UNVEIL WEB BIO OF MAYOR WHO COPED WITH TERRORIST PLOT
TO INCINERATE LOWER MANHATTAN 137 YEARS AGO NOV. 25


The story of another mayor who coped with a plot by terrorists to incinerate 
Lower Manhattan has been posted on the web site of the nonprofit New York 
Correction History Society (www.correctionhistory.org) to note the sneak 
attack's 137th anniversary this Sunday, Nov. 25th. 

The seven-chapter biography of C. Godfrey Gunther, the city's jails and 
almshouse governor who became its 77th mayor (1864-66), is based on original 
research among primary sources as well as on study of standard works on New 
York history. 

The terrorists had sought to kill as many noncombatant civilians — men, women 
and children — as they could with fire and panic set off by their 80 
self-igniting devices. But, while the simultaneous firebombings of many 
hotels, theaters, museums, ships, boats, and harbor facilities did cause 
extensive damage, no lives were lost, thanks in part to effective responses 
by the mayor's beloved volunteer fire companies and by the attacked 
buildings’ own staffers and other occupants. 

The 1864 terrorists were not from a far continent and a different culture 
speaking another language. They were fellow Americans, albeit from the 
would-be Confederate States of America.

Research indicates an ironic connection may link that terrorist attack and 
the murder of Lincoln five months later. One of the places firebombed on 
Friday, Nov. 25, 1864, was the Winter Garden. What if the firebombing had 
succeeded in killing people in that New York City theater and its death toll 
had included one of the actors on the bill that night -- John Wilkes Booth? 
Then may we conclude that the Presidential assassination in Washington's Ford 
Theater, Good Friday, April 14, 1865, would not have happened?

Gunther first held public office on the Alms House Board of Governors that 
ran the welfare institutions and jails. Elected to it in 1854, he became its 
President in 1857.  The biography C. Godfrey Gunther: NYC Jails Governor & 
Civil War Mayor can be accessed from the home page of the New York Correction 
History Society at www.correctionhistory.org 

Thomas C. McCarthy
general secretary,
New York Correction History Society
http://www.correctionhistory.org
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director of historical services
Correction Academy
New York City Department of Correction
66-26 Metropolitan Ave.,
Middle Village, NY 11379
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(718) 417-2315
(718) 417-2326 fax