Qualla: Battle of Liberty Place

Battle of Liberty Place: Introduction

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The U.S. National Archives, Public domain. On the morning of September 14, 1874, Canal Street in New Orleans was the widest boulevard in America and the commercial heart of the South's largest city. By four o'clock that afternoon, it was a battlefield. Five thousand members of the White League -- a paramilitary force composed largely of Confederate veterans -- had massed along the south side of the street, armed and waiting. Across from them stood 3,500 members of the racially integrated Metropolitan Police and state militia, commanded by former Confederate general James Longstreet, who had broken with his old comrades to align with the Republican Reconstruction government. When the shooting started, the police lines broke. The insurgents captured City Hall, the state armory, and one piece of artillery. They barricaded the streets with railroad cars. For three days, they held downtown New Orleans.

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Image: The U.S. National Archives | Public domain

Battle of Liberty Place: Two Governors, One Capital

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sf46 (talk), Public domain. The insurrection did not erupt from nowhere. It grew from the bitterly disputed 1872 Louisiana gubernatorial election, in which Democrat John McEnery and Republican William Pitt Kellogg both claimed victory. Two separate election boards issued conflicting results. Democrats accus...

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Image: Sf46 (talk) | Public domain

Battle of Liberty Place: The Barricades on Canal Street

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jj saezdeo, CC BY-SA 4.0. By 1874, McEnery's allies had organized a rump legislature in New Orleans. The White League, funded and led by the city's planter elite, entered the city 5,000 strong to forcibly seat their man as governor. Self-proclaimed Lieutenant Governor D. B. Penn issued a proclamation call...

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Image: Jj saezdeo | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Liberty Place: Three Days and a Telegram

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NOLAskip, CC BY-SA 3.0. Kellogg wired President Ulysses S. Grant for help. Within three days, federal troops were en route. General William H. Emory met with the opposition leaders -- McEnery, Penn, and others -- and offered a deal: no arrests in exchange for restoring the legitimate government, returni...

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Image: NOLAskip | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Liberty Place: The Monument That Would Not Stay

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit (WT-en) Benjiho at English Wikivoyage, Public domain. In 1891, with white Democrats firmly in control of Louisiana and in the process of disenfranchising Black voters, the city erected a white marble obelisk on Canal Street praising the insurrection. In 1932, the city added a white supremacist inscription. In 1974, after the Civil R...

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Image: (WT-en) Benjiho at English Wikivoyage | Public domain