An Absolute Massacre

The New Orleans Race Riot of July 30, 1866

James G. Hollandsworth

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9780807151310
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

In the summer of 1866, racial tensions ran high in Louisiana as a constitutional convention considered disenfranchising former Confederates and enfranchising blacks. On July 30, a procession of black suffrage supporters pushed through an angry throng of hostile whites. Words were exchanged, shots rang out, and within minutes a riot erupted with unrestrained fury. When it was over, at least forty-eight men -- an overwhelming majority of them black -- lay dead and more than two hundred had been wounded. In An Absolute Massacre, James G. Hollandsworth, Jr., examines the events surrounding the confrontation and offers a compelling look at the racial tinderbox that was the post-Civil War South.

1
Give Us a Free State

MURDER? Octave Breaux strained to catch the conversation. Less than six feet separated Breaux from two men talking on the other side of the fence that surrounded his small garden.

It was four o’clock, Friday morning, July 27, 1866, and the first hint of dawn had yet to break the hot summer night. Breaux had gotten up early and made his way through the darkness of the house on the corner of Johnson and Lapeyrouse Streets to the garden in back where he kept a few goats. The fence around the garden provided some privacy, and the two men on the other side were unaware of his presence.¹

One of the men was standing on the banquette; the other was seated in a carriage next to the curb. Breaux could catch only snatches of the conversation. “Why?” the man on the banquette asked. “Because the niggers want to amend the constitution, and we have to find a way to keep them from assembling,” the man in the carriage responded. Breaux knew immediately that the two men were talking about the constitutional convention scheduled to reconvene in New Orleans on Monday. “If you want to join us,” the man in the carriage continued, “we would like to have you.” “I will,” the other declared. The man in the carriage offered a sheet of paper for the other to sign. Breaux leaned forward to glimpse the document through a chink in the fence, but it was too dark. Suddenly, Breaux sneezed. Quickly the man on the banquette stepped into the carriage, and the two men drove away.²

Octave Breaux was a black creole who earned his living as a painter. He did not speak English very well, but he understood clearly what the two men had been talking about. Everyone knew about the convention, which had been called to discuss the prospect of an electoral franchise for all males, regardless of race. Blacks saw suffrage as their one chance to make good on the promise of emancipation. Whites were opposed to giving black men the vote and were determined to prevent the convention from amending the constitution to accomplish this goal.

Breaux understood the white opposition well. He had enlisted in the Louisiana Native Guards, the first regiment of black soldiers in the Union army, and had fought against the Confederates for three years. He had been with the Native Guards at Port Hudson when they had charged the rebels behind deep entrenchments on top of a steep bluff. The black soldiers had been pinned down behind stumps and fallen trees while Confederate marksmen made the ground a killing field. When darkness came, the black soldiers had been able finally to slip away. Although casualties in white Union regiments had been removed under a flag of truce after the battle, the black dead were left where they fell. The bodies had lain in front of the Confederate breastworks for weeks until the stench of their decay made even the rebels anxious to get them beneath the ground.³

Now, with this talk of further bloodshed, Breaux knew that he had to warn the authorities about the plot to prevent the convention from reconvening. At half past eight on Friday morning, Breaux went to see General Absalom Baird, head of the Freedmen’s Bureau in New Orleans. Baird’s adjutant came out to talk with the black man. “General Baird is not in,” he told Breaux. Disappointed, Breaux set out for the headquarters of General Philip H. Sheridan, the military commander of Louisiana and Texas. A lieutenant came out to meet him. General Sheridan was not in, the officer said; he had left for Texas four days earlier. Breaux told the lieutenant what he had overheard and then, having done his duty, returned home.⁴

The constitutional convention had been moribund for almost two years by the time Octave Breaux overheard the two men plotting outside his garden. Completing its work in July 1864, the convention had been an important step in a process by which Louisiana Unionists hoped the state could be readmitted to the Union.

That process had begun almost as soon as the federal army occupied New Orleans in May 1862. With the encouragement and support of the federal commander, Benjamin F. Butler, citizens with Unionist sentiments came forward, singly and in groups, to renew their allegiance to the “Old Flag.” By June, enough people had affirmed their loyalty to warrant the formation of a Union Association, which became the basis for Unionist activity for more than a year.⁵

Abraham Lincoln was eager to capitalize on the reemergence of support for the Union in Louisiana. In November, he authorized the military governor, Brigadier General George F. Shepley, to hold elections for two representatives from congressional districts partially under Union control. Benjamin F. Flanders, a transplanted New Englander who had lived in New Orleans for almost twenty years, won the seat in the first congressional district. Michael Hahn, a thirty-two-year-old lawyer who had arrived in New Orleans as a child with his family from Germany, captured the second with 55 percent of the vote.⁶

