7. City Hall – Chambers Street

New York’s City Hall was the place from which the city government, facing enormous scrutiny from protestors and fearful bystanders alike, attempted to calm the rioting crowds. New York Governor Horatio Seymour spoke from its steps to a crowd of protestors, many of whom had murdered and pillaged over the past few days of the riot. Seymour announced himself a friend of the protestors and that the draft had been suspended in New York City. On the third day of the riots, a quorum of the City Council formally denounced the draft. It would be another day before military forces would successfully beat down the riot in a final confrontation near Gramercy, but the damage, including a fortune’s worth of damages to buildings and a death toll estimated at 120, had already been done.