The Vigilance Committee of 1856 by James O'Meara
page 45 of 53 (84%)
page 45 of 53 (84%)
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committee remarked to me, on the occasion of his death by the rifle shot
of a policeman while he was wild with delirium tremens, that he was the only prisoner ever put in the committee cells who did not "weaken." He was a character the community could well spare; but he had given the committee no offence to justify his banishment. Yankee Sullivan's character is notorious. He was a professional prize-fighter - ready to try conclusions in the fistic ring with any in the world; but he feared a pistol or a knife as an ordinary man would fear a blow from his powerful arm. He had helped Mulligan and Casey in some of their election operations, and for that he was arrested. There was no charge of any other nature than this and his fighting quality to warrant his arrest. His courage or spirit broke down while confined in the close cell, and one morning his lifeless body was found stiff in the cell. He had opened a vein in his arm and bled to death. The rumor at the time was - and it is still believed - that he was driven to the deed by the remark made by one of the Vigilance guards outside the cell, but spoken in tone calculated for Sullivan to hear it, that he was to be hanged the next morning. To escape the ignominy of such a death, he anticipated it by his own hand. Martin Gallagher and Billy Carr were boatmen, and active in party manipulations in the interest of Mr. Broderick in the First Ward. They were tough men to handle in a fight, and usually forced their own way in anything they undertook. With Mulligan they often sat as delegates in city, county and State conventions of the Democracy - together with several other of their associates and kind, who are still more or less prominent in city politics - some of them Democrats, some Republicans. Bill Lewis was sent out of the country none too soon. He was a great, powerful, terrorizing fellow, desperate and unscrupulous, and one to |
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