Atlantic Guards

{{Short description|19th-century NYC street gang}}

{{Infobox Criminal organization

| name = Atlantic Guards

| image =

| caption =

| founded =

| founding location = Bowery, Manhattan, New York City

| founded by =

| years active = 1840s–1860s

| territory = Bowery, Manhattan, New York City

| ethnic makeup = Non-Irish American

| membership est = ?

| criminal activities = Assault, street fighting, knife fighting

| allies = Bowery Boys, American Guards, O'Connell Guards, True Blue Americans, American Republican Party (American Nativist Party, American Party), Order of the Star Spangled Banner (Anti-immigrant secret society)

| rivals = Dead Rabbits

}}

The Atlantic Guards were a 19th-century American street gang active in New York City from the 1840s to the 1860s. It was one of the original, and among the most important gangs of the early days of the Bowery, along with the Bowery Boys, American Guards, O'Connell Guards, and the True Blue Americans.Asbury, Herbert. The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the New York Underworld. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928. (pg. 26-27, 102, 106) {{ISBN|1-56025-275-8}}Peterson, Virgil W. The Mob: 200 Years of Organized Crime in New York. Ottawa, Illinois: Green Hill Publishers, 1983. (pg. 13) {{ISBN|0-89803-123-0}}Kenney, Dennis Jay and James O. Finckenauer. Organized Crime in America. New York: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1995. (pg. 75) {{ISBN|0-534-24702-4}}

Although engaging in street fighting, these gangs were generally less criminal in nature than their Five Point rivals, stopping "just short of murder",{{cite news |title=New York Cavalcade: Paid Killers and the Underworld |author=Sobol, Louis |author-link=Louis Sobol |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XZstAAAAIBAJ&sjid=u54FAAAAIBAJ&pg=835,3464677 |newspaper=Daytona Beach Morning Journal |date=November 18, 1965 |access-date=October 31, 2012}} instead formed as nativist vigilante groups focused on protecting Bowery neighborhoods.Giamo, Benedict. On the Bowery: Confronting Homelessness in American Society. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1989. (pg. 9) {{ISBN|0-87745-243-1}}Sante, Lucy. Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003. (pg. 200-203) {{ISBN|0-374-52899-3}} It was common for Bowery and Five Point gangs alike to imitate (and sometimes parody) actual military companies and wear signature "uniforms" (e.g. the stove pipe hats and long black frock coats of the True Blue Americans).Kett, Joseph F. Rites of Passage: Adolescence in America, 1790 to the Present. New York: Basic Books, 1977. (pg. 92) {{ISBN|0465070434}} The Atlantic Guards wore a red stripe on their trousers.{{cite news |title=Murderous Gangs Of A Half Century And More Ago |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1912/08/04/100591919.pdf |newspaper=The New York Times |date=August 4, 1912 |access-date=October 31, 2012}}

A longtime ally of the Bowery Boys, they were referred to by journalist Carleton Beals as "Bill "the Butcher" Poole's Christopher Street thugs"Beals, Carleton. Brass-Knuckle Crusade: The Great Know-Nothing Conspiracy, 1820-1860. New York: Hastings House, 1960. (pg. 20) and often warred with the Irish American gangs of the Five Points, most especially, the Dead Rabbits. This feud would continue throughout the 1840s and 50s, at the height of the Know Nothing movement, culminating in the Dead Rabbits Riot in 1857. The riot originally began with a Five Points raid on No. 42 Bowery, the headquarters of the Bowery Boys and the Atlantic Guards, in "celebration" of the Fourth of July.{{cite news |title=The Gangs of New York: Facts That Out Thrill Fiction |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=12JQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=FA8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=5184,2345188 |newspaper=The Milwaukee Sentinel |date=November 13, 1928 |access-date=October 31, 2012}} The Five Pointers showered the saloon with sticks and paving stone before moving on to the nearby Branch Hotel. The guests managed to hold off the mob until they were driven off by an estimated 300 Atlantic Guards and Bowery Boys.Ferrara, Eric. The Bowery: A History of Grit, Graft and Grandeur. Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press, 2011. (pg. 50) {{ISBN|1-60949-178-5}} Fighting continued, however, and soon escalated into a citywide gang war lasting two days before order was restored by the New York State Militia under Major-General Charles W. Sandford.Mendelsohn, Joyce. The Lower East Side Remembered and Revisited: A History and Guide to a Legendary New York Neighborhood. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. (pg. 238) {{ISBN|0-231-14761-9}}