Daniel Day-Lewis ruined us. Honestly, he did. His performance as Bill the Butcher in Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York was so visceral, so terrifyingly charismatic, that it basically erased the actual history of the man who inspired the role. People watch that movie and think they’re seeing a documentary-style portrayal of a mid-19th-century warlord. They aren't. They’re seeing a brilliant, operatic exaggeration of a man named William Poole.
The real Bill Poole didn't live in a cave or rule the Five Points with a top hat and a silver-headed cane during the Civil War. He was dead years before the Draft Riots even started.
But that’s the thing about the Butcher from Gangs of New York. The myth is so much stickier than the truth. When we talk about Bill, we’re talking about two different people: the cinematic monster who threw knives with surgical precision and the real-life bare-knuckle boxer who became a political martyr for the "Native American" (nativist) party. If you want to understand why this character still haunts our cultural imagination, you have to look at where the movie gets it right—and where it goes completely off the rails into historical fiction.
The Man Behind the Cleaver: Who Was William Poole?
The real Bill the Butcher was born in New Jersey in 1821 before moving to New York City. His father was a butcher, and Bill followed in the trade. Back then, being a butcher wasn't just about slicing steaks; it was a profession that required immense physical strength and a certain comfort with blood. Butcher shops were often the hubs of local neighborhoods, and the men who ran them were frequently the "muscle" for local political machines.
Poole was a giant for his time. He stood about six feet tall and weighed over 200 pounds, most of it muscle. He wasn't just a shop owner; he was a leader of the Bowery Boys.
Now, don't confuse the Bowery Boys with the destitute Irish gangs of the Five Points. The Bowery Boys were "Nativists." They were anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, and fiercely pro-American (in their own narrow definition of the word). They were firemen, tradesmen, and butchers who hated the influx of Irish refugees fleeing the Great Famine.
Scorsese gets the vibe right, but the geography is a bit scrambled. Bill Poole didn't hang out in the Old Brewery in the Five Points. He was a Bowery man. The Bowery was his turf. The Five Points was the "foreign" territory he wanted to keep in check. He was a professional "shoulder hitter"—a guy hired by politicians to stand at polling places and "persuade" people to vote the right way. Usually with his fists.
Why Daniel Day-Lewis is Both Perfect and Historically Impossible
Let’s get into the movie. Daniel Day-Lewis plays William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting. Note the name change. That was Scorsese’s way of saying, "Hey, this is a fictionalized version."
In the film, Bill is an old man, a veteran of decades of street war. He’s the undisputed king of the Five Points. He has a glass eye with an American eagle on it. He’s a Shakespearean villain who loves his enemies as much as he hates them.
It’s a masterpiece of acting. But it’s also a timeline nightmare.
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- The Death Date: The movie ends in 1863 during the New York Draft Riots. In the film, Bill dies in a grand, cinematic duel against Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio). In reality? William Poole died in 1855. He was shot in a bar.
- The Weaponry: The movie Bill is a knife-throwing expert. He carries a whole kit of specialized blades. The real Bill was a legendary bare-knuckle brawler. He didn't need to throw a knife from twenty paces; he’d just gouge your eyes out in a street fight. Eye-gouging was actually his signature move.
- The Glass Eye: There is zero historical evidence that William Poole had a glass eye with an eagle on it. That was a prop choice to symbolize his blind, obsessive patriotism.
Despite these tweaks, the energy is accurate. Bill Poole was a man of extreme convictions. He truly believed he was protecting the "real" America from a "Papist" invasion. When he was lying on his deathbed after being shot at Stanwix Hall, his alleged last words were: "I die a true American."
That line made it into the movie. It’s one of the few things that is almost certainly a direct lift from historical accounts.
The Rivalry That Defined an Era
You can't talk about the Butcher from Gangs of New York without talking about John Morrissey. In the movie, this is the Amsterdam Vallon character—the Irish immigrant seeking revenge.
In real life, John "Old Smoke" Morrissey was a terrifying figure in his own right. He was an Irish immigrant, a heavyweight boxing champion, and a leader of the Dead Rabbits. He eventually became a U.S. Congressman and a founder of the Saratoga Race Course. He was the ultimate "American Dream" success story, but he started as a thug for Tammany Hall.
The feud between Poole and Morrissey wasn't about a murdered father. It was about politics, ego, and a boxing match that went horribly wrong.
Poole and Morrissey fought a brutal match at Amos Dock in 1854. Poole won, but only after his Bowery Boy friends jumped in and started kicking Morrissey while he was down. Morrissey, understandably, wanted revenge. He didn't get it himself; instead, his associates caught up with Bill at a saloon called Stanwix Hall on February 24, 1855.
Lew Baker, one of Morrissey’s guys, shot Poole in the leg and then in the chest.
