Benjamin Franklin Manierre, I

George Manierre I’s younger brother Benjamin Franklin Manierre (1822-1910) remained in New York City with his mother when George moved to Chicago.

He was one of the founders of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), and an incorporator of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, New York City.

He was for many years a banker, having his office under P. T. Barnum’s American Museum at Broadway and Park Row (No. 3 Park Row). This was a very fashionable district at the time. Matthew Brady’s photograph studio was located directly across the street. P.T. Barnum was one of B.F. Manierre’s clients. “Mr. Barnum was sometimes in business difficulties and the story was that on one occasion when he was being examined as to any possible assets, in answer to a question, he said that he lived on charity. Charity was his wife’s first name, although his attorney did not know it. (C. E. Manierre, 1925)” From 1842 until its destruction in a fire in 1865, Barnum’s American Museum was one of New York City’s — and the nation’s — major attractions and helped define popular culture in the antebellum period. Contained within the museum’s five stories was a cornucopia of exhibitions offering visitors, in no particular order, information and entertainment, scientific knowledge and trumped-up fantasy, and moral lessons and cruel voyeurism. Among the objects exhibited were a glass steam engine, the fattest baby in New York, the “Feejee Mermaid” [one of a number of spurious exhibits, it was actually the upper torso of a monkey sewn to the lower half of a fish], a living whale, a dead whale, and someone called the “Giantess.”)

Benjamin F. Manierre was elected a state senator from New York state's 6th District, 1860-61 as a Republican. This was no mean feat in heavily Democratic New York City.

Benjamin F. Manierre was a member of the Young Men’s Central Republican Union, an organization that had originally formed in 1856 as the Fremont & Dayton Central Union to support the first-ever national Republican ticket. The candidates were John Frémont for president and William Dayton for vice-president. As a member of the YMCRU’s executive Committee, Benjamin F. Manierre participated in organizing Abraham Lincoln’s visit to New York City to deliver a speech at Cooper Union. Historian Harold Holzer called this “the speech that made Abraham Lincoln president,” and wrote that if Lincoln had not made this speech, he would not have become the 16th president of the United States. Benjamin F. Manierre wrote a letter (Fay Museum, Springfield, Illinois) to Lincoln urging him to come to NYC, Manierre enclosed $30 to help with Lincoln’s traveling expenses, a considerable sum at the time. (The Fay Museum was a private museum at the Lincoln Tomb operated by Herbert Wells Fay, who was custodian of the Lincoln Tomb from 1920 to 1948. The collection was sold in the 1950s and parts of it are at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, but Daniel W. Stowell, Director and Editor of The Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, said in 2007 correspondence with MRD that this letter is not in the library’s collection.) Since both Benjamin F. Manierre and his brother, Judge George Manierre, were each deeply involved in Republican Party politics, it seems likely that they corresponded with each other about Abraham Lincoln of Illinois.

Harry Holzer tells us that after Lincoln delivered his speech, “his hosts ushered him off to the Athenaeum Club on Fifth Avenue, near Seventeenth Street, for a celebratory supper,” and that the eight men accompanying him included Benjamin F. Manierre. (2004, p. 151)

President Lincoln gave most of the members of the executive committee of the YMCRU patronage jobs (Holzer, 2004, pp 239-240).

The following is the text of a letter from Benjamin F. Manierre to Abraham Lincoln, written on January 23, 1861.

(Robert Todd Lincoln Collection of Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress.

View it online at http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mal/mal1/066/0661200/001.jpg)

State of New York

Senate Chamber.

Albany, January 28, 1861

Dear Sir,

Permit me to introduce the bearer, Mr. Rich’d C. McCormick of the City of New York. Mr. McC was one of the most active members of the Republican Union, and had charge of the publication of your great speech.

Very Truly Yours, Benj. F. Manierre

Senator, 6th Dist

To His Excellency, Abraham Lincoln

Barely a week after Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address, B. F. Manierre was one of five signers of an 1863 letter inviting Lincoln to return to Cooper Institute to encourage enlistment.

(Also at the Library of Congress, and at

http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mal/mal1/283/2831800/001.jpg)

New York, November 28, 1863

To the President,

Sir:

A public meeting of citizens will be held at Cooper Institute on Thursday Evening next, the 3rd December, in response to your call on the nation for additional volunteers.

We beg leave, on behalf of the Committee of Arrangements, to invite you to be present and to Encourage by your voice the active efforts of the loyal men of this city in support of the Union Cause.

We need scarcely say that your compliance will afford the highest gratification to the people of this city.

With High Respect,

George Opdyke
Josh Sutherland
Benjamin F. Manierre
Prosper M. Whetmore
Spencer Kirby

Lincoln wrote to Opdyke, et al. On December 2 and declined the invitation.

Benjamin F. Manierre held the rank of captain in the US Army during the Civil War, and was “provost marshal of the draft in his congressional district in 1863, and sent into the field the One Hundred Seventy-sixth New York Regiment. In the New York City draft riots, July 11-13, 1863, his office at 28th Street and Broadway was burned, while mobs attempted to fire his home, then at 26 West 24th Street. (his NY Times obit.)” Other sources report that the mob failed to burn Manierre’s house simply because they didn’t know its location.

