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