394 The Story of The Bronx 



destroyed and some rails on the Harlem and New Haven rail- 

 roads were torn up, while arrangements were made for the 

 further destruction of the tracks by placing pickets as far as 

 Mt. Vernon to give notice when it would be safe to begin the 

 work of destruction. The railroads were obstructed with 

 the intention of preventing the arrival of troops or assistance 

 from out of town. The mobs at West Farms and Morrisania 

 were quieted by the appeals of Supervisor Cauldwell and Mr. 

 Pierre C. Talman. 



On the evening of Wednesday, the fifteenth, a meeting was 

 held in the town-hall at Tremont. There was a large crowd 

 present, which was addressed by John B. Haskin and Pierre 

 C. Talman, who managed the mass of excited and ignorant 

 men with considerable diplomacy, first flattering them with 

 the statement that they were right in their resistance to the 

 draft and the Government all wrong in enforcing it, and then 

 appealing to their sense of self-respect and order. The ground 

 of the argument used was that the draft was unconstitutional, 

 and that the Federal Government had no right to invade the 

 municipal rights of a sovereign State until the courts of that 

 State had decided whether a Federal act were constitutional 

 or not; in fact, the old idea of nullification. The meeting ad- 

 journed after the appointment of a committee of seven citizens 

 " to wait on Moses G. Sheard, Esq., Federal provost-marshal of 

 the district, to insist that the draft be stopped till the State 

 court could decide whether it was constitutional." The reign 

 of terror which had existed for two days was at an end, as 

 the appointment of the committee seemed to satisfy the ring- 

 leaders of the crowd. It is questionable whether it would have 

 done so if news had not come the next day that the troops 

 were returning from Gettysburg, and that those who had 

 already arrived in New York had come in contact with the 



