USA > Louisiana > Orleans Parish > New Orleans > Standard history of New Orleans, Louisiana, giving a description of the natural advantages, natural history settlement, Indians, Creoles, municipal and military history, mercantile and commercial interests, banking, transportation, etc. > Part 59
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388
Indiana
108
Ohio
306
Texas
48
Tennessee
236
Virginia
9
Kentucky
226
Alabama
10
Arkansas
140
Two-thirds of this business was lost by the merchants of New Orleans during the Civil War and has never been regained. It can only be surmised what the results would have been had the war not come on us. Certain is it, however, that unless New Orleans had realized the importance of railroads, as it did not fully do until years afterward, unless it had contributed from its superabundant capital toward their construction, instead of placing too much confidence on the Missis- sippi river and its "unequaled advantages," it would have lost the region commer- cially tributary to it, war or no war, but it would have taken decades to do what four years of Civil War brought about.
New Orleans was losing, at that time, another branch of business, the im- portance of which it never fully recognized. When the immense tide of foreign immigration poured into the country in the last of the forties, in consequence of the great famine in Ireland and the political disturbances in Germany and other parts of the continent, growing out of the revolutions of 1848, the bulk of the immigrants made the Mississippi Valley their destination. They passed on through New Orleans by the thousands and tens of thousands, and went up the river to their destination in Illinois, Ohio, Indiana or Missouri; although many thousands remained behind in New Orleans, to give that city its cosmopolitan population. It cannot be said that New Orleans ever appreciated this immigra- tion or saw what it meant for the development of the country. There was a dis-
568
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
tinct prejudice against it, growing out of the slavery issue, and the city made so few efforts to keep this business, which was once largely centered here, that the immigration drifted to New York, where it did much to build up that city into a great manufacturing center. Here, again, was another opportunity lost.
Yet in spite of all these neglected opportunities New Orleans was at the outbreak of the Civil War one of the great ports of the world, and to all ap- pearances the most prosperous commercial city in America. It ranked second to New York City in the amount of commerce it handled, but it was further behind that city than it had been in 1840, and there seemed little chance of its ever dis- tancing Manhattan, as had seemed probable twenty years previously. Its cotton trade yielded a larger profit than the grain, flour and provision trade, which had been diverted to New York. Its banks were running over with gold, and had money to contribute to all important commercial enterprises. It was New Orleans capi- talists who stood at the van and were agitating and preparing for the continuation of a railroad or canal across the isthmus of Panama or Tehuantepec in order to give us an outlet to the Pacific. Its banking and financial system was regarded as the safest and soundest in the Union, and even New York was glad to borrow some ideas from it. Its commercial and financial supremacy over all the country tributary to it, which included some half a dozen States, was undisputed. New Orleans supplied the capital for the cultivation and movement of cotton, sugar and the other crops of the South. The planters almost without exception were in- debted to its merchants and could not send their produce to any other port, nor buy what they wanted elsewhere. The consequence was that no other commercial towns existed in the neighborhood of New Orleans; that city swallowed up all the trade and business of its section. Louisiana and Mississippi were signally deficient in the cities of the second class, which were springing up throughout the North and West, and even in the Southern Atlantic States. The policy of commercial centralization was marked and operated in the interests of New Orleans and its merchants.
These merchants were men of the highest character and integrity, far-seeing in their business, but unfortunately accepting the doctrine of the kingship of cotton ; and they thought that slavery, upon which the commercial system of New Orleans, as well as the industrial system of the South, was founded, was safe and beyond the danger of destruction. New Orleans was a most cosmopolitan city, and its merchants, like its population, came not only from all parts of the country, but from all parts of the world. The Southern element was the largest and gave
569
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
direction to the course of commercial sentiment ; but some of the leading business men were of Eastern and even of New England origin. With their life in New Orleans, however, they soon became pro-Southern in their sentiments, habits and views of life. The West was but poorly represented in commercial life, and this fact, and the political prejudices which were growing up in the country over the slavery question, contributed toward the loss of the Western trade. The Creoles, or French of Louisiana descent, still controlled the sugar trade, which ranked next to cotton in importance. The foreign element was largely represented, mainly by the English and French, engaged, however, principally in the import trade, in supplying the markets of New Orleans and the South and such parts of the West as still received their goods through the Southern metropolis with the manu- factured products of Europe. The slave business, although it was not too con- spicuous, constituted an important element of the trade of New Orleans. That city was the best slave market in the South, negroes bringing the highest prices there, and it handled thousands of them each year, selling them to the planters en- gaged in opening up new cotton and sugar lands.
