The University of Southern Mississippi The Aquila Digital Community Spring 5-2016 Reporting Rumors in the Reconstruction South: The Aftermath of the New Orleans Riot of 1866 JoAnna L.
Introduction
The New Orleans Riot of 1866 and the Reconstruction South
On July 30, 1866, white and black Louisianans gathered at the Mechanics’
At a downtown New Orleans Institute, delegates gathered for the state constitutional convention to decide whether to extend suffrage to black men While many Republicans supported black suffrage, white Democrats opposed granting black men the vote, arguing that the loyal voters of the South were not yet prepared for political equality of the negro with the white man The convention drew a large crowd of Republicans and Democrats eager to hear the outcome Shortly after noon, a procession of 100 to 150 black residents marched toward the Institute, hopeful about universal suffrage, but tensions escalated when taunts were exchanged between marchers, police, and a nearby white crowd at Canal and Dryades The confrontation turned deadly when a white boy taunted the marchers, a police officer intervened, and a black man fired a revolver, plunging the scene into chaos as whites rushed toward the institute and black marchers retaliated with bricks, leaving several injured.
1 Gilles Vandal, The New Orleans Riot of 1866: Anatomy of a Tragedy (Lafayette, La: Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1983), 112
2 James G Hollandsworth, An Absolute Massacre: The New Orleans Race Riot of July 30, 1866 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001), 101.
At the end of the American Civil War, political divisiveness, economic turmoil, and violence plagued the South Michael Perman’s Reunion without Compromise: The
South and Reconstruction, 1865-1868 shows that discord existed across the nation as the
South reentered the Union as Federal troops occupied the South and Confederate armies were disbanded, ending the political power of the Confederacy and the slave-based economy White southerners could no longer rely on slave labor, and agriculture suffered under the new costs of wage employment Having surrendered political power and lost the backbone of their economy to emancipation, many white southerners feared a loss of autonomy and their subjection to Northern will Reconciliation between the North and South proved difficult, especially as the question of universal black suffrage loomed In the summer and fall of 1865, southern communities faced these seismic political and economic shifts.
5 New Orleans Daily Crescent, July 31, 1866
7 Michael Perman, Reunion without Compromise: The South and Reconstruction: 1865-1868 (Cambridge: University Press, 1973), 14.
Politicians and observers awaited President Andrew Johnson’s plans for restoring the South to the Union during Reconstruction Despite recent defeats, white Southerners remained defiant toward Northern rule and resisted black enfranchisement They warned that economic disorder and social upheaval would follow if the North did not guide reunification with careful attention to Southern demands.
While not the first race riot in the former Confederate states, the New Orleans Massacre stands out for its political origins Although social and economic upheaval was already familiar in the South before Reconstruction, the massacre marked a turning point in which outbreaks of violence were driven primarily by political grievances Scholars such as James G Hollandsworth, George C Rable, and Gilles Vandal have analyzed the causes and events surrounding the New Orleans Massacre, yet relatively few have examined how large-scale political violence reshaped Southern communities.
Recent historical scholarship has viewed the New Orleans Riot as an attempt of white southerners to disenfranchise and terrorize blacks during the early years of
During Reconstruction, Hollandsworth’s An Absolute Massacre: The New Orleans Race Riot of July 30, 1866 provides a thorough account of the riot while also examining the political and racial motives that pushed white southerners to retaliate against convention supporters He treats the violence as a deliberate, calculated backlash rooted in efforts to defend white supremacy amid a shifting postwar landscape The analysis situates the riot within broader patterns of white backlash and political realignment in the South, showing how such acts of retaliation helped redefine power relations in the region In this reading, the riot becomes a pivotal moment in the formation of the “Solid South,” where white conservatives retained the highest social status and political influence.
Even after emancipation, Black communities remained marginalized for years during Reconstruction, shaping the era’s politics with persistent violence Historian James K Hogue describes the Louisiana riot as a form of uncivil war, in which vigilantes, paramilitary groups, and white supremacist militias used counterrevolutionary tactics to thwart Black enfranchisement and a rising egalitarian racial order This violence was not an isolated burst of fighting but a broad reaction to the sweeping social upheaval that accompanied the war’s end.