Bill didn't die instantly. He lingered for nearly two weeks. The city was on edge. Thousands of people lined the streets for his funeral. It was one of the largest public gatherings in New York history at the time. He wasn't just a gang leader; he was a folk hero for the anti-immigrant movement.
Exploring the Myth of the Five Points
The movie depicts the Five Points as a hellish, underground cavern of filth and depravity. While it was certainly a slum, it wasn't a literal cave. It was a dense, vibrating neighborhood of tenements, dance halls, and grocery stores.
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The Butcher from Gangs of New York is portrayed as the gatekeeper of this chaos. He represents the "Native" anger against the changing face of the city.
One of the most authentic things the movie captures is the collision of subcultures. You had the "Dandies," the "Bowery B'hoys," the "Dead Rabbits," and the "Short Tails." Each group had their own uniform. Bill’s look in the movie—the exaggerated stovepipe hat, the checkered trousers, the flamboyant silk waistcoats—is actually fairly accurate to how a high-ranking Bowery Boy would have dressed. They were the original peacocks of the New York streets. They wanted you to see them coming.
How the Butcher Became a Political Tool
It’s easy to dismiss Bill as just a street thug. He wasn't. He was a political operative.
The mid-1800s in New York were defined by the "Know-Nothing" Party. They were a secretive organization (when asked about their activities, they were supposed to say, "I know nothing") that eventually became the American Party. Their whole platform was built on the fear that Irish and German immigrants were going to destroy the country.
Bill Poole was their enforcer.
Think about that. The Butcher from Gangs of New York wasn't just some random killer. He was the physical manifestation of a political movement that briefly took over American discourse. When he died, he became a martyr. Plays were written about him. He was the "martyred patriot" in the eyes of the Nativists.
This is the complexity Scorsese was trying to capture. Bill isn't just a villain; he’s a man who believes he is the hero of his own story. He thinks he is the only one standing in the breach, protecting the legacy of the Founding Fathers.
Accuracy Check: Common Misconceptions
People often ask if the "Dead Rabbits" were real. Yes. They were.
Were they as organized as they are in the movie? Probably not. Most "gangs" of that era were loose collections of neighborhood guys who hung out at the same bar or firehouse. They didn't have matching uniforms or formal battle plans.
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Another big one: The knife-throwing.
I mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. There is no record of Bill Poole being a knife thrower. The real Bill was a brawler. He used his hands. He used his feet. He used the environment. The knife-throwing in the movie was added because Daniel Day-Lewis is a physical actor who loves to learn a craft, and it made for a more visually interesting character. It gave him that "butcher" precision that felt more cinematic than a standard punch to the face.
The Cultural Legacy of the Butcher
Why do we still care?
Honestly, it’s because the tensions Bill represented haven't really gone away. The fear of "the outsider," the struggle for the soul of the city, the way politics turns into violence—those are evergreen themes.
The Butcher from Gangs of New York remains the definitive portrayal of American nativism. He is the dark mirror of the American dream. He shows us what happens when patriotism curdles into xenophobia.
Scorsese’s film isn't a history lesson. It’s a myth. And in that myth, Bill is the dragon that must be slain for the "new" New York to be born. The fact that the real Bill died years earlier doesn't matter to the narrative. The narrative needs him there, at the Draft Riots, watching the old world burn as the Navy ships shell the city.
Taking Action: How to Explore the Real History
If you’re fascinated by the real William Poole and the world he lived in, don't stop at the movie. There is so much more to the story of 19th-century New York.
- Read "The Gangs of New York" by Herbert Asbury. This is the book that inspired Scorsese. A word of warning: Asbury was a journalist who loved a good story, so take his "facts" with a grain of salt. He tended to exaggerate, but he captures the flavor of the era perfectly.
- Visit the Five Points (sorta). Today, the Five Points is buried under the New York City court buildings and Columbus Park in Lower Manhattan. You can still feel the history in the layout of the streets, even if the tenements are long gone.
- Research the "Know-Nothings." If you want to understand the politics of Bill the Butcher, look into the Rise and Fall of the American Party. It’s a wild look at how conspiracy theories and fear-mongering shaped 19th-century elections.
- Watch the Documentary "The Real Gangs of New York." There are several historical deep dives available on streaming platforms that use actual police records and newspaper archives to reconstruct the lives of men like Poole and Morrissey.
The real Bill Poole didn't have a glass eye or a magical ability to hit a target with a cleaver from across a room. He was a man of his time—violent, bigoted, fiercely loyal, and deeply complicated. By stripping away the Hollywood polish, we find a story that is arguably more interesting than the movie: a story of a butcher who became a kingmaker and a corpse who became a symbol.
Next time you watch Daniel Day-Lewis tap that glass eye with his knife, just remember the guy in the Bowery who died with a bullet in his chest, claiming he was the only "true American" left in the city. That’s the real ghost of New York.