The commercial methods and practices were quite different from what they are to-day, and if more expensive were more picturesque. There were no commer- cial exchanges then, where quotations of produce could be obtained, and business was handled more or less in the saloons, which called themselves "exchanges," and made some attempt to give the standard prices of the leading commodities ; but, as might be expected, these prices fluctuated widely. The commercial business of the city, instead of being hidden away as it is to-day, at the railroad depots, was concentrated on the levee; and "the levee" was one of the show places of New Orleans, to which strangers were taken to give them some idea of the city's im- mense commerce. It seems to have impressed them all, for they declared without exception that they had never seen anything like it. The description of the levee in those ante-bellum days reads like fairy tales from The Arabian Nights. The levee was the storehouse for all the great Mississippi Valley. Along the wharves lay steamboats or steamships two or three deep, for the wharfage was not sufficient to accommodate all the vessels loading at the port. All was action; the very water was covered with life. It was beyond all question the most active com- mercial center of the world, with which not even the docks of Liverpool and London could merit comparison; and whenever any one expressed fear that the railroads would sap the commerce of New Orleans, he was taken to the levee and asked if that looked like commercial decay.
570
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
In the midst of all this, in the very height of New Orleans' prosperity as a cotton market, when it exported half of the cotton crop of the country, came the shock of Civil War. The previous season, 1859-60, had been one of the most prosperous in the history of the city, and New Orleans, which, like the rest of the South, anticipated a very short war, if any, took a most roseate view of the future, and had no idea that the four years' struggle which was to ensue meant its com- mercial ruin and its setback a generation or more.
Anticipating the blockade of the port, a very earnest effort was made to market the cotton crop at as early a day as possible and before the Federal fleet could get off the mouth of the Mississippi. Wonders were accomplished in that direction, but it was of course impossible to get all the cotton exported in time. The receipts of produce at New Orleans, however, for the season 1860-1 showed only a slight loss from the previous year, being $155,863,564, as compared with $185,211,254 for 1859-60, not a bad showing for a blockaded port.
The history of the next four years is military rather than commercial. When the Civil War shut up the mouth of the Mississippi to the Western States, a de- mand went up from them to the Federal government that it be opened. Yet this demand, if compared with that made by the settlers in the upper valley, in 1798, showed that the Mississippi had lost some of its importance as far as they were concerned. In 1798 the people of the Ohio Valley had declared that they could not get along without the navigation of the river; but in 1861 they found that it was not absolutely necessary to them, although advantageous. None the less President Lincoln saw how important from a military, if not a commercial, point of view, was the possession of New Orleans, and the control of the Mississippi, and almost his first expedition was that which, under Farragut and Butler, occu- pied "the Crescent City" in a little over a year from the time Louisiana had seceded from the Union.
In April, 1862, the Federal fleet passed the Confederate forts defending the mouth of the river and appeared before New Orleans. It was greeted with a scene of wholesale destruction, characteristic of the then commercial conditions. All the steamers in the river which could not escape up-stream were set fire to and sent floating down the river in flames, lest they might fall into the hands of the Union forces. Cotton being dcemed at that time a contraband of war, the possession of which would strengthen the Union cause, was ordered destroyed by a special committee appointed for that purpose, hauled from the warehouse to the river front, piled up on the wharves and publicly burned; and the city was full of cotton
57I
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
at the time, the crops of 1860-1 and 1861-2, which had not yet been marketed, because of the blockade, being still stored therc. A quantity of sugar, molasses and other products was similarly destroyed, through a misunderstanding of the order issued.
The statistical reports of the commerce of New Orleans for the four years of the Civil War are misleading and give a false idea of the commercial condition of that city. They are as follows :
No. of steam- boat arrivals.
Value of prod- uce received.
