In early July 1863 the United States was in crisis. Vivid accounts of the enormously costly Battle of Gettysburg filled the newspapers, and a new conscription act which would draft soldiers into the Union Army was about to go into effect.

On Saturday, July 11, authorities began drafting men in a few neighborhoods in New York City. The first day passed peacefully, but tensions in the city began to rise over the hot weekend.

As Monday dawned, gangs of protesters, many of them Irish-Americans who felt they were being unfairly drafted into the war, showed up at federal offices and hurled stones through the windows. As the day progressed, pitched battles began taking place in the streets, and by nightfall New York City was plunged into widespread rioting.

The riots continued for several days, taking on a horrendous racial component as free blacks in New York were attacked and lynched.

The nation was shocked, and President Lincoln shuddered when he heard the grim news from New York City. Some even believed the riots were part of some grand conspiracy hatched by the Confederacy.

In the week of the New York Draft Riots, as many as 200 civilians were killed. And the draft continued, as Lincoln weathered the crisis of battles breaking out in the streets of a northern city.

Image: Police battle rioters outside the offices of the New York Tribune/Library of Congress

Watching the upbeat news reports over the weekend about the reopening of the crown of the Statue of Liberty, one would never know that Lady Liberty faced a long series of financial problems that nearly prevented her from ever holding her torch above the harbor in New York City.

The question of who actually paid for the statue has two sets of answers, one on each side of the Atlantic. And the efforts to raise money for the statue included some odd twists and turns, including even a lottery based in Paris.

In New York, newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, outraged by American apathy regarding the statue, organized a fund drive that inspired American schoolchildren to donate pennies.

It took years of hard work, crafty public relations, and some outright scheming, but the money was raised and the Statue of Liberty herself finally arose in 1886.

Image: Publisher Joseph Pulitzer/courtesy Library of Congress

A coded message sent to President Thomas Jefferson in 1801 as a challenge between friends has finally been cracked by a scientist using educated guesses and a bit of computing power.

The message was sent to Jefferson by Robert Patterson, a mathematics professor in Philadelphia. The two men shared a keen interest in codes and ciphers, and Patterson's message, in a code he had devised, was never deciphered by Jefferson.

Patterson deemed his new code nearly flawless, but a mathematician at Princeton eventually found a way to read what Patterson wrote to his friend. And the message, it turns out, was a passage that Jefferson, along with most history lovers, would have recognized.

Image: Thomas Jefferson/courtesy Library of Congress

On June 30, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed a piece of legislation that may have seemed trifling, especially against the backdrop of the Civil War. But by signing the Yosemite Valley Grant Act, Lincoln protected the magnificent wilderness that is Yosemite National Park.

The 1864 law is considered the first legislation designed to protect a wilderness area in the United States and it eventually led to the creation of the National Parks. The example was also followed by other countries, and resulted in wilderness preserves around the world.

Having spent most of last week in Yosemite, I'm deeply appreciative of Lincoln taking the time, 145 years ago today, to sign the legislation that helped begin the conservation movement.

Photograph: Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Gardner, November 1863/courtesy Library of Congress