Grant

by Ron Chernow

D. B. Penn, the Democratic lieutenant governor under McEnery, issued a provocative call for his militia to drive from power the “usurpers,” as he billed Republican officeholders. In a veritable coup d’état, thousands of whites, many of them former Confederate soldiers instigated by the White League, barricaded the streets, overpowered black militia and the racially integrated Metropolitan Police Force led by Longstreet, and took over City Hall and the statehouse, killing more than twenty people. Afterward, they announced that Governor Kellogg had been overthrown. General Emory informed Grant that the rebellion had “embraced nearly every white man in the community.”21 The battle had witnessed an extraordinary event: James Longstreet now fired on men he had commanded during the war, his small army having killed twenty-one White Leaguers. “The streets of the city were stained with blood,” wrote Grant, who released a proclamation that said “turbulent and disorderly persons” had conspired to overthrow Louisiana’s government and he ordered them to disperse within five days.22 To back up his words, he dispatched five thousand troops and three gunboats to reinstate Governor Kellogg. Almost overnight, the federal garrison in New Orleans swelled to America’s largest. Grant’s decisive actions pacified a dangerously unstable situation: the insurgents disbanded, the Penn forces surrendered state offices, and William P. Kellogg was restored as rightful governor.