Previous historical scholarship has examined the ways in which white southerners attempted to maintain economic, political, and social control over their communities after the war had ended George C Rable’s But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction argues that conservatives in the South tried to retain white supremacy by spreading violence and terror throughout the former Confederate states Rable uses several case studies of violent outbreaks from across the South to support his claim that white southerners used violence as a counterrevolutionary instrument against Federal Reconstruction policies Rable’s findings have broader implications for those studying the social history of the South during Reconstruction In the wake of the
After the Confederacy’s defeat, white southerners faced the loss of economic livelihoods, the erosion of racial dominance, and the decline of political power In the turbulent postwar years, violence served as a tactic to defend the antebellum social order and resist Reconstruction efforts By leveraging intimidation and coercion, some white communities sought to preserve their economic, political, and racial hierarchy even as federal reforms reshaped the region.
Stetson Kennedy arrives at a similar conclusion as Rable in After Appomattox:
How the South Won the War argues that white southerners aimed to uphold the antebellum oligarchy through violence and terror, a view that aligns with Rable’s analysis Yet Kennedy offers a different approach to examining Reconstruction, presenting an alternative interpretation of how the postwar era reshaped Southern society.
Scholars examining the transition from the Old South to the New South argue that the Civil War’s end did not immediately improve African Americans’ political and social standing Despite emancipation, Black communities continued to face mob violence and were largely deprived of fair political representation They also lacked many of the freedoms that Union victory had seemed to promise In short, social and racial inequalities persisted well into the postwar era, undermining expectations for rapid progress after the war.
During the Orleans Riot, Black Louisianans who pressed for black male suffrage faced fierce resistance from white conservatives, whose defense of the changing political order sparked mob violence that became known as the New Orleans Riot.
The Nineteenth-Century American Press
The New Orleans Massacre attracted both local and national attention, and the way newspapers framed the riot, its aftershocks of violence, and reports of social instability reveals how the public might have perceived the event in its aftermath To appreciate how newspapers spread rumors of violence from one Southern town to another, it helps to understand how news circulated among communities in the mid-nineteenth century and how political biases colored press coverage The nineteenth century was a period of rapid industrial and technological growth in the United States that marked the emergence of national news wire services, a shift explored in depth by Menahem Blondheim in News over the Wires: The Telegraph and the Flow of Public Information in the United States.
America, 1844-1897 describes how the invention of the telegraph contributed to a centralized network of news gathering and distribution across the United States Its most important conclusion is that the centralization of news networks integrated American life by linking distant regions through rapid, nationwide information flow.
13 Stetson Kennedy, After Appomattox: How the South Won the War (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1995), 57-59
14 Menahem Blondheim, News over the Wires: The Telegraph and the Flow of Public Information in
America, 1844–1897 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994) examines society across the constraints of distance to explain how the rapid spread of public information affected the way communities received news of Reconstruction violence By tracing the reach of newspapers, telegraph networks, and other information channels, the work shows how the speed and dispersion of news shaped local perceptions, memory, and responses during the Reconstruction era.
The Bloody Details
After the riot, Louisiana papers frantically tried to reconstruct what happened and to tally the casualties of the New Orleans Massacre The Shreveport Southwestern lamented, “None regret the bloody details of yesterday more than we do – it was horrifying; but there seemed no alternative; fanaticism ruled for the day,” signaling that the episode was seen as brutal yet driven by zeal The congressional record later listed 38 killed and 146 wounded, but many Louisianans did not know the full toll until the January 1867 report settled the numbers In the meantime, rumors abounded about how many lives were lost on the streets, and newspapers, by speculating, helped shape public perception of the clash.
Uncertainty about the actual number of fatalities led Louisiana newspapers to publish a range of estimates for deaths in the New Orleans riot, from two whites and several Black victims to about sixty The tally rose and fell as additional information came in via telegraph wires, with reports updated as networks supplied new details The evolving counts were reflected in the July 31 issue of the Baton Rouge Tri-Weekly Gazette, which documented how early figures shifted as more information emerged.
Comet reported that upwards of fifteen people had been killed, with casualty figures still in flux In its next issue, the Comet published an article that had originally appeared in the New Orleans Daily Crescent, which stated that, as far as informants could tell, about thirty Black people were killed and several white individuals were seriously injured.
22 Select Committee on New Orleans Riots, Report of the Select Committee on the New Orleans Riots, 39th
Newspapers like the Baton Rouge Tri-Weekly Gazette & Comet and the South-western helped convey the violent extent of the New Orleans Massacre, even though editors themselves did not know the riot’s full magnitude, relying instead on telegraphic news from nearby cities and widely varying casualty tallies In its August 1 issue, the South-western published several telegrams: a Jackson report estimated 60 killed, all of them negroes, while a New Orleans dispatch stated thirty negroes killed and several whites, including policemen, seriously wounded Faced with these conflicting accounts, the South-western printed both reports, leaving readers unsure which version, if any, was accurate.