The Civil War Society's Encyclopedia of the Civil War provides this description of the draft riots:

"’The nation is at this time in a state of Revolution, North, South, East, and West,’ wrote the Washington Times during the often violent protests that occurred after Abraham Lincoln issued the March 3, 1863, Enrollment Act of Conscription. Although demonstrations took place in many Northern cities, the riots that broke out in New York City were both the most violent and the most publicized.

“With a large and powerful Democratic party operating in the city, a dramatic show of dissent had been long in the making. The state's popular governor, Democrat Horatio Seymour, openly despised Lincoln and his policies. In addition, the Enrollment Act shocked a population already tired of the two-year-old war.

“By the time the names of the first draftees were drawn in New York City on July 11, reports about the carnage of Gettysburg had been published in city papers. Lincoln's call for 300,000 more young men to fight a seemingly endless war frightened even those who supported the Union cause. Moreover, the Enrollment Act contained several exemptions, including the payment of a ‘commutation fee’ that allowed wealthier and more influential citizens to buy their way out of service.

“Perhaps no group was more resentful of these inequities than the Irish immigrants populating the slums of northeastern cities. [See #16: Patrick Delahunt’s relatives’ related story.] Poor and more than a little prejudiced against blacks — with whom they were both unfamiliar and forced to compete for the lowest-paying jobs — the Irish in New York objected to fighting on their behalf.”

On Sunday, June 12, the names of the draftees drawn the day before by the Provost Marshall Benjamin F. Manierre were published in newspapers. Within hours, groups of irate citizens, many of them Irish immigrants, banded together across the city. Eventually numbering some 50,000 people, the mob terrorized neighborhoods on the East Side of New York for three days looting scores of stores. Blacks were the targets of most attacks on citizens; several lynchings and beatings occurred. In addition, a black church and orphanage were burned to the ground.

All in all, the mob caused more than $1.5 million of damage. The number killed or wounded during the riot is unknown, but estimates range from two dozen to nearly 100. Eventually, Lincoln deployed combat troops from the Federal Army of the Potomac to restore order; they remained encamped around the city for several weeks. In the end, the draft raised only about 150,000 troops throughout the North, about three-quarters of them substitutes, amounting to just one-fifth of the total Union force.

from Ackerman’s book, Boss Tweed (2005):

"In early 1863, with the Civil War raging and war profiteering ever expanding, Tweed became leader of the central committee of Tammany Hall. A few months later, he was elected Grand Sachem, the man at the top. Then came a turning point. When the horrific draft riots exploded on July 13, 1863, most Democrats sympathized with the protesters, if not their violence, but were timid about getting actively involved. President Lincoln's conscription law was boneheaded and unjust, allowing rich kids to buy their way out of the draft for $300 (about $6,000 in today's money) while Tammany's constituents — most of them poor Irish who could never raise the payoff money — would be sent off to fight and die for the Union. But during the riots, the new Boss did not flee to a peaceful suburb. He walked the bloody streets, urging calm. Tweed did not inflame violence, he prevented it.

"In a way, that display of sensible bravery made him. The establishment nodded in approval. Newspapers applauded. Tweed did not stop with his patrols through the downtown streets. He showed an understanding of one basic principle of the realistic pol: All serious problems might not be solved, but they must be managed. Tweed worked on managing the draft mess, creating a system of exemptions (cops, firemen, militia members) and case-by-case hardship exemptions for heads of impoverished families. The city itself would find substitutes for the exempted draftees, and pay the substitutes $300 bonuses from a special fund financed by the selling of bonds on Wall Street."

This way, Ackerman writes, Lincoln's army would get its soldiers and the people would get relief.

The draft went on, but without riots. When the war was finally over, Tweed for a long time was considered a reformer. As a state senator in Albany, heavy with cash, he fought for and won home rule for New York City.

In 1866, the state legislature appointed Benjamin F. Manierre to an eight-year term as a police commissioner for the Metropolitan District of New York City. He served a second term when appointed to the office by the mayor. [Abraham Oakey Hall was Mayor of NYC from January 4, 1869 to December 31, 1872.] Mayor Oakey was a member of the notoriously corrupt Tweed Ring, the Tammany Democrats who ran the city government, led by William “Boss” Tweed. This made Benjamin F. Manierre one of the few Republicans who lent support to the Ring. It was brought down by Thomas Nast’s editorial cartoons in Harper’s Weekly, and stories printed in The New York Times. The Times ran two editorial pieces in October of 1870 that criticized Manierre’s role as a Tammany Republican.

In 1872 Benjamin F. Manierre supported the “Liberal Republican” party whose candidate for the U.S. presidency was Horace Greeley. With good reason, Greeley, Manierre, and other Liberal Republicans considered incumbent Republican President U.S. Grant and his administration to be thoroughly corrupt. In spite of this split in his party, Grant won re-election.

