The Civil War Lover's Guide to New York City

By Bill Morgan

This fascinating illustrated guide is “a must for any Civil War buff visiting or living in New York City” (New York Journal of Books).
 
Few Americans associate New York City with the Civil War, but the most populated metropolitan area in the nation, then and now, is filled with scores of monuments, historical sites, and resources directly related to those four turbulent years. Veteran author Bill Morgan’s The Civil War Lover’s Guide to New York City examines more than 150 of these largely overlooked and often forgotten historical gems.
 
Morgan’s book takes readers on a journey of historical discovery. Walk inside the church where Stonewall Jackson was baptized, visit the building where Lincoln delivered his famous Cooper Union Speech, and marvel that the church built by the great abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher is still used for worship. A dozen Civil War–era forts still stand (the star-shaped bastion upon which the Statue of Liberty rests was a giant supply depot), and one of them sent relief supplies to besieged Fort Sumter in Charleston. Visit the theater where “Dixie” was first performed and the house where Stephen Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage.
 
After the war, New York honored the brave men who fought by erecting some of the nation’s most beautiful memorials in honor of William T. Sherman, Admiral David Farragut, and Abraham Lincoln. These and many others still grace parks and plazas around the city. Ulysses S. Grant adopted New York as his home and is buried here in the largest mausoleum in America (which was also the most-visited monument in the country). See the homes where many generals, including Winfield Scott, George B. McClellan, and even Robert E. Lee, once lived.
 
Complete with full-color photos and maps, Morgan’s lavishly illustrated and designed volume is a must-have book for every student of the Civil War and for every visitor to New York City.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781611211238

Bill Morgan

Bill Morgan is the author and editor of more than a dozen books about the Beat writers, including the acclaimed biography, I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg. For nearly forty years he has worked as an editor and archival consultant for nearly every member of the Beat Generation including Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Diane Di Prima, Gregory Corso, William S. Burroughs, and Edie Kerouac. He lives in Vermont.

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© 2013 Bill Morgan

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the

publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Morgan, Bill, 1949-

The Civil War lover’s guide to New York City / Bill Morgan. — First edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-61121-122-1

EPUB ISBN: 9781611211238

1. New York (N.Y.)—History—Civil War, 1861-1865. 2. New York (N.Y.)—

Guidebooks. 3.

Historic sites—New York (State)—New York—Guidebooks. I. Title.

F128.18.M673 2013

973.709747’1—dc23

2013008800

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For Judy

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Contents

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Manhattan

I. Downtown: South of Worth Street

II. Downtown: Between Worth and Houston Streets

III. East Village

IV. Greenwich Village

V. Union Square to Madison Square

VI. Midtown

VII. Central Park and the Upper East Side

VIII. The Upper West Side, Harlem, and Washington Heights

The Bronx

Brooklyn

Queens

Staten Island

Other Islands

Appendix A: Some Significant Events

Appendix B: An Interview with Author Bill Morgan

Bibliography

Index

Introduction

On February 25, 1860, a little-known Illinois politician by the name of Abraham Lincoln arrived in New York City to deliver a speech to the Young Men’s Central Republican Union in the new auditorium at Cooper Union. No one recognized him as he walked along Broadway to his hotel near City Hall, where he was to revise much of his right makes might speech. Lincoln himself would later say that it was that speech that made him president. Five years later, Lincoln’s body lay in state under the rotunda of that very same City Hall, and more than a half million people waited to file past the catafalque of their assassinated leader. On April 25, 1865, the entire city was draped in black for the funeral procession of the man who died at the hands of John Wilkes Booth, brother of New York’s most prominent Shakespearean actor, Edwin Booth. A Nation Mourns read the banner over the steps of City Hall as millions poured into the city to line the streets to bid Lincoln farewell.

In many ways, these two events frame the Civil War era, and it is surprising that very little literature focuses on the role that New York City played in that war. Of course, no great battle took place in the city, but much of the tumultuous history of the period played out here. As the largest city in the nation, New York sent more troops to the war than any other—and lost more men as a result: nearly 100,000 soldiers from the city marched off; more than 10,000 never returned. As America’s publishing center, New York’s newspaper and magazine editors played a crucial role in shaping public opinion, both for and against Lincoln and the war. As the capital of commerce, New York produced the materials of war, manufacturing everything from uniforms to ironclads like the USS Monitor. Wall Street banks financed the war, making millions in the process. And after the war, New York became a prime location for memorials and monuments to the victors. By 1865, the city had recovered from the financial setbacks caused by the loss of the cotton trade and was prospering because of the war. Business interests began to rival those of London and Paris in importance, and New York left other American cities behind in the provincial dust. As Kenneth T. Jackson, professor of history at Columbia University, has said about the city’s urban growth during that period, The result would probably have been the same even if President Lincoln had somehow avoided war, but there can be little doubt that the foundation for New York’s industrial, financial, cultural, and commercial supremacy had been strengthened by the conflict between 1861 and 1865. And over those four years New York City and State made it possible for the United States to remain one nation.

