"To the Tribune Office!"
Howard, a reporter of the Tribune, was recognized:
"Kill him!"
"Hang him!"
The mob seized the reporter, dragged him to a lamp post and were about to put the rope around his neck when a blow from a cobblestone felled him to the sidewalk, the blood trickling down his neck.
A man bending over his body, shouted to the crowd:
"He's dead—we'll take the body away!"
A friend helped and they carried him into a store and saved his life.
For three days and nights this mob burned and killed at will and fought every officer of the law until the streets ran red with blood. They burned the Negro Orphan Asylum, beat, killed or hanged every negro who showed his face, sacked the home of Mayor Opdyke, at 79 Fifth Avenue, and attempted to burn it. They smashed in the Tribune building, gutted part of it and would have reduced it to ashes but for the brave defense put up by some of its men.
On the third day the announcement was made that the draft was suspended. Five thousand troops reached the city and partly succeeded in restoring order.