Desperate to find some source of information about the riot, newspapers turned to one another to figure out how many lives were lost at the Mechanics’ Institute
Telegraphic news reported by the South-western spread to other Louisiana papers, illustrating how far the rumors reached The same telegrams that appeared in the South-western’s August 1 issue were reprinted on August 4 in the issues of several other papers, confirming the rapid cross-publication diffusion of the story.
Weekly Natchitoches Times and the Bellevue Bossier Banner reprinted the South-western’s article verbatim The Times’ version carried a bold, incendiary headline—“Riot in New Orleans!! 60 Negroes Killed!”—to amplify the sensational angle reported by the editors.
Times, the exaggerated count undoubtedly made for a more eye-catching headline, even if their article subsequently admitted that the casualty figures fell closer to thirty than sixty
Throughout August, papers continued to report rumors of the number killed and
24 Baton Rouge Tri-Weekly Gazette & Comet, August 2, 1866
Reports from August 4, 1866 in the Semi-Weekly Natchitoches Times and the Bossier Banner described a riot in which people were wounded, and initial fatality estimates from the South-western claimed “60 – all negroes,” a figure that was later revised downward as more information emerged.
According to the Natchitoches Times, the exact casualty toll from Monday's riot cannot yet be determined; the paper notes that twenty-two deaths—among Black and white victims—are all that can be confirmed at this time There were many more wounded, and fatalities may still rise as the situation develops.
While acknowledging the impossibility of determining the actual casualty figures, the
Times’ reported fatalities dwindled even further from the truth, demonstrating the instability of reports that circulated on the numbers of those killed and wounded
Over two weeks after the New Orleans Riot occurred, the Semi-Weekly
The Natchitoches Times wavered in its reporting of fatalities from the massacre, with casualty figures shifting over time and climbing to nearly forty By August 15, the paper had published another piece reflecting this fluctuating tally, illustrating how the coverage continued to evolve as more information became available.
"Responsibility," which purported that the riot originated by two colored men of the mob firing on the police, and the rioters endeavoring to prevent the arrest of their comrades The Times, proposing that the rioters were prepared for such an occasion, also claimed that their actions resulted in "the killing of forty men, and wounding of about one hundred and sixty." While placing the casualties in the context of their own political leanings, the editors of the Times noted, "Among the number of killed, there was one policeman and a citizen; and among the wounded forty one policemen, and five citizens." Their account pays special attention to the policeman and citizens killed in the riot, depicting them as victims of the rioters’ brutal actions However, it glazes over other aspects.
28 Semi-Weekly Natchitoches Times, August 8, 1866
29 Semi-Weekly Natchitoches Times, August 15, 1866
An August 15, 1866 issue of the Semi-Weekly Natchitoches Times details an overwhelming loss of life that disproportionately affected Black residents It notes that 34 of the 38 people killed were Black, and a majority of the wounded were Black as well.
In the same August 15 issue, the Times printed a statement issued by Lieutenant Governor Albert Voorhies, Attorney General A.S Herron, and New Orleans Mayor John
In a follow-up statement, T Monroe outlined their view of the riot and offered another casualty estimate Unlike the previous report, the numbers were presented in a different format, and they contended that forty-two police officers and several civilians were killed or wounded by the rioters.
Twenty-seven rioters were killed and a considerable number wounded By combining the casualties among killed and wounded policemen and civilians, Voorhies, Herron, and Monroe framed the non-rioters as the true victims of the New Orleans Massacre, the ones who suffered the greatest losses Their estimates also undercounted the Black population’s true casualty figures The ambiguous wording and rough approximations in their account left room for a range of misinterpretations about what actually occurred during the New Orleans Riot.
Conservative newspapers, such as the Semi-Weekly Natchitoches Times, reported the deaths of African Americans whom they framed as conspirators in the riot, yet those fatalities were often minimized relative to the deaths of white police officers The day after the New Orleans Massacre, the New Orleans Bee documented the police casualties, listing that twenty-two officers were wounded and naming Theard, McDonnelly, Hennessy, and Sokoloski (the last two not expected to live), with Waggaman dead and Corporal Barnell also reported killed The report acknowledged that the total number of casualties could not be learned at that time.
In the August 15, 1866 issue of the Semi-Weekly Natchitoches Times, the report states that there were not less than 25 negroes killed outright, and four drayloads were carried off from the Mechanics’ Institute The Bee identifies the names of the officers who were wounded and killed in the affray, but describes the deaths of the black population in terms of how many carts it took to move the bodies.