When I began work on this book, I considered using a controversial title such as New York: The Largest City of the Confederacy to express the Southern sympathies shared, at least initially, by many New Yorkers. But that would only obscure the real purpose of the guide, which is to lead people to Civil War sites around the five boroughs. Still, it is surprising to learn that a large majority of the voters in New York City were not supporters of Mr. Lincoln’s War. In fact, the fiercest civilian rebellion to ever take place in America was the New York Draft Riots of 1863. At the outset of war in 1861, many people felt that the conflict would destroy business and the economic backlash would ruin the city’s prosperity. New York was tied to the Southern economy more than any other city in the North. Southern businessmen owed tens of millions to Northern banks, and on behalf of the latter institutions some feared that if war came and the South refused to honor those debts, the losses would create a financial panic on Wall Street. When Lincoln was elected, New York’s mayor, Fernando Wood, proposed that the city secede from the United States and become a free city, placing it in a position to continue doing business with both North and South. On Lincoln’s inauguration day, Wood refused to fly the American flag over City Hall. It was not until Lincoln’s death that the slain president became a martyr popular with the majority of people of the city.

What surprised me most when I began collecting notes for this book 25 years ago was that no one had ever set down a guide to all of the places of Civil War interest in New York City. I believe that the city has more monuments, markers, forts, homes, public memorials, buildings, graves, museum exhibits, and relics of the Civil War era than any other place in the country. It is interesting to note that Generals Grant, Sherman, Scott, McClellan, Hancock, Sickles, and others all lived in the city at one time. Even more surprising, I learned that General Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Mrs. Jefferson Davis lived here for extended periods. The famous Confederate song Dixie was first performed in a New York theater, the ironclad was invented and built here, The Red Badge of Courage was written here, and Grant’s tomb is here. The country’s most beautiful Civil War monuments, by artists such as Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Daniel Chester French, J. Q. A. Ward, and Gutzon Borglum, stand in the city’s parks, and countless Civil War-era homes, businesses, forts, and public buildings still survive in a city that is constantly changing.

A study of the demographics of New York City prove that the city center has constantly been on the move northward. When the original Dutch settlers arrived on Mannahatta, they established a trading village at the very southern tip of the island. In the early years of the settlement, the residents of Nieuw Amsterdam built a wall at the northern edge of the town, which eventually became Wall Street. As the population grew, the city expanded beyond the wall, and farms and country houses began to dot the countryside below what is today 14th Street. Still, up to the Revolution Greenwich Village was no more than pastoral acreage. But late in the eighteenth century people fleeing from yellow fever and cholera epidemics in the city proper began to build homes there, and the northward expansion began in earnest. In 1807, a visionary map that would be adopted as the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 was drawn up. It projected a grid plan for all future streets north of Houston. Few people believed that there would actually be a need for streets numbering well into the hundreds; but, just in case, the town fathers made a survey and allowed for cross streets from 1st Street up to 220th Street.

By 1860, the eve of the Civil War, the population of New York (and the Bronx) had grown to 814,000, making it the largest city in the nation. Brooklyn was the third-largest city with 267,000 residents; it would not become part of New York City until 1898, when Queens and Staten Island also consolidated to form the five boroughs of the current city. For comparison’s sake, New Orleans was the only Southern city in the top ten, and it had a population of just 169,000. New York’s population was beginning to fill in the new blocks above 14th Street, with the wealthiest people building their homes along Fifth Avenue and spreading east and west from there. Real estate speculators were busy trying to make areas around Gramercy Park and Madison Square desirable by building new townhouses and providing mass transportation to the work centers in Lower Manhattan. For the most part, retail businesses were located along Broadway and heavier industries took up the areas along the riverfronts. During the Civil War, there were only a few scattered buildings in the blocks north of 42nd Street; so sparse was the population there that the city allowed the production and storage of explosives in factories built north of 62nd Street during the war. After the war, the creation of large works such as Central Park, Grand Central Station, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral gave impetus to continued northward expansion, so monuments erected at the end of the nineteenth century in honor of Civil War veterans are often found north of 57th Street. As Manhattan became more and more residential, heavy industries found it easier to conduct business in the boroughs and eventually closed their operations along the waterfronts.

This guide is divided into geographical segments listing sites from south to north in each of eight areas. The boroughs are covered separately and the islands surrounding the city have a section of their own, even though technically they are part of one borough or another. The maps and accompanying text provide locations, but visiting hours always seem to be in flux and should be verified before making a long trip to see a particular site. There is no charge for access unless otherwise stated. Due to the large area covered by the city, allow ample time to reach each destination, and grouping locations into smaller walking tours would be appropriate only within Manhattan; for transportation to sites in the outer boroughs, I suggest public transportation or automobiles. An appendix contains short discussions of a few significant events that are linked to multiple sites covered in the book; in the text, these sites are marked with an asterisk.

