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Back then, I'm sure there were any number of Irish, and Blacks, who didn't report their injuries, no matter how severe they were. The Irish, fearing they might be recognized and arrested.
That's hard for me to believe, the number of dead and injured during the NYC Draft Riots, I could believe it if 1 or 2 more zero's were added to the count, particularly the injured count.
Well I think that you are right, but in the context of this discussion, I went with the low ball official numbers because they were sufficient to disabuse a response that was posted earlier.
"The # of rioters killed was pat down by the Police Commissioners at about 1200. This estimate is not made up from any detailed reports. The dead and wounded were hurried away, even in the midst of the fight, and hidden in obscure streets, or taken out of the city for fear of future arrests. Hence there is no direct way of getting at the exact # of those who fell victims to the riot."
And how many were merely dumped into either the East or Hudson rivers?
"The excess for the period after the riots was owing to the victims of them. Many of these were reported as sunstrokes, owing to men exposing themselves to the sun with pounded and battered heads."
Remember, this occurred during the hottest period of summer, July! No A/C back then!
As for the number of injured, I have no idea how they could ever calculate that number, with any accuracy!
Given this book is confined to NYC, and given all the Irish in Boston at the time, there was no mention of any rioting, due to the Draft, in Boston.
I'm sure some long-lasting lessons were learned from this riot, if one should ever occur again. As in Watts, as in NYC, you need greater forces to contain riots of this magnitude.
If I recall, half of the LAPD was in Watts, and some point in time, and even with that kind of force, they were all put powerless until the National Guard arrived, some 15,000 of them.
What they had? What did the Irish rioters have in the stores, banks and Federal treasury vaults that they looted?
You know there is a certain discernible pattern of ahistorical comments and threads emerging.
I'm talking about their vision of "opportunity" being taken away and the labor aspect of it. Of course there are examples of looting in a big riot like that, doesn't really get to the heart of it though, does it?
They may have lived in squalor, but they chose to come here so what does that say about their situation in Ireland? Now because they were poor they were going to have to fight and die to free a gigantic competing labor pool after they had come across the pond for "opportunity". Nothing ahistorical about that situation. You make it sound like the purpose of the riots was to loot. Hardly.
I'm sure some long-lasting lessons were learned from this riot, if one should ever occur again. As in Watts, as in NYC, you need greater forces to contain riots of this magnitude.
If they did, they didn't get pass the Hudson river because they didn't learn a thing in Tulsa in 1921; or Springfield, IL in 1908.
And there was the "Rodney King" riots in Koreatown in the early 1990's, where, I believe 600 buildings went up in flames!
The criticism of LAPD's police chief, after the Watts riots, was that the police had no training to deal with large-scale riots. Small wonder the policemen and fireman felt so powerless.
The police were afraid to enter the area, with shooters shooting from rooftops, and the fireman were averse to entering the area, to contain the fires, fearful of being shot at.
What else could be done but to "watch the show" until the National Guard arrived.
I really don't think it was a smart idea, back then, to have so many LAPD officers in Watts at the time, as if they had had more devious strategic plans, they could have fanned out all over L.A., setting fires, here and there, and the police department would have been scattered all over the area, with no concentration of forces anywhere.
And you know all too well where they would have rushed to the fastest, the richer areas of town, like a home torched in Malibu or the Hollywood Hills!
Well I think that you are right, but in the context of this discussion, I went with the low ball official numbers because they were sufficient to disabuse a response that was posted earlier.
I get the feeling you may be speaking of me.
Allow me to clarify: There was nothing exceptional about the Irish "animals" in 1863 or the AA "******s" in watts 100 years later. The specific circumstances of a massive riot dictate how much damage is done. The rioters ain't ****.
About the only things that can make a common rioter exceptional are if they are somewhere between an engineer and a construction laborer. Wanna know how to most efficiently and destructively destroy something? Ask the guys who built it.
OP, you asked not about one riot compared to another, but people compared to other people in a likely similar mental state (rage). The people are not the variable. And being Irish I guess i should be outraged about the Irish "animals" part but still laughing my ass off about it, lol. By today's standards, probably not far from the truth...and those are conceivably my great great great grandparents.
The actual numbers/statistics in this case don't mean diddly. The rioters don't mean diddly. The specific circumstances of the compared scenarios mean everything.
Allow me to clarify: There was nothing exceptional about the Irish "animals" in 1863 or the AA "******s" in watts 100 years later. The specific circumstances of a massive riot dictate how much damage is done. The rioters ain't ****.
Yet you rationalized one group's actions but not the other's.
Yet you rationalized one group's actions but not the other's.
Get a hobby.
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By today's standards, probably not far from the truth...and those are conceivably my great great great grandparents. 