Closer to home, the party that was most in power in New York City was the Democratic Party, which was dominated by Tammany Hall and the famously corrupt Boss Tweed. This period coincided with the height of Benjamin F. Manierre’s involvement in New York politics. It would be interesting to learn more about Manierre’s activities in relation to those of the Tweed Ring. In 1875 Benjamin F. Manierre’s nephew, William R. Manierre was wed to Julia Orr Edson, whose uncle Franklin Edson was the Tammany mayor of New York City in 1883 - 1884.

Benjamin F. Manierre retired to his country home in Scarborough, NY (about 20 miles north of Manhattan on the east bank of the Hudson River), but continued to be active on the fringes of the political scene, notably as a supporter of the Prohibitionist Party. His two sons were each candidates for political offices on Prohibitionist tickets.

The New York Times interviewed B. F. Manierre for a November 16, 1902, article about his experiences as a commissioner on New York City’s Board of Police.

Benjamin Franklin Manierre died of pneumonia in New York at 88 years old at the home of his son Charles E. Manierre, at 352 West End Avenue, New York City.

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From The New-York Times July 11, 1863:

THE DRAFT; IT BEGINS TO-DAY. The Ninth District First in the Field. WHO MUST GO AND WHO ARE EXEMPT. WHAT IS A PHYSICAL DISABILITY. THE NINTH DISTRICT THE BOARD OF ENROLLMENT WHO CAN BE DRAFTED? REGULATIONS

The announcement in the TIMES, of Friday, that Capt. MANIERRE, of the Eighth Congressional District, had completed his arrangements for the proposed draft, and had issued his formal notice to the able-bodied citizens of the Eighteenth, Twentieth and Twenty-first Wards that the drawings would take place at the District Headquarters on Monday next, produced the most intense excitement amongst the people of the City, and brought home to them, for the first time, as reality, that which for months has been an expectation, and, to a certain extent, a byword and a joke. In justice to our people, it must be recorded that the almost universal expression is that of satisfaction and acquiescence in the wisdom and propriety of the measure.

Captain and Assistant Provost-Marshal JENKINS, of the Ninth District, must be entitled to the honor of being first in the field with the actual procedure. On information from those who should know, it was stated that the Eighth District was the only one ready, and was the one in which the draft would first be made, and so far as public notice was concerned, that fact remains undisputed. In to-day’s TIMES, however, due notice is given that taking time, or at least 48 hours of it, by the forelock, Capt. JENKINS appears in the van, and at 9 o’clock this morning, in public, at his headquarters at No. 677 Third-avenue will open the game, which will result in the conscription of several thousands of our most desirable citizens. …

The number of names ticketed and boxed ready for the draft in this District is 3,800. The number to be drawn is 1,[???]00.

In view of the absolute certainty of to-day’s proceedings, it becomes a matter of the greatest interest to every citizen to know first

In answer to this question the act expressly declares that “All able-bodied male citizens of the United States, and persons of foreign birth who shall have declared on oath their intention to become citizens under and in pursuance of the laws thereof, between the ages of 20 and 45, with certain exceptions, to be subject to draft.”

Those persons being enrolled, are divided into two classes, the first of which comprises all persons subject to do military duty between the ages of twenty and thirty-five years, and all unmarried persons subject to do military duty above the age of thirty-five and under the age of forty-five; the second class comprises all other persons subject to do military duty. The latter are not to be called into the service of the United States until those of the first class have been called. …

And in regard to those who are thus drafted, the following have been prepared:

Any person drafted and notified to appear may, on or before the day fixed for his appearance, furnish an acceptable substitute to take his place in the draft, or he may pay to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue in the Congressional District in which he may reside, the sum of $300. On the receipt of this sum, the Collector of Internal Revenue will give drafted persons paying it duplicate receipts. One copy of these receipts will be delivered to the Board of Enrollment on or before the day in which the drafted person is required to report for duty, and when so delivered to the Board, the drafted person will be furnished by the Board with a certificate of exemption, stating that such person is discharged from further liability under that draft, by reason of having paid the sum of $300. Any person failing to report after due service of notice as herein prescribed, without furnishing a substitute, or paying the required sum therefor, shall be arrested by the Provost-Marshal [Benjamin Franklin Manierre was Provost Marshal in his Congressional District] and sent to the nearest military post for trial by Court-martial, unless, upon proper showing that he is not liable to military duty, the Board of Enrollment shall relieve him from the draft. All drafted persons will, on arriving at the rendezvous, be inspected by the surgeon of the Board, who will report to the Board the physical condition of each one; and all persons drafted and claiming exemption from military duty on account of disability, or any other cause, shall present their claims to be exempted to the Board, whose decision will be final. As soon as the required number of able-bodied men liable to do military duty shall be obtained from the list of those drafted, the remainder are required to be discharged. The persons drafted are to be assigned by the President to military duty in such corps, regiments or other branches of the service as the exigencies of the service may require. …

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