent military units from the state of New York was the Excelsior Brigade of controversial former congressman Daniel Sickles Francis B. Spinola was commissioner of New York Harbor when the war erupted; he joined the volunteer army in a New York regiment and was commissioned as an officer, appointed brigadier general of Volunteers, and recruited and organized a brigade of four regiments, known as Spinola's Empire Brigade. Several early volunteer regiments traced their origins to antebellum New York State Militia regiments, including the 14th Brooklyn, which became known for its bright red chasseur-style pants.
The first organized unit to leave the state for the front lines was the 7th New York State Militia, which departed by train for Washington, D.C., on April 19, 1861. The 11th New York Infantry, a two-years' regiment of new recruits, departed ten days later. Among the earliest casualties of the Civil War was Malta, New York, native Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth, who was killed in May 1861 during an armed encounter in Alexandria, Virginia.
Supporting the war effort
New York had long played an important role in the U.S. military, with the United States Military Academy in West Point providing a significant number of officers to the antebellum Regular Army. New York Harbor was ringed with several military outposts, forts, and garrisons, and many officers who were prominent during the war had spent considerable time in New York before the conflict erupted in early 1861. McDougall Hospital at Fort Schuyler would become a leading wartime military hospital, and Davids Island was a significant prisoner-of-war camp for captured Confederates.
Several wealthy New York industrialists played crucial roles in supporting the war effort through materiel, weapons, ammunition, supplies, and accoutrements. Railroad impresario Cornelius Vanderbilt used his growing network of rail systems to effectively move large quantities of troops through the state to staging and training areas. The Union Navy contracted with U.S. Congressman Erastus Corning's iron works to manufacture parts and materials for the USS Monitor, the Navy's first ironclad warship. The Brooklyn Navy Yard was an important shipbuilding and naval maintenance concern.
Foundrymen Robert Parrott and his brother Peter produced significant quantities of artillery pieces and munitions, and their Parrott rifle, an innovative rifled gun, was manufactured in several sizes at the West Point Foundry. The National Arms Company in Brooklyn produced firearms, including large quantities of revolvers. Other important producers of weaponry and munitions were the Federal government's Watervliet Arsenal and the privately owned Remington Arms Company of Ilion.
Wartime politics
In the presidential election of 1860, 362,646 (53.7%) New York voters chose Abraham Lincoln, with 312,510 (46.3%) supporting Democrat Stephen Douglas. Powerful New York politicians played important roles in setting national policy and procedures during the war. Roscoe Conkling was among the leading Radical Republicans who strongly supported the vigorous prosecution of the war. They were opposed by moderate Republicans, including Henry Jarvis Raymond, a New York newspaperman who served as the Chairman of the Republican National Committee in the latter half of the war. William H. Seward, a United States Senator from New York and an outspoken critic of Lincoln, became the Secretary of State and an important member of Lincoln's Cabinet
By contrast, the colorful mayor of New York City, Fernando Wood, was a prominent early supporter of the Confederate cause. He argued unsuccessfully that the city should secede from the Union as a separate entity. New York City had many economic and financial ties to the South; by 1820, half of its exports were related to cotton, and upstate textile mills processed Southern cotton. In addition, the numerous immigrants in New York worried that freeing slaves would bring more labor competition to a market where they struggled over the lowest-paid jobs.
When the war began, former New York Governor Horatio Seymour took a cautious middle position within his Democratic Party, supporting the war effort but criticizing its conduct by the Lincoln administration. Seymour was especially critical of Lincoln's wartime centralization of power and restrictions on civil liberties, as well as his support of emancipation. In 1862, Seymour was again elected governor, defeating Republican candidate James S. Wadsworth. As governor of the Union's largest state, Seymour was the most prominent Democratic opponent of the President for the next two years. He strongly opposed the Lincoln administration's institution of the military draft in 1863.
Alfred Ely, Chairman of the House Committee on Invalid Pensions, was among the first U.S. representatives to be captured by the Confederate Army when he and other civilian onlookers were taken prisoner following the First Battle of Bull Run. He spent six months in a Confederate prison before being exchanged and released.
In 1861 and 1862, former U.S. Senator Hamilton Fish became associated with John A. Dix, William M. Evarts, William E. Dodge, A.T. Stewart, John Jacob Astor, and other New York men on the Union Defence Committee. They cooperated with the New York City government in raising and equipping troops, and disbursed more than $1 million for the relief of New York volunteers and their families. Later in the war, several leading New York politicians and businessmen helped found the Union League, a pro-Union, pro-Lincoln organization that helped fund the Republican Party, as well as charitable relief groups such as the United States Sanitary Commission.
During the Gettysburg campaign of 1863, despite his sharp political differences with Pennsylvania's Republican Governor Andrew G. Curtin, Governor Seymour dispatched significant quantities of New York State Militia to Harrisburg to help repel the invasion of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The first Union soldier killed on Pennsylvania soil was a native Pennsylvanian, Corporal William H. Rihl serving in a company assigned to the 1st New York Cavalry.
Lingering effects of New York Draft Riots
During the draft riots of July 1863, 120 civilians were killed and 2,000 men injured. The draft riots also resulted in about $1,000,000 in property damage. This was also coupled with a strong anti-war movement sparked by Copperheads and other Peace Democrats, made New York one of the closest contested states in the presidential election of 1864. 368,735 (50.46%) New Yorkers chose the incumbent Abraham Lincoln, with 361,986 (49.54%) supporting Democratic challenger and former army commander George B. McClellan. Lincoln captured all 33 electoral votes.
The New York Legislature oversaw the approval of funding the state's war effort, including bounties, fees, expenses, interest on loans, and for the support of the families of soldiers where needed. Total expenditures exceeded $152 million during the war.
Military actions
No Civil War battles were fought within New York, although Confederate agents did set several fires in New York City as an act intended to terrorize the community and build support for the peace movement.
New York troops were prominent in virtually every major battle in the Eastern Theater, and some New York units participated in leading campaigns in the Western Theater, albeit in significantly smaller numbers than in the East. New Yorker John Schofield rose to command of the Army of the Ohio, extricated his outnumbered army from a Confederate trap, and, in doing, won the battles of Spring Hill and Franklin, dealing a serious blow to Confederate hopes in Tennessee.
More than 27,000 New Yorkers fought in the war's bloodiest battle, the three-day Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. Nearly 1,000 men - 989 soldiers were killed in action, with 4,023 wounded (many of whom died of wounds or disease in the months following the battle). 1,761 New Yorkers were taken as prisoners of war, and many were transported to Southern prisons in Richmond, Virginia and elsewhere. It was the largest number of casualties for New York troops in any battle.