Capture of New Orleans

The capture of New Orleans (April 25 – May 1, 1862) during the American Civil War was a turning point in the war that precipitated the capture of the Mississippi River. Having fought past Forts Jackson and St. Philip, the Union was unopposed in its capture of the city itself.

Many residents resented the controversial and confrontational administration of the city by its U.S. Army military governor. This capture of the largest Confederate city was a major turning point and an event of international importance. It also caught many Confederate generals by surprise who had planned for an attack from the north instead of from the Gulf of Mexico.

The history of New Orleans differs significantly with the histories of other cities that were included in the Confederate States of America. Because it was founded by the French and controlled by Spain for a time, New Orleans had a population who were mostly Catholic and had created a more cosmopolitan culture than in some of the Protestant-dominated states of the British colonies. Its population was highly diverse. At the time of the Civil War, much of the population was made up of French-speaking Creoles, refugees from Saint Domingue and the Haitian Revolution, enslaved and free Blacks of African and mixed descent, and recent Irish and German immigrants.

New Orleans had benefited more than some other cities by the domestic slave trade, Industrial Revolution, international trade, and geographical position. It was a major port near the mouth of the Mississippi River at the Gulf Coast. The river carried freight and traffic from a huge network of rivers and tributaries, making New Orleans one of the most significant transportation centers in the early United States before the establishment of railroad and road systems. Of particular significance were the inventions of the cotton gin in 1793 and steamboat in the early 19th century.

Before the steamboat, keelboat men bringing cargo downriver would break up their boats for lumber in New Orleans and travel overland back to Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, or Illinois to repeat the process. Steamboats had enough power to move upstream against the strong current of the Mississippi, making two-way trade possible between New Orleans and the cities in the interior river network of the Upper South and Midwest. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, which greatly expanded international trade, and the development of the cotton gin, cotton became a valuable export product. It became a major part of the volume of cargo moved through the city.

A formative event in the early history of New Orleans was the 1815 Battle of New Orleans. Fought during the War of 1812, the battle's American victory led by General Andrew Jackson enhanced his political career. Along with Martin Van Buren, he founded the Democratic Party. Jackson began a new political movement now known as the Jacksonian democracy.

This new direction in American politics had a profound influence on the development of New Orleans and the American Southwest. One of these developments was the construction of Fort Jackson, Louisiana, a star fort suggested by and named after Jackson. This fortress was intended to support Fort St. Philip and bar the Mississippi Delta from invasion.

The presidents of the Jacksonian democracy supported the concept of manifest destiny, greatly expanding acquisition of territory in the American Southwest and the support of international trade, along with the expansion of slavery. This powerful political movement also produced sectional tension between the northern and southern portions of the United States, resulting in the creation of the Whig Party to oppose the new Democratic Party. As the political rivalry between the Jacksonian Democrats and the Whigs intensified, the Republican Party was founded, to counter the spread of slavery into states produced by territorial conquests of the Jacksonian Democrats. The victory of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican presidential candidate, in the election of 1860, resulted in the secession crisis and was a catalyst to the American Civil War.