Despite his initial success in mobilizing Unionist sentiment, Butler’s iron-fisted rule of New Orleans created ill-will and dissatisfaction among the pro-Confederate population in the city. Lincoln knew that this contingent would not voluntarily reassert their loyalty to the Union unless he could convince them that accepting federal jurisdiction was preferable to secession. Hoping that a more conciliatory approach might help, Lincoln named Nathaniel P. Banks, a skillful politician from Massachusetts and major general in the Union army, to replace Butler.⁷

Banks arrived in New Orleans in mid-December 1862 and immediately set out to implement a new policy of cooperation and conciliation. “There had been harsh measures enough in this department,” one of Banks’s aides explained, “and since Butler had stroked the cat from the tail to head, and found her full of yawl and scratch, [Banks] was determined to stroke her from head to tail, and see if she would hide her claws, and commence to purr.”⁸

It appeared at first that Banks’s new policy might succeed. Planters liked Banks’s labor plan, which put slaves back to work on the plantations, and local businessmen endorsed the steps Banks took to encourage commerce and to reopen trade with the North. “The merchants are doing more business every day,” Banks wrote to his wife two months after his arrival. “The ladies and children are out in the street and all are feeling well. All the people seem to think well of me—even the thieves take off their hats.”⁹

Pleased with his success, Banks encouraged Unionists to organize a permanent political party, one that would provide a foundation on which Louisiana could be readmitted to the Union. On May 8, 1863, delegates from the several Unionist clubs in the city and parishes under federal control assembled in New Orleans to form the Free State of Louisiana.¹⁰

The chairman of the Free State meeting was Thomas Jefferson Durant. “Tall, thin, sallow, [and] cadaverous,” Durant was a Philadelphia native who had come to New Orleans in 1831 as a young man. A powerful orator and shrewd lawyer, Durant had made a name for himself in New Orleans. He had kept a low profile while the secessionists were in charge but let his loyalist sentiments be known after federal troops arrived. With Flanders and Hahn away in Washington, Durant had become the unchallenged leader of the Unionist movement in New Orleans.¹¹

The key to the Free State platform was a call for a constitutional convention to draft a document under which Louisiana could be readmitted to the Union. Military Governor Shepley liked the idea and named Durant state attorney general with authority to register “all free white male citizens” in preparation for an election of delegates as soon as General Banks gave the word.¹²

Lincoln also was pleased that supporters of the Free State were ready “to make a new constitution recognizing the emancipation proclamation and adopting emancipation in those parts of the state to which the proclamation does not apply.” To expedite the process, Lincoln urged Banks on August 5, 1863, to “confer with intelligent and trusty citizens of the state, among whom I would suggest Messrs. Flanders, Hahn, and Durant.” Speed was of great importance, for Lincoln wanted a new constitution for Louisiana by the time Congress convened in December 1863.¹³

Durant was eager to follow through on Lincoln’s directive, but Banks was not. Banks’s cooperation was crucial because Durant did not have funds to carry out the registration on his own and needed transportation and protection from the army, especially in the parishes outside of the city. As a result, the registration of voters for the constitutional convention proceeded slowly.¹⁴

There were two reasons why Banks failed to support Durant in his attempt to register loyal white males during the fall of 1863. For one, Banks was distracted with his grand design to wrest control of Texas from the Confederates by lodging a series of armed enclaves along the coast. But there was more to his hesitancy than the distractions of a military campaign. Nathaniel P. Banks had become disenchanted with Thomas Jefferson Durant.¹⁵

The reason for Banks’s disenchantment was Durant’s idea of what the Free State of Louisiana should be like after it was “reconstructed.” Durant’s view was much more radical than what Banks had in mind. Rather than favoring a state government composed of Unionists who shared the sentiments of the old planter elite, Durant was committed to a complete restructuring of the southern way of life. Such a reconstruction included not only the abolition of slavery but also the right of black men to vote.¹⁶

Initially, Durant’s call for black suffrage had been limited to black men who had been free before the war. New Orleans contained the largest, the wealthiest, and the best-educated community of free blacks in the country. Not even New York City could boast of having more black “doctors, dentists…. silver-smiths, portrait-painters, architects, brick-layers, plasterers, carpenters, tailors, cigar-makers, ” “Hommes de couleur libre,” as free blacks were called in New Orleans, enjoyed privileges not afforded blacks elsewhere in the South, allowing them by 1860 to accumulate more than $2 million worth of property.¹⁷

