At 6 a.m. on Tuesday William Williams, an African-American sailor, approached Edward Ray, a white schoolboy standing at the corner of Leroy and Washington streets, to ask directions to the nearest grocery. As Ray gave Williams directions, a group of white men, led by longshoreman Edward Canfield, emerged from nearby buildings to ask Williams what he wanted. Before he could respond, Williams was brutally beaten and stabbed, and left in the street to die.

Throughout the course of the four days of rioting, crowds attacked, beat, and killed African Americans. In the face of such racial violence, many black New Yorkers fled the city; others, such as Jeremiah Robinson, died trying. Robinson was well aware that rioters targeted African-American men for attack. He put on one of his wife's dresses and attempted to flee to Brooklyn, but was discovered by the crowd, beaten to death, and his body was thrown into the East River.

Not only did crowds brutally beat and often lynch blacks; they attacked whites who offered African Americans safe harbor, often plundering and burning their homes. The crowd also attacked brothels that catered to a racially mixed clientele. By Tuesday, protests focused on the draft were less prevalent; the riot had become an all-out assault on New York's African-American citizens and the city's Republican elite.