Fake News - Hartford, Connecticut

Fall River Daily Evening News article, which falsely reported that a draft riot was occuring in Hartford, Connecticut. July 15, 1863.

During the initial time that the riot in New York City broke out, a report was sent out over the telegraph that a riot had also erupted in Hartford, Connecticut. Newspapers in several states reported about it.[1] The line item in the newspapers was identical: “A riot has broken out in Hartford, and troops have been sent to protect the armory and arsenal. There is considerable excitement in this city”. In subsequent days, newspapers printed a retraction. There was never a riot in Hartford concurrent with the New York City draft riot. Soldiers had been mobilized to the armories and arsenals as a protective measure in case a riot would occur.[2] Thankfully, it did not.

Commentators reporting about the false riot had the opinion that the story was planted as a means of inciting riots to occur in Hartford, and possibly elsewhere. Draft procedures were accomplished without incident in Hartford’s 1^st and 2^nd draft districts.[3]

This is a retraction printed in the Union Times of Brooklyn, New York. The new article indicates that the reporting about a draft riot in Hartford, Connecticut was false. Someone apparently mistook the moblization of the military to the local armory as "evidence" that a riot was underway.

[1] See for example, The Pittsburg Patriot, July 16, 1863; Fall River Daily Evening News, July 15, 1863; Baltimore Sun, July 15, 1863; New York Tribune, July 15, 1863.

[2] New York Daily Sun, July 16 and 18, 1863; Brooklyn Times Union, July 15, 1863.

[3] New York Tribune, July 18, 1863.