On the issue of black suffrage, the free black community had led the way. In late September 1862, Paul Trévigne, a prominent free man of color who had taught language in a Catholic school for black children before the war, began editing L’Union, a biweekly French-language newspaper that issued a clarion call for civil rights for free blacks. “We inaugurate today a new era in the South,” Trévigne wrote in L’Union’s salutatory editorial. “We proclaim the Declaration of Independence as the basis of our platform…. You who aspire to establish true republicanism, democracy without shackles, gather around us and contribute your grain of sand to the construction of the Temple of Liberty!” L’Union continued to press for free black suffrage throughout 1862 and into 1863 and, as a result, had been instrumental in swaying a majority of free blacks in New Orleans to Trévigne’s point of view.¹⁸

On November 5, 1863, an enthusiastic crowd of free blacks converged on the Economy Hall for a rally to promote suffrage for free men of color. Some of the speakers were white men, Unionists who sought to establish a common cause with their free black neighbors. But free black leaders set the tone. “They did not ask for social equality, and did not expect it,” P. B. S. Pinch-back, a former captain in the Louisiana Native Guards, told the audience, “but they [free blacks in New Orleans] demanded political rights—they wanted to become men.”¹⁹

Durant went public with his endorsement for free black suffrage the next month. Banks was not surprised, for he had distrusted Durant’s agenda all along, and Banks was afraid that a white backlash to Durant’s radical ideas would scuttle his plan to coax Louisiana back into the Union. If such an outcome would be unfortunate for the state, it would be disastrous for Banks personally. Banks had his eyes set on the White House, and a failure in Louisiana would seriously undercut his prospects when the Republicans nominated their candidate for president in 1864.²⁰

Exasperated by Banks’s lack of cooperation, Durant had written directly to Lincoln on October 1, 1863. “You appear to think that a Registration of voters is going on under my supervision, with the view of bringing on the election of delegates to a Constitutional Convention,” he wrote, “but such is not the case. The means of communicating with a large portion of the state are not in our power, and before the commencement of a Registration,” he continued, “we ought to have undisputed control of a considerable territory, at least the two congressional districts proclaimed as not being in rebellion.”²¹

Durant was aware when he posted his letter that Banks had tried to discredit him with the president, but he did not realize that someone else had also conspired against him. The pliant Michael Hahn, who was in Washington as one of the state’s two “loyal” representatives, had decided to throw in with Banks.²²

Between them, Banks and Hahn had systematically distorted what was happening in Louisiana in their reports to Lincoln. “The Union cause is going on gloriously here,” Hahn had written to Lincoln after returning to the Crescent City for a visit in May. Banks gave the same optimistic account from Opelousas, where he was engaged in a campaign to penetrate the interior of the state. “It gives me pleasure to say to you that the sentiments of the people, are unexpectedly, and almost universally friendly to the restoration of the Government,” he wrote. “Nothing is required but a sufficient force to hold the territory, to secure its immediate return to the Union.”²³

As a result of Banks’s and Hahn’s deception, Durant’s letter came as a surprise to Lincoln. Lincoln had assumed that the registration of voters was proceeding smoothly. He was disappointed when he learned that it was not, for Lincoln needed a Unionist government in Louisiana quickly to demonstrate that he was winning the war.²⁴

Lincoln fired off an angry letter to Banks on November 5. He had assumed that Durant “was taking a registry of citizens, preparatory to the election of a constitutional convention,” the president began. “I now have his letter, written two months after… saying he is not taking registry, and he does not let me know that he personally is expecting to do so. This disappoints me bitterly,” he continued, “yet I do not want to throw blame on you or them. I do however, urge both you and them, to lose no more time.”²⁵

Banks feigned bewilderment and hurt upon receiving Lincoln’s letter. He did not realize, he wrote, that the president was counting on him to organize a new state government. Insinuating that Durant and Shepley had rejected his offer to help with the registration of voters, Banks noted that the military governor was in charge. “Had the organization of a free state in Louisiana been committed to me under general instructions only,” he wrote, “it would have been complete before this day.” Banks th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Map
• Introduction
• 1: Give Us a Free State
• 2: No Better Constitution
• 3: There Is No Middle Ground.
• 4: We Are in Revolutionary Times
• 5: Not More Than Half a Million Will Survive
• 6: Please Instruct Me at Once by Telegram
• 7: To-morrow Will Be the Bloodiest Day
• 8: You Better Stay Home
• 9: Go Away, You Black Son of a Bitch
• 10: For God’s Sake, Don’t Shoot Us!
• 11: Hurrah for Hell
• 12: Can I Go Home?
• 13: The Rebels Have Control Here
• Postscript
• Bibliography
• Index