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Jacob Hawkins—sup. Court— “18Jacob Hawkins (?–1876) was the judge of the superior court for Orleans Parish. He was a supporter of Governor Michael Hahn, whom Lincoln had installed after the Union occupation of New Orleans. Andrew Johnson received complaints that Hawkins sided with radical factions against the administration. In the 1872 gubernatorial election, Hawkins opposed Warmoth. New Orleans Times-Picayune, 10 May 1876; United States Congressional Serial Set, 1549: 992; Johnson, Papers of Andrew Johnson, 13: 75; John Kendall, History of New Orleans (Chicago, 1922), 346.
E C Billings—N. G. “19Edward Coke Billings (1829–93) was a Harvardand Yale-educated lawyer from Massachusetts and a strong Republican. He practiced law in New York City from 1855 to 1865. Following the Civil War, he relocated to New Orleans and joined the firm of Sullivan, Billings & Hughes. In 1872, when some questioned James F. Casey’s integrity and ability as collector at New Orleans, Billings wrote to President Grant on Casey’s behalf. Later, in 1876, Grant appointed Billings federal judge for the District of Louisiana, a position he held until his death. Grant, Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 22: 339; Richard Edwards, Edwards’ Annual Directory of the . . . City of New Orleans for 1870 (New Orleans, 1869), 76; Biographical Directory of Federal Judges (online).
E H Durell—“ ” “20Edward Henry Durell (1810–87) was an interim mayor of New Orleans and a federal judge in Louisiana. He was from a politically established family in New Hampshire. Durell graduated from Harvard in 1831 and then moved south and practiced law in Mississippi and Louisiana. He served on the New Orleans City Council and was the city’s mayor in 1863. President Lincoln appointed Durell a federal district judge in 1864. He joined the Republican party in 1864 and presided over Louisiana’s state constitutional convention. His support of citizenship equality for all races at the state convention reflected the evolution of his beliefs on the issue of slavery. Although Durell had managed to cultivate respect from both Republicans and Democrats alike, his judgeship was eventually marred by controversy as a result of his role as the judge in the 1872 lawsuit between Governor Warmoth and the Republican gubernatorial candidate, William Pitt Kellogg. Kellogg accused Warmoth of rigging the election results in favor of the Liberal Republican–Democratic ticket. Ultimately, Durell ruled in favor of Kellogg. As a result, Louisiana’s conservatives turned against Durell, and Democrats on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee initiated impeachment proceedings against him on charges of drunkenness and corruption. Durell resigned in December 1874 and moved to New York. Durell was unable to finish his book on southern history from 1860 to 1877 before his death, but he had published New Orleans as I Found It in 1845 under his pen name, H. Didimus. Charles Lane, “Edward Henry Durell, A Study in Reputation,” Green Bag, 13: 153–68 (Winter 2010); Biographical Directory of Federal Judges (online).
Col Jas Lewis “ ” “21James Lewis was born a slave in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, in 1832. Before the Civil War, he worked at various jobs aboard Mississippi River steamboats. He was a steward on Confederate naval vessels in several engagements early in the war, but fled to Union lines after the capture of New Orleans. He enlisted in the Union army and was made a captain in the Louisiana Native Guard. After working for the Freedmen’s Bureau, he was appointed collector of customs for New Orleans. An important political figure in the city, Lewis was the chairman of the Louisiana delegation to the Republican National Convention in 1872 and a staunch supporter of P. B. S. Pinchback. Governor Warmoth made him a colonel in the state militia. Lewis, however, broke with Warmoth and supported the election of William Kellogg as governor in 1872. He received a series of federal patronage appointments from Republican presidents down to McKinley. Simmons, Men of Mark, 954–58.
J H Burech—Grand Era—Bat Rouge22James Henri Burch (1836–83), a Republican politician from Louisiana during the Reconstruction years, led the impeachment proceedings against Governor Henry Clay Warmoth. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Burch was the son of the wealthy Reverend Charles Burch and attended Owega Academy. He moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in April 1868 and became the head of a local black school at the urging of his father. Burch rapidly became a recognized name within Louisiana Republican party circles. He represented East Baton Rouge Parish in both the Louisiana state House and Senate, purchased the Baton Rouge Courier in 1871 and published it as the Grand Era until 1878, owned the Athletic Base Ball Club, and managed the Aetnas baseball team. Burch briefly joined the Reform party, which was formed in December 1871, but left it when he felt its leader had tried to deceive black voters in the 1872 election. Burch worked closely with fellow African American politicians, especially lieutenant governors Oscar Dunn and P. B. S. Pinchback. Governor Warmoth aggressively attacked Burch on key issues. In turn, Burch played a notable role in the December 1871 impeachment of Warmoth, which contributed to the eventual falling out between Burch and Pinchback, Warmoth’s pick to succeed him as governor. In an interview just before his death in 1931, Warmoth stated, “J. Henri Burch and his group gave me a lot of trouble. He was a difficult man to handle, and finally lined up with the Custom House faction which opposed me and my administration.” Burch concluded his public career after Louisiana went through Redemption, starting with President Hayes’s decision in 1877 to recall federal forces from the state. Burch later married the widow of Oscar Dunn and became a master mason. Vincent, Black Legislators in Louisiana, 115–16, 138, 178; James E. Brunson III, Black Baseball, 1858–1900: A Comprehensive Record of the Teams, Players, Managers, Owners and Umpires (Jefferson, N.C., 2019), 104, 303; A. E. Perkins, “James Henri Burch and Oscar James Dunn in Louisiana,” JNH, 22: 321–41 (July 1937).
