[Some of the
more complex American histories and stories revolve around women and war. In
this week’s series, I’ll highlight and AmericanStudy five such stories—but this
is just the tip of the iceberg, for these stories and overall, and so as always
I’d love to hear your responses and thoughts!]
On the tragedy
that sheds new light on one of our more complex histories.
In this
post on Martin Scorcese’s Gangs of New York (2002), I gave the filmmaker a good bit
of grief for the way in which his film builds toward a chaotic but sympathetic
depiction of the city’s Irish American community during the 1863 draft riots.
As I noted there, the riots were of course part of a complex set of historical
and social contexts and factors, but likewise, and even more saliently for
Scorcese’s sympathies, was the
period’s Irish American community. It’s always challenging for those of us
striving for a progressive perspective on history when one oppressed community
opposes another, and that’s undoubtedly part of the story of the riots: a
recent, heavily discriminated-against American community (Irish immigrants) reacting
to yet another perceived discrimination (the Civil War draft) by enacting
violence against an even more discriminated-against community (African Americans).
If we’re going
to remember the draft riots more fully and accurately, as I believe we
certainly should, it’d be important at the same time to remember the ways in
which Irish Americans contributed much more constructively to the Union cause
during the war. That would definitely include the
nearly 150,000 Federal troops who had been born in Ireland, nearly a third
of whom were apparently New Yorkers and all of whom were instrumental to the war’s successful
outcome. But it would also include the many Irish
American women who worked in the era’s mills, factories, and especially
arsenals—the latter especially not only because of their overt contributions to
the war effort, but also because of the striking number of tragic
arsenal explosions and accidents that claimed many workers’ lives (in
the South as well as the North) over the course of the war.
Exemplifying
such tragedies, and particularly overtly linked (in its own era and in
our collective memories of the event) to the Irish American community, was
the June
1864 Washington Arsenal fire. 1,500 men, women, and girls worked in that
arsenal, and while it’s impossible to ascertain an exact tally of how many were
killed and wounded in the fire, historians
estimate that at least twenty women died (the particular
area where the fire began was worked almost exclusively by women), and many
of the rest were likely injured either in the blaze or during their escape. It’s
certainly fair to say that these workers were casualties of war, just as all
such workers contributed mightily to the war effort; fair and important to
remember them right alongside those Irish American soldiers. And, to reiterate,
right alongside the New York draft rioters as well. History’s not reducible to
any one moment, and the more we put them in conversation, with each other and
all their contexts, the stronger and more valuable those collective memories
will be.
Next war story
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Other war stories you'd highlight?
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