Security· Civil Aid and Humanitarian Operations
New York Draft Riots response
The largest Marine deployment against domestic disorder in the nineteenth century, during the worst civil violence of the Civil War era.
When the first conscription drawings set off four days of rioting, arson, and murder across New York City, with mobs attacking federal property and lynching Black residents, the city authorities appealed for help. On 13 July a brigade of seamen and Marines under Lieutenant-Commander R.W. Meade left the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and the Marine battalion under Captain John C. Grayson was sent through the city, clearing the streets in the worst districts, assisting the police in making arrests, and patrolling and guarding public buildings threatened with destruction. The Marines carried out this duty from the 13th to the 20th of July, to the marked approval of the city authorities. The riots cost scores of lives overall, but the Marine battalion did its work without recorded loss.
Record no. 461