Louisiana in the American Civil War

This article is about the Confederate state of Louisiana between 1861 and 1865. For the ship, see CSS Louisiana. For other uses, see Louisiana (disambiguation).

Louisiana
Flag of Louisiana
Flag

The Confederate States of America
Map of the Confederate States
CapitalShreveport
Largest cityNew Orleans
Admitted to the ConfederacyMarch 21, 1861 (3rd)
Population
  • 708,002 total
  •  • 376,276 (53.15%) free
  •  • 331,726 (46.85%) slave
Forces supplied
  • - Confederate troops: 50,000[1]
    - Union troops: 29,000 (24,000 black; 5,000 white)[2][3] total
GovernorThomas Moore
Henry Allen
Lieutenant Governor
Senators
RepresentativesList
Restored to the UnionJuly 9, 1868
History of Louisiana
flag United States portal
Seal of the Confederate States of America
Confederate States
in the
American Civil War
Dual governments
Territory
Allied tribes in
Indian Territory

Louisiana was a dominant population center in the southwest of the Confederate States of America, controlling the wealthy trade center of New Orleans, and contributing the French Creole and Cajun populations to the demographic composition of a predominantly Anglo-American country. In the antebellum period, Louisiana was a slave state, where enslaved African Americans had comprised the majority of the population during the eighteenth-century French and Spanish dominations. By the time the United States acquired the territory (1803) and Louisiana became a state (1812), the institution of slavery was entrenched. By 1860, 47% of the state's population were enslaved, though the state also had one of the largest free black populations in the United States. Much of the white population, particularly in the cities, supported slavery, while pockets of support for the U.S. and its government existed in the more rural areas.

Louisiana declared that it had seceded from the Union on January 26, 1861. Civil-War era New Orleans, the largest city in the South, was strategically important as a port city due to its southernmost location on the Mississippi River and its access to the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. War Department early on planned for its capture. The city was taken by U.S. Army forces on April 25, 1862. Because a large part of the population had Union sympathies (or compatible commercial interests), the U.S. government took the unusual step of designating the areas of Louisiana then under U.S. control as a state within the Union, with its own elected representatives to the U.S. Congress. For the latter part of the war, both the U.S. and the Confederacy recognized their own distinct Louisiana governors.[4]: 1–9  Similarly, New Orleans and 13 named parishes of the state were exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation, which applied exclusively to states in rebellion against the Union.[5]

  1. ^ Sacher, John M. Confederate Soldiers | 64 Parishes. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  2. ^ Hunter, G. Howard. Unionist Troops in Louisiana | 64 Parishes. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  3. ^ Sacher, John M. Civil War Louisiana. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  4. ^ Hearn, Chester G. (1995). The Capture of New Orleans 1862. Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 0-8071-1945-8.
  5. ^ Freedmen and Southern Society Project (1982). Freedom: a documentary history of emancipation 1861–1867 : selected from the holdings of the National Archives of the United States. The destruction of slavery. CUP Archive. pp. 69. ISBN 978-0-521-22979-1.