HORACE GREELEY, the founder and editor of the 19th century New York Tribune, made a career of championing New York's down-trodden. Cutting a distinctive figure with his trademark white duster and rakishly long white hair, Greeley appeared both rugged and erudite. From the moment he founded the Tribune in 1841, he made sure to call special attention to the plight of New York's underclass, most of whom were impoverished Irish immigrants.

While Greeley never stopped advocating for his city's worst-off citizens, some of his opinions made him increasingly unpopular with New York's burgeoning Irish population. As an early proponent of abolition, Greeley and the Tribune became ardent supporters of President Lincoln. When the administration announced a military draft in early 1863, Greeley endorsed it--in spite of the draft's provision that any man who gave the government $300 would effectively buy his way out of military service.

The draft, and especially its $300 exemption clause, outraged New York's poor who were already in large part against the war. Having been previously convinced by Copperheads that freed slaves would eventually take their jobs, the Irish rebelled at the conscription law and prepared to visit their fury upon the war's supporters in general and Greeley and the New York Tribune, in particular.

BEGINNING ON Monday, July 13, 1863 and continuing for five days, the island of Manhattan saw the greatest civic unrest in American history. Barnet Schecter captured the episode well in his superb book, The Devil's Own Work: Egged on by Copperhead agitators, tens of

At the time, Manhattan was virtually defenseless; the Union Army, which included virtually the entirety of New York's militia, had been engaged in both the Battle of Gettysburg and the siege of Vicksburg. New York's small police force was numerically inadequate to do battle with a mob that outnumbered it by a margin of 100 to 1.

The mob raged at Greeley and his fellow pro-war members of the press with particular fury. It was no small irony that the people that Greeley had championed for decades were now marching through New York singing, "We'll hang old Greeley to a sour apple tree."

THERE WAS NO DOUBTING that the rioters meant what they sang. Conservative estimates of the riots' damage stand in the neighborhood of 500 dead.

With the authorities unable to protect them, Greeley's minions at the Tribune took it upon themselves to arm and garrison their building. James Gilmore, a member of the editorial staff, declared that "a blow aimed at the Tribune was aimed equally at free speech." While a mob of thousands surrounded the building declaring that they would soon attack, 150 members of the Tribune staff risked their lives to continue publishing the paper.

Just as it didn't back down physically, the Tribune refused to back down in its rhetoric. In its Wednesday edition the Tribune ran an editorial that announced it was armed and prepared to slaughter any attackers.

Although the more conservative New York Times wasn't as much of a target of the mob's wrath as the Tribune, it, too, turned itself into a garrison and refused to be cowed by the rioters; the Times editorialized during the week of mayhem that it would follow its conscience "without regard to the menaces of the mob."