National Republican—N. O.23The National Republican of New Orleans was a short-lived daily paper, running from January 1871 to December 1872. Published by the Republican party of Louisiana, it was merged with the New Orleans Republican. Edited by George W. Carter, the National Republican backed the city’s customhouse “ring” and Lieutenant Governor Oscar P. Dunn in his intraparty competition against Henry Clay Warmoth and P. B. S. Pinchback for control of the state Republican party. Edwards, Edwards’ Annual Directory of . . . the City of New Orleans for 1872, 90; Pitre, “Collapse of the Warmoth Regime,” 166, 171–74.
N O Times “24The New Orleans Times first began publication on 20 September 1863 under the publisher Thomas P. May. In 1865, the Times was bought by William H. C. King. From 1865 to 1872, the paper was acknowledged as a leading publication, especially as one of the first papers in the city to issue a Sunday literary supplement. The Times had a reputation for attacking carpetbaggers and espousing conservative policies under King, a confidant of President Andrew Johnson. The Times vehemently denounced Judge Edward Henry Durell for ruling in favor of William Pitt Kellogg in Kellogg v. Warmoth et al. The paper was sold in 1872 following a court-ordered seizure. In 1881, after going through a number of owners, the Times was combined with the Democrat, effectively becoming the New Orleans Times-Democrat until its dissolution in 1914. New Orleans Times-Democrat, 26 April 1913; Grant, Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 15: 151, 18: 180–81; Henry Rightor, Standard History of New Orleans, Louisiana (Chicago, 1900), 276.
N O Picayune “25Both the Weekly Picayune and the Daily Picayune were originally published by Frances Asbury Lumsden and George Wilkins Kendall. The Picayune has been a staple in New Orleans journalism since its inception in 1837. Its title, Picayune, recalls New Orleans’s long history before becoming part of the United States, a picayune being a small Spanish coin worth about five cents, considered legal tender until 1857. In 1820, a group of city merchants acquired and operated the Picayune, but bankrupted it in less than two years. Publication was taken over by Alva M. Holbrook and his wife, Eliza Jane Nicholson, who in 1876 became the sole publisher, making her the first female owner of a major paper in the United States. New Orleans Times-Picayune/ Advocate, 6 July 2019; Rightor, Standard History of New Orleans, 272–76.
N O Bee “26The New Orleans Bee (L’Abeille de la Nouvelle-Orleans) was a daily English and French publication founded in 1809. Alternatively, the paper was titled Arielle, the Daily Bee, and the New Orleans Daily Bee. Its antebellum publisher was Jerome Bayon. Richard Campanella, Time and Place in New Orleans: Past Geographies in the Present Day (New Orleans, 2002), 148; Rightor, Standard History of New Orleans, 271–72.
German Gazette “27The German Gazette, or Die Tägliche deutsche Zeitung (and under various other names), was published in New Orleans from 1848 to 1907 and was the longest-running German newspaper in Louisiana. German immigration to the United States peaked in the 1840s and 1850s, and in New Orleans these German immigrants, who made up nearly 13 percent of the population, ran much of the city’s industry. This daily paper was one of several German-language papers catering to the German population of New Orleans in the middle of the nineteenth century. Andrea Mehrländer, “ ‘With More Freedom and Independence Than the Yankees,’ ” in Civil War Citizens: Race Ethnicity, and Identity in America’s Bloodiest Conflict, Susannah J. Ural, ed. (New York, 2010), 57–97; Ellen C. Merrill, Germans of Louisiana (Gretna, La., 2005) 180–92; Rightor, Standard History of New Orleans, 277–79.
N O Republican “2828. The weekly New Orleans Republican was published from 1867 to 1878 by S. K. Brown & Company. It issued a prospectus endorsed by such leading congressional Republicans as Benjamin Butler, Thaddeus Stevens, Benjamin Wade, and John Logan. The prospectus declared the new paper’s purpose was “to organize the patriotic sentiment of [Louisiana] into harmonious relations with the Federal government, to reconcile the defeated portion of our population to the changes in institutions and political principles produced by the war.” “Prospectus of the New Orleans Republican,” n.d., David M. Rubinstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 638–40L FD Papers, DLC.

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