This book grew out of my own interest in the Civil War and slowly developed over the years. As I took friends on walking tours of the city, I realized that many people pass by Grand Army Plaza, Lincoln Center, and Sheridan Square every day without thinking about the history behind those places. It wasn’t until I was sitting in the grand lecture hall at Cooper Union—unchanged since the day Lincoln spoke from that same stage in 1860—that I decided to put it all together in one guide. Finding the sites and locations 150 years later became a challenge and an adventure, one that has taken me to all parts of the city, from Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side to the free black community of Weeksville in Brooklyn. I hope this book will help others enjoy visiting unusual parts of the city and enthuse in the history of the Civil War that still resonates on her streets.

Bill Morgan

Bennington, VT

Acknowledgments

This guide could never have been completed without the enthusiastic support and cooperation of an army of people. I wish to thank those troops for their help and support at every turn. In the case of this book, libraries from coast to coast played a significant role in the collection of information and I wish to thank all librarians in general for their assistance. The New York Public Library and the Williams College Library were especially helpful and a great deal of my research was carried out in those two institutions. The author also wishes to thank Bill Keogan of St. John’s University Library, who acted as my private librarian and was always willing to help me uncover obscure bits of information about one Civil War location or another.

Many people patiently helped sift out important facts that turn up in the following pages. Special thanks is due to Gordon and Kathy Ball, Richard Connor, Charles Dewey, William Gargan, Robert Guarino, Jack Hagstrom, Peter Hale, Joe Hall, Tim Moran, Alan Petrulis, Stephen Sandy, and Pat Young for their insightful suggestions. Whenever a question of fact arose, I turned to historical societies, museums, and libraries for help, visiting internet sites only as a last resort. I owe a large debt of gratitude to those people and institutions: Justin Batt at the Harbor Defense Museum; Elizabeth Call at the Brooklyn Historical Society; Sarah Clark at the Staten Island Historical Society; the people at the Flushing Cemetery Association; Kathy Haines at the Center for American Music; Danielle Hilkin at the Queens Historical Society; Harold Holzer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Kathleen A. McAuley at the Bronx County Historical Society; Jason Radmacher at the John Street United Methodist Church; Marcus Romero at the Brooklyn Museum; Lois Rosebrooks at the Plymouth Church; Andrew St. John at the Church of the Transfiguration; David C. Sibley at St. John’s Episcopal Church; Raymond Wemmlinger at The Players; and Timothy Wroten at the New-York Historical Society.

Gratitude is also extended to my publisher, Savas Beatie. Theodore P. Savas had the foresight to see the value of this guide and helped in the production. Mr. Beatie also had the wisdom to select Rob Ayer to act as my editor, a job he has done with great knowledge and care. Lindy Gervin, Veronica Kane, and Sarah Keeney have all worked tirelessly editing, designing, and promoting this work. Their improvements would delight any author and I would like to thank them all.

And as always, I would like to acknowledge Judy Matz, my lifelong collaborator, without whom, this and all my labors would be meaningless. For decades she has worked as my sounding board and first editor, shaping my poor prose into understandable sentences and correcting embarrassing mistakes before anyone knew they had been made. To her this work is dedicated.

Manhattan

I. Downtown: South of Worth Street

001. JOHN ERICSSON MONUMENT

Battery Park, northeast of Castle Clinton near Battery Place

In 1903, a second version of a statue depicting the inventor John Ericsson (1803–1889) was unveiled in Battery Park. The first version had been dedicated in 1893, but the sculptor, Jonathan Scott Hartley (1845–1912), had been unhappy with that effort and revised his work at his own expense. The larger-than-life bronze statue of Ericsson stands on a granite pedestal on which four relief tablets are mounted. In Ericsson’s left hand is a model of his most famous creation, the USS Monitor, and in his right he holds the design blueprints. The bronze reliefs on the base depict Ericsson’s most important inventions, which include the screw-propelled warship, the rotary gun carriage, and a steam-driven fire engine.

Statue of John Ericsson.

Ericsson was a Swedish-born inventor who arrived in New York in 1839 and lived in the city for 50 years. From 1844 until 1864, he lived in a building that once stood at

Reviews for The Civil War Lover's Guide to New York City

[kara.shamy · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I entered a Goodreads Giveaway to win The Civil War Lover's Guide to New York City, and I did in fact get this prize. I sought a copy in the hopes that the book would be split in content between historical nonfiction and travel nonfiction. I imagined interesting, significant background stories appearing in connection with given sites the reader could visit. I was disappointed at first because the book is not densely jam-packed with history as my taste would have it (and really, many other types of books as well). However it does, upon reflection, fulfill my wish for a travel book that included sufficient historical background. With this guide, the traveler gets more than a blurb to explain the place name. The glossy paperback pages present photographs & up to a page of contextual information on each destination in tiny font.

This book is actually a very nicely done travel guide listing a sizable number of Civil War memorials and places of interest organized by NYC neighborhood. I grew up in the NYC Metro area and have lived sometimes within city limits during my adulthood -- I love the city. Upon perusing this book, I am actually now very excited to get some real historical perspective on the city's connection to the war to preserve the Union by checking out a number of these low-key-less-travelled-to-destinations. I can see I'll be doing a lot of rediscovering of (a) place(s) I've called home. I am glad I came across this book since it has managed to inspire me to take on this new endeavor. Accordingly, I recommend this book to New Yorkers and dedicated historical tourists.