How accurate is "Gangs of New York" in lifestyle of people in 1860's NY?

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The way they fought has got to be bullshite, no shields, no strategy, no working together?

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My issue in that scene is how you tell everyone apart.

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This is 1863 I think they had plumbing

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That doesn't mean anything. Pre-20th century it depended on where you lived and how rich your were...so people wouldn't dump shite on you from their piss-potts. As recently as the late 19th century sewerage systems in some parts of the rapidly industrializing United Kingdom were so inadequate that water-borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid remained a risk. NY City was an apparent rat-hole up until the 1920's. Going back 100, 150 years, American cities were disgusting -- and New York City was notorious as the filthiest and stinkiest. We were a laughingstock. The rumor goes that sailors could smell the city six miles out to sea. And all of this filth exacerbated a public health crisis -- people were dying of diseases like typhus, cholera, yellow fever, things that spread more easily in neighborhoods where the streets were dirtier. A cholera epidemic in the 1830’s killed 3,515 people, which was roughly 12 percent of the population at the time. That same percentage would mean about 100,000 people today. The mortality rate in 1860 New York was equal to that of medieval London.

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