Excitement Should Be Avoided”: Rumors of Riots, Violence, and Insurrections….18
Rumors of Violence within New Orleans
Police records published in the New Orleans Daily Crescent reveal heightened fear, paranoia, and violence across the city in the wake of the riot A front-page column from the August 2 issue reports rumors of uprisings, including an allegation that a large number of negroes from the west side of the river crossed below the Third District to attack the white population Another rumor led to the arrest of Boyd Robinson, charged with inciting negroes on the levee to attack white persons The same piece notes that Lieutenant William H Manning warned of an anticipated riot on Main Street, between Royal and Bourbon streets, that evening.
The rumors of insurrections fizzled as the Second District police announced that the rumor of Black residents attacking White residents was officially found to be untrue Robinson was brought before the District’s recorder and soon discharged for reasons that remained unclear Regarding the riot on Main Street, Manning ordered his men to guard the scene but later telegraphed the chief, "Everything quiet No prospect of any disturbance."
40 New Orleans Daily Crescent, August 2, 1866
41 New Orleans Daily Crescent, August 2, 1866
42 New Orleans Daily Crescent, August 2, 1866 Manning’s full name is not found in the Crescent, but it is retrieved from Hollandsworth’s An Absolute Massacre, 103
43 New Orleans Daily Crescent, August 2, 1866
44 New Orleans Daily Crescent, August 2, 1866.
Like the Crescent, the West Baton Rouge Parish Sugar Planter quickly spread rumors while promoting the parish’s economic development and condemning Radical Republicanism In its August 11 issue, the Planter presents two conflicting takes on New Orleans: “Rumor, with her multitude of tongues, says the Convention will meet nolens volens on the 3rd of September next, but whether the Radical Wells will have stamina enough to carry his threat into execution remains to be seen.” On the same page, it reprints from the New Orleans Times: “The rumors which fly thick and fast through the streets, of riots and uprisings in and around New Orleans, says the Times, are all unfounded, and the offspring of heated imagination – so we are informed by the Chief of Police.” Yet, even without knowing the certainties of any riot or whether a major outbreak of violence might recur, the Sugar Planter continued to publish rumors while claiming to understand “the true position of affairs” in New Orleans.
These incidents might have prompted genuine concern for the New Orleans police, but they also reveal a broader social atmosphere in the city at the time Groundless or not, paranoia seeped into the public psyche and appeared in local newspaper coverage In Domination and the Arts of Resistance, political scientist James C Scott argues that rumors flourish in situations where events of vital importance to people’s interests are unfolding and reliable information is scarce or ambiguous By reporting these rumors despite their speculative nature, the Crescent helped spread them and shape public perception.
47 Scott, 144 politically charged news rapidly, even if such news was vague or fallacious Truth was not a prerequisite for publication in a Louisiana paper
Only fragments of intelligence were reported with certainty in Louisiana newspapers, yet the coverage reveals how journalists interpreted the social unrest that followed the riot The Crescent depicted a climate of paranoia, suggesting blacks were about to attack the local population On the evening of August 2, a discharged U.S soldier informed an officer in the Third District police of “a gathering of about two hundred armed negroes assembled some two miles below the barracks.” Lieutenant Joseph Jacobs, who led the Third District police, dispatched a patrol to verify the rumor The Crescent’s report the next day noted that “nothing additional had been heard from Lieut Jacobs in relation to the matter.” Although the crowd’s actual presence was not confirmed, the episode nonetheless attracted attention from the press.
The Crescent, a daily newspaper, circulated rumors of insurrections while also taking a firm stand against anyone seeking to provoke violence In a piece titled Excitement Should Be Avoided, an unidentified journalist warned that fierce impulses have been incited, dormant passions awakened, latent enmities rekindled, and ancient grudges revived among local Black men and women as a direct result of the New Orleans Riot.
48 New Orleans Daily Crescent, August 3, 1866.
49 New Orleans Daily Crescent, August 3, 1866 Lieutenant Jacobs’s full name is not found in the Crescent, but it is retrieved from Hollandsworth’s An Absolute Massacre, 113.
An August 3, 1866 issue of the New Orleans Daily Crescent accused the “worst of the city’s whites” of teaching and rousing Black residents to “take an initiatory step in such a revolution as must wholly change the fundamental organization of society, and lead through horrible crimes to the destruction of all that is valuable in our government.” The Crescent’s dramatic rhetoric fits its reputation for sensationalism, a pattern historians note, including Mark Wahlgren Summers in his work on the era’s press and politics.
