> Hey, do we get the whole Matson/Wood Saga along with the Plug Uglies, the 
> Dead Rabbits, the Atlantic Guards and the Metropolitans/Municipals 
> battles?
>
> Goodie, Goodie!
>
> Roger Collett

Well, not those two (and the Plug Uglies weren't a NY gang anyway).  But 
there are, slightly more respectable, the Empire Club run by Captain Isaiah 
Rynders, and the Spartan Botherhood in opposition by Mike Walsh, both 
basically heavy muscle for Tammany Hall.

The high point, of course, is the major intersection (Matsell and Walsh had 
been briefly on the same side in the 1830s, before they shot off in opposite 
directions, Matsell to become NY Chief of Police and Walsh to become NY 
State Representative for one term) at the Astor Place Riot, Matsell on one 
side of the barricades and Rynders, Walsh and Ned Buntline on the other.

I'm most interested in Matsell, obviously, and the Fernando Wood episode is 
characteristic.  OK, so I'm biased, but I'm inclined to believe Matsell when 
he says that he sided with Wood over the Two Police Forces business simply 
because he felt that Tweed was legally in the right.

Apart from anything else, Matsell had way before this a record of trying to 
free the New York cops from direct political influence.  Unfortunately, 
Matsell's reforms in this area, via extending the length of time an officer 
served, actually *did free them from political influence -- the cops didn't 
have to toady to the pols once a year to retain their jobs.  So nobody 
exactly loved him.  The Metropolitan/Municipals split was at bottom over 
*who had political influence, the Democrats (via at that time Wood) who ran 
the city or the Republicans who held the State.  If Matsell had stayed 
neutral, he'd probably have kept his job.

As it was, he was out of office at exactly the time that Boss Tweed was 
running Tammany Hall.  Whereas Captain Isaiah Rynders happily carried on. 
Whether or not he (Rynders) actually was responsible for eliminating Mike 
Walsh on the orders of Boss Tweed, I don't imagine Matsell would have shed 
many tears, given Mike Walsh's famous description of Matsell as "300 lbs of 
blubber and malice."

Same thing happened over slavery, why Matsell gets airbrushed out of a lot 
of histories, such as the reports of Frederick Douglas' anti-slavery speech 
in New York.  Matsell was actually more consistently anti-slavery than 
either Frances Wright on the one side or Mike Walsh on the other, but as 
Police Chief of NY, was responsible for implementing the Fugitive Slave Act, 
whether he liked it or not.

Ah, Matsell ... Don't start me.

Robin