New Orleans after the Civil War: Race, Politics,
New Orleans was the largest and richest city in the South when Louisiana seceded from the Union and was the first major Southern city to be recaptured by Federal troops. The city endured three years of occupation. When the war ended many of the occupying troops decided to seek their fortunes and make their home there. New Orleans then became home to returning and disenfranchised former Confederate soldiers and sailors, a smattering of mixed-race middle class who had thrived there before the war, newly freed blacks both from the city and from outlying areas, blacks who had been free and lived there before the war, and ex-Union soldiers. The resultant attempts to govern New Orleans by Democrats and Republicans and to reconstruct the city and provide a home for the newly freed blacks are the subjects of this book. The author states: “This book employs two main structural themes. It first offers a community study of New Orleans from the moment of secession through the segregation and disfranchisement struggles of the 1890s. “On a more analytical level, it supplies a generational study of those New Orleanians who came of age on the eve of the Civil War and who became the city’s primary actors in the postbellum era. “Its arguments grow out of the deeds of the individuals whose lives form the core of the narrative and the reaction of the wider community to those deeds.” The first two chapters cover New Orleans as a Confederate city and then as an occupied city. The remaining seven chapters cover the period from 1865 to 1898, two years after Plessy v. Ferguson (“separate but equal” facilities for different races) had been decided and Jim Crow laws had become the law of the land. Extending the chronology of the volume beyond what is normally considered the Reconstruction era was required due to the author’s generational approach —the generation that came of age during the Civil War and the following generation — to studying the politics and politicians of New Orleans. New Orleans after the Civil War is an excellent short political history of New Orleans during this period. It is a reworking of the author’s Ph.D. dissertation and thus is both scholarly and literary. Nystrom has produced an excellent volume that is highly recommended for those interested in Reconstruction, New Orleans or Louisiana history.
Reviewer: Joseph A. Derie Joseph A. Derie is a VMI graduate and a long time Civil War buff and military book reviewer. A retired Coast Guard officer and licensed officer of the Merchant Marine, he is a Certified Marine Investigator and marine surveyor.
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Illustrations, appendixes, notes, bibliography, index, 324 pp., 2010, Johns Hopkins University Press,