Our Collection

At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Unknown The New Orleans riot. Its official history.

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC06232.08 Author/Creator: Unknown Place Written: s.l. Type: Pamphlet Date: 1866 Pagination: 1 v. : 24 p. ; 21.1 x 14 cm. Order a Copy

Opens with the statement "It was no Riot- It was an Absolute Massacre by the Police- A Murder Perpetrated by the Mayor." Includes dispatches pertaining to the riot from Albert Voorhies, Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana; Andrew Herron, Louisiana Attorney General; President Andrew Johnson; Edward Davis Townsend, Assistant Adjutant General; Edwin McMasters Stanton, Secretary of War, and General Ulysses S. Grant, among others. Contains newspaper reports on the event from the New York Tribune and the New York Times. The final page contains a Tribune report stating "We must convince the SOUTH and the COPPERHEADS that revolutions go not backward- that Emancipation is an unchangeable fact- that the glorious CIVIL RIGHTS ACT can never be repealed." Several pages are detached from spine.

The New Orleans riot took place 30 July 1866 when African Americans congregated to support radical Republicans who met to discuss the Black Codes. Both blacks and whites were killed. Often referred to as the "New Orleans massacre," reports indicate that many supporters and members of the convention were killed by local police.

Grant, Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson), 1822-1885
Herron, Andrew, fl. 1866
Johnson, Andrew, 1808-1875
Stanton, Edwin M. (Edwin McMasters), 1814-1869
Townsend, E. D. (Edward Davis), 1817-1893
Voorhies, Albert, fl. 1860-1882

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