🔥 “New York in Flames: The 1863 Draft Riots and the War Within the North” 🔥 The New York City Draft Riots of July 1863 stand among the darkest chapters of Northern home-front unrest during the Civil War. Sparked by anger over the newly enacted draft law, which allowed wealthier men to pay a $300 commutation fee to avoid service, working-class citizens—mostly Irish immigrants—saw it as a war fought for the rich but paid for the poor. When the names of draftees were drawn on July 13, the city ex