Dead Rabbits

The Dead Rabbits was the media-bestowed name of an Irish American gang in New York City, in the 1850s. They called themselves the "Roach Guards" and were also known as the Black Birds. Historian Tyler Anbinder says, "The name so captured the imagination of New Yorkers that the press continued to use it despite the abundant evidence that no such club or gang existed." Anbinder notes that, "for more than a decade, 'Dead Rabbit' became the standard phrase by which city residents described any scandalously riotous individual or group."

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The Dead Rabbits were so named because they supposedly carried a dead rabbit on a pike or were said to throw a dead rabbit in the middle of a fight before it commenced. They often clashed with Nativist political groups seeking to eliminate Irish immigrant communities from New York City, and were instrumental in protecting their ethnic communities and identities from these radical groups. Their chief rival gang was the Bowery Boys, native-born New Yorkers who supported the Know Nothing political party in favor of kicking out the immigrant groups. These two rival gangs fought more than 200 gang battles in a span of 10 years, beginning in 1834, and they often outmanned the police force and even the state militias. They were also in the forefront of the Dead Rabbits Riot and the New York Draft Riots.

Besides street-fighting, the Dead Rabbits supported politicians such as Fernando Wood and the Tammany Hall machine, whose platforms included the welfare and benefit of immigrant groups and minorities, and under the leadership of Isaiah Rynders the gang acted as enforcers to violently persuade voters during elections to vote for their candidates.

According to legend, one of the most feared Dead Rabbits was "Hell-Cat Maggie," a woman who reportedly filed her teeth to points and wore brass fingernails into battle. One of the Dead Rabbit leaders, John Morrissey, would later become a Democratic State Senator and U.S. Congressman who ameliorated the conditions of the Irish-American communities for years to come.

New York's Democrats were divided into two camps: those who supported Mayor Fernando Wood and those who opposed him. The Bowery gangs were among the latter, while the Dead Rabbits were supporters of Wood. Thus, the Bowery Boys threw their support in league with state Republicans, who proposed legislation that would strip Wood of certain powers and place them in the hands of Albany. One of these proposals was to disband the Municipal Police Department, in which Wood's supporters had a controlling interest, and replace it with a state-run Metropolitan Police Department. Wood refused to disband his Municipal Department, and so for the first half of 1857, the two rival departments battled it out on the streets of the city until the courts ordered the Municipals to disband that July. On July 4 a bloody fight, the Dead Rabbits Riot, occurred with the Metropolitan Police and the Bowery gangs against the Municipal Police, Mulberry Street Boys, Roach Guard, and Dead Rabbits in Bayard Street.

There was a similar gang in Liverpool, England, in the late 19th century, also known as 'The Dead Rabbits'.