The scenes during the first hours of the war period were those characteristic of every community in which the Union sentiment was strong and unquestionable. Every class in the community made response. Plymouth Church, from whose pulpit had come the loyal and stirring oratory of Henry Ward Beecher, subscribed $1000 toward the equipment of the local regiments. A sum equally generous came from the Pierrepont Street Baptist Church. The Union Ferry Company offered to continue the salaries of any of its employees who might volunteer, thus assuring the safety of their families. Local business men and corporations gave similar demonstrations of patriotism. The appropriations of the Common Council began with a provision for the disbursement of $75,000 for the relief of the families of those who should volunteer. The Kings County Medical Society resolved that its members should attend gratuitously the families of volunteers.
There were signs of lukewarmness in certain quarters, and definite manifestations of sympathy with the South; but these met with decisive rebuke whenever they appeared. The Navy Yard was threatened, or was supposed to be threatened, by incendiary rebel sympathizers, but prompt action prevented the possibility of any form of attack.
A war meeting at Fort Greene drew out 50,000 people, and elicited demonstrations of hearty patriotism. A corps of Brooklyn women volunteered as nurses, and lint societies were organized by energetic women who undertook to supply equipment for the nurses. Women in the Clinton Avenue Congregational Church supplied over fifteen hundred yards of bandaging to the Twenty-eighth Regiment, which, amid great enthusiasm, followed the Thirteenth to the front. Brooklyn was largely represented in the organizing of the Twenty-first New York Volunteers. The organization of the Forty-eighth New York, under Colonel Perry, the First Long Island Regiment, the Nineteenth New York Volunteers (East New York), and the Fifth Independent Battery followed.
In 1861 the city and county sent out 10,000 men. The draft of 1862 rather staggered the city at its first coming, but the rally was enthusiastic, and the patriotic work proceeded. The armories of the city became centres of loyal activity.
The new fighting engine, the Monitor, was launched at Greenpoint in January, 1862. In March the novel iron craft had her struggle with the rebel Merrimac in Hampton Roads.
Greenpoint sent over a company to the Thirty-first New York Volunteers.
In 1863 the local militia, or National Guard, included the Thirteenth Regiment, under Colonel Woodward; the Twenty-third, Colonel Everdell; the Twenty-eighth, Colonel Bennett; the Forty-seventh, Colonel Meserole; the Fifty-second, Colonel Cole; the Fifty-sixth, Colonel Adams. In the Southern trips, such as those made by the Twenty-third and the Forty-seventh regiments, the National Guard performed excellent service aside from the heavier duty in action.
The New York draft riots of 1863 naturally affected Brooklyn very closely, not only in such instances of mob violence as the firing of the grain elevators in the Atlantic Basin, but in the menacing and really dangerous movements incident to the reign of terror. Brooklyn volunteers lent important aid in the defense of the State Arsenal in New York.
To facilitate recruiting in the county, the Supervisors, in November, 1863, resolved upon acquiring a loan of $250,000, and $300 bounty was afterward paid to each recruit.
Mayor Kalbfleisch was succeeded as Mayor in 1864 by Colonel Wood, who had organized the Fourteenth Regiment, was wounded and captured at the first Bull Run, and was released by exchange in 1862.