The Civil War began April 12, 1861, when a Confederate battery under the command of St. Bernard Parish native Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard opened fire on federal forces at Fort Sumter, S.C. New Orleans, the largest city in the Confederacy at the time, surrendered to the Union without a shot on April 29, 1862, after a few futile days of civic defiance.
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It was a calamity for the South. A Union fleet, commanded by Adm. David Farragut, had blasted past Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip on the Mississippi days earlier. The city was indefensible, and Confederate troops withdrew.
On May 4, the Union army moved in under the command of Gen. Benjamin Butler, beginning years of occupation but sparing New Orleans the sort of damage sustained by other Southern cities. Butler promptly made an example of William Mumford, a New Orleanian who was involved in tearing down the U.S. flag flying from the U.S. Mint; he was tried and convicted and hanged on the mint grounds.
Butler was despised locally for his heavy-handed tactics and corruption, earning him the nickname “Beast.” His most controversial act was an attempt to punish women who were rude to Union troops on the streets by treating them as prostitutes, through an edict known as General Order No. 28. Outraged locals retaliated by painting chamber pots with Butler’s likeness.
Despite his reputation, Butler, who was also known derisively as “Spoons” for allegedly confiscating and keeping silverware belonging to New Orleanians, was a savvy strategist who sought to undercut the power of planters by offering food and work to the poor — black and white.
In late 1862, Butler was replaced by Gen. Nathaniel Banks, who used the carrot more than the stick to wean people away from the Confederacy. Suppressed churches were reopened, and the confiscation and sale of Confederate property was stopped. Banks mollified white dislike of the Native Guard by stripping commissions from black officers. But hunger was rampant, throngs of unemployed slaves flocked to the city and hardcore holdouts to Union rule provoked frequent military crackdowns.
By early 1863, two-thirds of the 90,000 residents had pledged fidelity to the Union.
At the end of the war in 1865, the city became a testing ground for Reconstruction, a tumultuous period marked by violent uprisings, political corruption and even the cancellation of Mardi Gras, along with some gains in civil rights that were erased after federal troops left the city in 1877.