During 1865–1877, Southern journalists frequently employed truculent and apocalyptic language to advance their partisan perspectives, and the Crescent’s rhetoric aligns with Summers’ statement The conservative author presents Radical Republicans as the adversaries who incited the riot, insisting they will be the cause of civil government’s demise This portrayal illustrates how Reconstruction-era press coverage amplified factional divides by casting political conflict as an existential threat to civil order.
Crescent cautioned readers that the insurrectionary actions of Radical Republicans posed a serious threat to the safety of New Orleans, its businesses, and its residents It urged the city’s thinking and calm citizens to assuage agitators, safeguard public peace, and halt the spread of harmful influences within the city.
Despite warnings to avoid excitement, the Crescent did little to dampen public fervor in the weeks following the New Orleans Riot The newspaper kept publishing reports of street disturbances, mob activity, and indiscriminate violence against local citizens and policemen On August 16, the Crescent’s front page carried a report highlighting the ongoing unrest that continued to draw public attention.
“four negro soldiers armed with muskets threatened to kill Mr Palegau,” who was the
51 New Orleans Daily Crescent, August 3, 1866.
53 New Orleans Daily Crescent, August 3, 1866
On August 3, 1866, the New Orleans Daily Crescent reported that the owner of a grocery store on the corner of Derbigny and Conti Street—just a few blocks from the Mechanics’ Institute where the New Orleans Massacre had occurred almost four weeks earlier—was confronted by unidentified soldiers who stood in front of the shop and threatened Officer Cook and several private citizens No shots were fired, and the soldiers fled before they could be arrested The Crescent’s account offered no additional details about the incident or its motive, leaving it unclear whether the editors understood the reason for the intimidation or chose to depict it as a senseless act.
After the riot, the Crescent repeatedly reported that black soldiers—allegedly from the 9th United States Colored Cavalry—were organizing against local police, and its September issue carried the bold headline “Negroes Shooting and Cutting the Police,” recounting two episodes of reckless shootings and rebellious acts Around midnight on September 23, a band of black soldiers attacked police at the Conti and Treme intersection; though several shots were fired, none hit their targets, and the attackers soon fled, only to be arrested on Bienville Street and later charged with attempted murder The Crescent notes the men were found with the “new revolvers” used in the assault, but it does not offer a motive for their actions.
55 New Orleans Daily Crescent, August 16, 1866
56 New Orleans Daily Crescent, September 24, 1866 actions Instead, it depicts the affair as one in which armed black soldiers assaulted innocent policemen at random and without reason
Another incident described in the Crescent article depicts violent acts toward police In the early hours of a Friday, a ball on Franklin Street between Customhouse and Canal Streets was shut down by police for disorderly behavior, as men at the gathering fired pistols into the street In retaliation against the police who had closed the ball, Robert Mac, a Black man at the party, cut one of the officers with a razor Mac was soon arrested, but not before informing officers that he was a soldier.
In September, the paper published an article titled, “Negro Riot,” a headline reminiscent of the reports following the July 30 massacre According to the article, the episode began when two police officers arrested two black prostitutes near Corduroy Alley, a “neighborhood [that] is filled with lewd negresses, and is much resorted to by discharged negro soldiers, and blacks still in service.” The situation escalated when the local blacks, supposedly a mob of several hundred, staged their own rescue of the two female prisoners by heaving bricks and stones at the arresting officers Additional forces arrived to assist the policemen in the arrest, and “the combined forces made a demonstration which dispersed the mob without resort to violent measures.” However, the article claims that the mob succeeded in injuring the arresting officers, who were
“very roughly used” after the incident The report alleges that the black men throttled and
57 New Orleans Daily Crescent, September 24, 1866 knocked the officers down, and “the women bit them severely, to force them to relinquish their hold” on the prostitutes 58
Though this riot resulted in relative peace, it reveals the concern among some New Orleans papers that the presence of armed black men in certain neighborhoods contributed to the outbreak of mob violence On October 1, the Crescent published news of a separate incident where “a large crowd of negroes were disturbing the peace, at the corner of Barracks and Treme streets.” One member of the mob, a man named Joseph Manuel, was arrested for having a musket in his possession and was charged with an attempt to kill Like other Crescent reports of riots and violent outbreaks, the article fails to mention whether or not the arrested party was convicted Rather, it tells a hollow, oft- repeated story of armed black men rioting on the streets of the city without an apparent motive or cause