The Devil's Own Work by Barnet Schecter

Author:Barnet Schecter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2009-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

"I think things begin to look better now," Joseph Choate wrote tentatively on Wednesday morning to his mother in Salem, Massachusetts. "Powder and ball are beginning to tell . . . but the riot is yet to be suppressed. This morning before breakfast I walked over to the 5th Ave. Hotel, and met a man who had just seen a negro hung by the Irish on the corner of 32nd St. & 6th Avenue. There has been nothing like this I think since the French Revolution. The barbarity and the extent of the mob you have no idea of. But we shall get the upper hand. Carrie and the girls are very brave and fear no danger."24

Lucy and Julia Gibbons wanted to return to their uncle Samuel's to get some clothes, but Choate gave them strict orders not to answer the door and with a male friend went to run the errand for them.25James Gibbons went to report the attack on his house and remained upbeat. "You will see by the papers that our house has been sacked," he wrote to a friend on Wednesday. "Our daughters saved most of their best clothing by previous removal. Everything taken. If you have any means of communication with Mrs. Gibbons, please say we are all well and in jovial spirits. It is our contribution to the war"26

Knowing that despite the sabotage of the railroads her mother would try to come back from the front, Julia wrote to her that day: "Now about thy coming home! Thee had very decidedly, better not come." Emphasizing she could do nothing even if she managed to return, Julia continued: "Uncle Samuel is this morning having the windows indoors boarded up so that we may have an opportunity of going down through the roof and seeing if there is anything left . . . We are so glad to get off with our lives and dearest possessions, that we can only be satisfied with the result. Many lives have been endangered, and our just having left the house, and father having been out of the neighborhood, are such fortunate circumstances that we can regret nothing . . . and the only thing left for us to do is wait. "27

Choate and his friend "returned each with a pillow-case full of things they had picked from the floor of Uncle Samuel's attic," Lucy Gibbons recalled.

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