Louisiana in the American Civil War Antebellum Louisiana was a leading slave state , where enslaved Africans and African Americans comprised the majority of the population through the eighteenth century . By 1860 47 % of the population was enslaved . The state also had one of the largest free black populations in the United States . Much of the white population , particularly in the cities , supported states rights and slavery , while pockets of support for the Federal government existed in the more rural areas . Louisiana seceded from the Union on January 26 , 1861 . New Orleans , Louisiana , the largest city in the entire South , was strategically important as a port city due to its location along the Mississippi River and its access to the Gulf of Mexico , and the United States War Department very early on planned on its capture . It was taken by Federal troops on April 25 , 1862 . Because a large part of the population had Union sympathies ( or compatible commercial interests ) , the Federal government took the unusual step of designating the areas of Louisiana then under Federal control as a state within the Union , with its own elected representatives to the U . S . Congress . For the latter part of the war , both the Union and the Confederacy recognized their own distinct Louisiana governors . Politics and strategy in Louisiana . On January 8 , 1861 , Louisiana Governor Thomas Overton Moore ordered the Louisiana militia to occupy the Federal arsenal at Baton Rouge and the Federal forts guarding New Orleans , Jackson and St . Philip . A wealthy planter and slave holder , Moore acted aggressively to engineer the secession of Louisiana from the Union by a convention on January 23 . Only five percent of the public were represented in the convention , and the states military actions were ordered before secession had been established , in defiance of the state constitution which called for a popular referendum to establish a convention . These actions were justified by Moore ' s statement : " I do not think it comports with the honor and self - respect of Louisiana as a slaveholding state to live under the government of a Black Republican president . " The strategies advanced to defend Louisiana and the other gulf states of the Confederacy were first , the idea of King Cotton , that an unofficial embargo of cotton to Europe would force England to use their navy to intervene in protecting the new Confederacy . The second was a privateer fleet established by the issue of letters of marque and reprisal by President Jefferson Davis , which would sweep the sea clear of Federal naval and commercial ships , and at the same time sustain Louisiana ' s booming port economy . The third was a reliance on the ring of pre - war masonry forts of the Third System of American coastal defense , combined with a fleet of revolutionary new ironclads , to safeguard the mouth of the Mississippi from the Federal navy . All of these strategies were failures . The Federal response to Moore ' s leveraged secession was embodied in U . S . President Abraham Lincoln ' s realization that the Mississippi river was the " backbone of the Rebellion . " If control of the river were accomplished , the largest city in the Confederacy would be retaken for the Union , and the Confederacy would be split in half . Lincoln would move rapidly to back Admiral David Dixon Porter ' s idea of a naval advance up the Mississippi to both capture New Orleans and maintain his political supporters by supplying cotton to northeastern textile industries and renewing trade and exports from the Mississippi . The Union navy would become both a formidable invasion force , and a means of transporting Union armies along the Mississippi and its tributaries . This strategic vision would prove victorious in Louisiana . Notable Civil War leaders from Louisiana . A number of notable leaders were associated with Louisiana during the Civil War , including some of the Confederate army ' s senior ranking generals , as well as several men who led brigade s and division s . Antebellum Louisiana residents P . G . T . Beauregard , Braxton Bragg , and Richard Taylor all commanded significant independent armies during the war . Taylor ' s forces were among the last active Confederate armies in the field when the war closed . Henry Watkins Allen led a brigade during the middle of the war before becoming the Confederate Governor of Louisiana from 1864 – 65 . Randall L . Gibson , another competent brigade commander , was a postbellum U . S . Senator . Other brigadiers of note included Alfred Mouton ( killed at the Battle of Mansfield ) , Harry T . Hays , Chatham Roberdeau Wheat ( commander of the celebrated " Louisiana Tigers " of the Army of Northern Virginia ) , and Francis T . Nicholls ( commander of the " Pelican Brigade " until he lost his left foot at Chancellorsville ) . St . John Lidell was a prominent brigade commander in the Army of Tennessee . Henry Gray , a wealthy plantation owner from Bienville Parish , was a brigadier general under Richard Taylor before being elected to the Second Confederate Congress late in the war . Leroy A . Stafford was among a handful of Louisiana generals to be killed during the war . Albert Gallatin Blanchard was a rarity — a Confederate general born in Massachusetts . Governor Thomas Overton Moore , came held office from 1860 through early 1864 . When war erupted , he unsuccessfully lobbied the Confederate government in Richmond for a strong defense of New Orleans . Two days before the city surrendered in April 1862 , Moore and the legislature abandoned Baton Rouge as the state capital , relocating to Opelousas in May . Thomas Moore organized military resistance at the state level , ordered the burning of cotton , cessation of trade with the Union forces , and heavily recruited troops for the state militia . Battles in Louisiana . Battles in Louisiana tended to be concentrated along the major waterways , like the Red River Campaign . Battle of the Head of Passes < BR > Battle of Baton Rouge < BR > Battle of Bayou Bourbeux ( aka Grand Coteau ) < BR > Battle of Blair ' s Landing < BR > Battle of Calcasieu Pass < BR > Battle of Donaldsonville I < BR > Battle of Donaldsonville II < BR > Battle of Fort Bisland < BR > Battle of Fort De Russy < BR > Battle of Forts Jackson and St . Philip < BR > Battle of Georgia Landing < BR > Battle of Goodrich ' s Landing < BR > Battle of Irish Bend < BR > Battle of Kock ' s Plantation < BR > Battle of LaFourche Crossing < BR > Battle of Mansfield ( aka Sabine Cross - Roads ) < BR > Battle of Mansura < BR > Battle of Milliken ' s Bend < BR > Battle of Monett ' s Ferry < BR > Capture of New Orleans < BR > Battle of Plains Store < BR > Battle of Pleasant Hill < BR > Siege of Port Hudson < BR > Battle of Stirling ' s Plantation < BR > Battle of Vermillion Bayou < BR > Battle of Yellow Bayou Battle of Henderson ' s Hill