Editing New Orleans (section)

===Civil War–Reconstruction era===
{{See also|New Orleans in the American Civil War|Louisiana in the American Civil War}}

[[File:StarvingNewOrleans.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.15|The starving people of New Orleans under Union occupation during the Civil War, 1862]]

As the Creole elite feared, the [[American Civil War]] changed their world. In April 1862, following the city's occupation by the Union Navy after the [[Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip]], [[Benjamin Butler (politician)|Gen. Benjamin F. Butler]] – a respected Massachusetts lawyer serving in that state's militia – was appointed military governor. New Orleans residents supportive of the Confederacy nicknamed him "Beast" Butler, because of an order he issued. After his troops had been assaulted and harassed in the streets by women still loyal to the Confederate cause, his order warned that such future occurrences would result in his men treating such women as those "plying their avocation in the streets", implying that they would treat the women like prostitutes. Accounts of this spread widely. He also came to be called "Spoons" Butler because of the alleged looting that his troops did while occupying the city, during which time he himself supposedly pilfered silver flatware.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Benjamin Butler |url=https://64parishes.org/entry/benjamin-butler |access-date=2021-07-29 |website=64 Parishes |language=en |archive-date=June 16, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210616112819/https://64parishes.org/entry/benjamin-butler/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Significantly, Butler abolished French-language instruction in city schools. Statewide measures in 1864 and, after the war, 1868 further strengthened the English-only policy imposed by federal representatives. With the predominance of English speakers, that language had already become dominant in business and government.{{sfn|Gitlin|2009|p= 166}} By the end of the 19th century, French usage had faded. It was also under pressure from Irish, Italian and German immigrants.{{sfn|Gitlin|2009|p= 180}} However, as late as 1902 "one-fourth of the population of the city spoke French in ordinary daily intercourse, while another two-fourths was able to understand the language perfectly,"<ref>''[[Leslie's Weekly]]'', December 11, 1902</ref> and as late as 1945, many elderly Creole women spoke no English.<ref>Robert Tallant & Lyle Saxon, ''Gumbo Ya-Ya: Folk Tales of Louisiana'', Louisiana Library Commission: 1945, p. 178</ref> The last major French language newspaper, ''[[L'Abeille de la Nouvelle-Orléans]]'' (New Orleans Bee), ceased publication on December 27, 1923, after 96 years.<ref name="Brasseaux2005">{{cite book |last=Brasseaux |first=Carl A. |title=French, Cajun, Creole, Houma: A Primer on Francophone Louisiana |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j2IAZ7563soC&pg=PA32 |year=2005 |page=32 |publisher=LSU Press |isbn=978-0-8071-3036-0 |access-date=January 10, 2024 |archive-date=January 10, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240110084808/https://books.google.com/books?id=j2IAZ7563soC&pg=PA32#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> According to some sources, ''Le Courrier de la Nouvelle Orléans'' continued until 1955.<ref>''New Orleans City Guide''. The [[Federal Writers' Project]] of the Works Progress Administration: 1938, p. 90</ref>

As the city was captured and occupied early in the war, it was spared the destruction through warfare suffered by many other cities of the [[Southern United States|American South]]. The [[Union Army]] eventually extended its control north along the [[Mississippi River]] and along the coastal areas. As a result, most of the southern portion of Louisiana was originally exempted from the liberating provisions of the 1863 [[Emancipation Proclamation]] issued by President [[Abraham Lincoln]]. Large numbers of rural ex-slaves and some free people of color from the city volunteered for the first regiments of Black troops in the War. Led by Brigadier General [[Daniel Ullman]] (1810–1892), of the 78th Regiment of New York State Volunteers Militia, they were known as the "[[United States Colored Troops|Corps d'Afrique]]". While that name had been used by a militia before the war, that group was composed of [[free people of color]]. The new group was made up mostly of former slaves. They were supplemented in the last two years of the War by newly organized [[United States Colored Troops]], who played an increasingly important part in the war.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ustica.org/san_bartolomeo/catalog/civilwar.htm |title=Usticesi in the United States Civil War |publisher=The Ustica Connection |date=March 22, 2003 |access-date=July 29, 2018 |archive-date=February 16, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190216050549/http://www.ustica.org/san_bartolomeo/catalog/civilwar.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

Violence throughout the South, especially the [[Memphis Riots of 1866]] followed by the [[New Orleans Riot]] in the same year, led Congress to pass the [[Reconstruction Act]] and the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]], extending the protections of full citizenship to freedmen and free people of color. Louisiana and [[Texas]] were put under the authority of the "[[Fifth Military District]]" of the United States during Reconstruction. Louisiana was readmitted to the Union in 1868. Its Constitution of 1868 granted [[Universal manhood suffrage|universal male suffrage]] and established universal [[State school|public education]]. Both blacks and whites were elected to local and state offices. In 1872, lieutenant governor [[P.B.S. Pinchback]], who was of [[mixed race]], succeeded [[Henry C. Warmouth|Henry Clay Warmouth]] for a brief period as Republican governor of Louisiana, becoming the first governor of African descent of a U.S. state (the next African American to serve as governor of a U.S. state was [[Douglas Wilder]], elected in Virginia in 1989). New Orleans operated a racially integrated [[New Orleans Public Schools|public school system]] during this period.

Wartime damage to [[levees]] and cities along the Mississippi River adversely affected southern crops and trade. The federal government contributed to restoring infrastructure. The nationwide financial recession and [[Panic of 1873]] adversely affected businesses and slowed economic recovery.
[[File:White_and_black_dockworkers_rest_on_cotton_bales_in_New_Orleans_in_1902.jpg|thumb|187x187px|Black and white [[New Orleans dock workers and unionization|dockworkers]] resting on cotton bales]]
From 1868, elections in Louisiana were marked by violence, as white insurgents tried to suppress black voting and disrupt [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] gatherings. The disputed 1872 gubernatorial election resulted in conflicts that ran for years. The "[[White League]]", an insurgent paramilitary group that supported the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]], was organized in 1874 and operated in the open, violently suppressing the black vote and running off Republican officeholders. In 1874, in the [[Battle of Liberty Place]], 5,000 members of the White League fought with city police to take over the state offices for the Democratic candidate for governor, holding them for three days. By 1876, such tactics resulted in the white [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats]], the so-called [[Redeemers]], regaining political control of the state legislature. The federal government gave up and withdrew its troops in 1877, ending [[Reconstruction Era|Reconstruction]].

In 1892 the racially integrated unions of New Orleans led a [[1892 New Orleans general strike|general strike in the city]] from November 8 to 12, shutting down the city & winning the vast majority of their demands.<ref>Foner, ''History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Vol. 2: From the Founding of the American Federation of Labor to the Emergence of American Imperialism,'' 1955, p. 203.</ref><ref>Cook, "The Typographical Union and the New Orleans General Strike of 1892," ''Louisiana History,'' 1983; "Labor Trouble In New-Orleans," ''New York Times,'' November 5, 1892.</ref>