Originally posted April 10, 2012 in The Immigrants’ Civil War
New Orleans was the only major city in the Confederacy, and it was captured by the Union army and navy just a year after the war began. Did the city fall to the Union because its immigrants were fed up with the nativist Know Nothings commanding its defenses?
New Orleans had endured some of the worst anti-immigrant violence in the entire country during the decade before the war. Thirty-eight percent of the population of the city was born abroad, primarily in Ireland and Germany. During the 1850s, the Know Nothings gained control of city government and they used violent mobs to keep immigrants from voting or taking part in civic life. At times, shoot-outs took place between nativists and immigrants over the right to vote, with the newcomers most often forced to retreat.1…