Years active 1854-1865 | Membership (est.) ? | |
Founding location Baltimore, Maryland and Five Points, Manhattan, New York City Territory Baltimore, Maryland and Five Points, Manhattan, New York City, New York, present-day Worth Street, Baxter Street, and Columbus Park, in Manhattan, New York City, New York Ethnicity Irish and Irish-American Criminal activities street fighting, knife fighting assault, murder, robbery, arson, rioting | ||
The Plug Uglies were a street gang, sometimes referred to as a political club, that operated in the west side of Baltimore, Maryland from 1854 to 1865 and later, in the Five Points, of New York City.
The Plug Uglies coalesced shortly after the creation of the Mount Vernon Hook-and-Ladder Company, a volunteer fire company whose truck house was on Biddle Street, between Pennsylvania Avenue and Ross Street (later Druid Hill). They were originally runners and rowdies affiliated with Mount Vernon. Plug Ugly captains included John English and James Morgan. Other prominent members were Louis A. Carl, George Coulson, George "Howard" Davis, Henry Clay Gambrill, Alexander Levy, Erasmus "Ras" Levy, James Wardell, and Wesley Woodward. The gang associated with the emerging American Party also, known as the Know Nothings, in Baltimore.
Like similar associations in Baltimore and other United States cities during this period, the Plug Uglies' street influence made them useful to party politicians anxious to control the polls on Election Days. The Plug Uglies were the central figures in the first election riot in Baltimore in October 1855. Together with the Rip Raps, they were also actively involved in deadly rioting at the October 1856 municipal election in Baltimore and in similar violence at the Know-Nothing Riot in Washington in June 1857. At the Washington riot, the National Guard called out to quell the fighting, shot and killed ten citizens. Accounts of the Washington riot appeared in newspapers nationally and gained widespread notoriety for the Plug Uglies.
Besides election-day fighting, the gang was involved in several assassinations and shootings in Baltimore. Most notably, Plug Ugly Henry Gambrill was implicated in the murder of a Baltimore police officer in September 1858. Gambrill's trial (presided over by judge Henry Stump) and the subsequent deadly violence relating to it, made the crime one of the most sensational of the era.
The violence of the Plug Uglies and other political clubs had an important impact on Baltimore. It was largely responsible for the creation of modern policing and a paid, professional fire department, as well as court and electoral reforms. These reforms, together with the election of a Reform municipal administration in October 1860 and then the Civil War, led to the breaking up of the Plug Uglies.
The gang was featured in Herbert Asbury's book Gangs of New York, and Luc Sante's chronicle of old New York, Low Life.
On July 16, 1863, during the New York City draft riots, The New York Times reported that Plug-Uglies and Blood Tubs gang members from Baltimore, as well as "Scuykill Rangers and other rowdies of Philadelphia," had come to New York to participate in the riots alongside the Dead Rabbits and other New York gangs. The Times said that "the scoundrels cannot afford to miss this golden opportunity of indulging their brutal natures, and at the same time serving their colleagues the Copperheads and secesh [secessionist] sympathizers."