New Orleans was the largest city--and one of the richest--in the
Confederacy, protected in part by Fort Jackson, which was just
sixty-five miles down the Mississippi River. On April 27, 1862,
Confederate soldiers at Fort Jackson rose up in mutiny against
their commanding officers. New Orleans fell to Union forces soon
thereafter. Although the Fort Jackson mutiny marked a critical
turning point in the Union's campaign to regain control of this
vital Confederate financial and industrial center, it has received
surprisingly little attention from historians. Michael Pierson
examines newly uncovered archival sources to determine why the
soldiers rebelled at such a decisive moment.
The mutineers were soldiers primarily recruited from New Orleans's
large German and Irish immigrant populations. Pierson shows that
the new nation had done nothing to encourage poor white men to feel
they had a place of honor in the southern republic. He argues that
the mutineers actively sought to help the Union cause. In a major
reassessment of the Union administration of New Orleans that
followed, Pierson demonstrates that Benjamin "Beast" Butler enjoyed
the support of many white Unionists in the city.
Pierson adds an urban working-class element to debates over the
effects of white Unionists in Confederate states. With the personal
stories of soldiers appearing throughout,
Mutiny at Fort
Jackson presents the Civil War from a new perspective,
revealing the complexities of New Orleans society and the
Confederate experience.