1861-2
1,456
$ 51,510,990
1862-3
655
29,766,454
1863-4
1,414
79,233,987
1864-5
1,481
113,649,280
The value of the produce received at New Orleans during this period is apparently very large for a city surrounded by a hostile army and with only a small region tributary to it. This is due mainly to the greatly inflated value of goods, and particularly Southern products then. In actual volume, the receipts of produce at New Orleans during the first year of its occupation by the Union forces were the smallest since Louisiana had been purchased from France. There was tributary to the city only one hundred and forty miles of river, for the Missis- sippi was closed at Port Hudson, thus cutting off the Red river and all the tribu- taries except the Lafourche. Over this small stretch of country some few steamers ran, picking up whatever freight there was, carrying supplies to the planters or the Union forces, but the business was small and risky. The receipts of New Orleans for the season were just enough to feed the population of the city. There were no exports save of such cotton as could be raised inside the lines or smuggled in. In 1859-60 New Orleans had received 2,185,600 bales of cotton. This dropped to 38,880 bales in 1861-2, and to 20,774 in 1862-3. With the capture of Port Hud-
son and Vicksburg, its business improved somewhat in 1863-4, the total number of bales received running up to 131,144. The last year of the war, 1864-5, showed a still greater increase to 275,015 bales. During this period the commerce of New Orleans was practically dead. Its merchants, with few exceptions, had left the city, and the business was handled entirely by foreigners or by those connected with the army who could get special favors from the authorities. So dead was New Orleans, for it had no manufactures to fall back on, that in spite of the fact that its population was much smaller than it had been, in consequence of the large
-
572
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
number of Orleanians who had gone out into the Confederacy, it was not self- supporting, and the military authorities were compelled to distribute relief and feed a considerable proportion of the poorer classes left without the means of living, in consequence of the decay of the city's commerce.
An effort made in 1865, when peace had come, to find what New Orleans had lost by the Civil War made a most melancholy showing. It was found that the Western States were getting from New York their coffee, sugar and other supplies which they had formerly obtained through New Orleans, and the shipments of Western produce through the Crescent City had declined 75 to 90 per cent. Thanks to the embargo of the war, the railroads had gained in four years an advance on the river route with which the commercial prosperity of New Orleans was so closely identified that they could not have otherwise gained in twenty years of ordinary competition.
With the return of peace the merchants of New Orleans found that the commerce of this city was almost completely destroyed and that they would have to rebuild it from the very foundation. They took a most hopeful view of the future, under the belief that the conditions that prevailed at the time of the out- break of the war would be resumed at once. This optimistic sentiment was reflected in the commercial activity shown in 1866, and the great advance which took place in all property values-an advance which would be called "a boom" to-day. The merchants found their task harder than they had imagined. The ways of doing business had radically changed during the interim and New Orleans had to con- form itself to these new ways. It had, in the old days, had no commercial ex- changes, and the bulk of the business had been transacted immediately on the levee. The necessity was recognized of having some place where information could be obtained as to the movement of crops and current prices, and the Merchants' Exchange was established on the model set by the Northern and Western cities.
New Orleans was still deficient in railroads, and an carnest effort was made to extend them, but at first in vain; and the city was compelled to depend mainly upon the Mississippi and its tributaries. Its merchants saw the trade of the great Empire State of Texas slipping away from them from lack of railroad communi- cation. An attempt was made to retain this trade with steamboats running up the Red river to Jefferson, but the river route was uncertain because of the low water, and was expensive. The old difficulty at the mouth of the river, growing out of the low water on the bars, grew steadily worse, in consequence of the larger size and greater draft of vessels engaged in ocean commerce. The delay of vessels
573
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
at the passes, waiting for a favorable tide or rise in the river to take them out, the cost of towing them over the mud-heaps, were expenses that preyed on the com- merce of New Orleans. In all the conventions held at that time the merchants. called attention to the trouble and asked favorable action on the part of Congress.
The railroads had been able to considerably reduce their freight charges by several improvements and devices, and it was felt that New Orleans must make a similar cut from the rather high charges which the steamboats still demanded. This reduction was brought about by the introduction of barges built entirely for freight transportation and not encumbered by the magnificently fitted up saloons, which had formerly been considered a sine qua non in river steamers. This im- provement had a marked effect in reducing river rates, and, for a short period. in the seventies, New Orleans enjoyed a large share of the grain trade. But even with cheaper river rates the situation was not altogether satisfactory. The railroads. continued to divert trade from New Orleans. In 1859-60 this city had handled: 46 per cent of the cotton crop; in 1866-7 its proportion was only 35 per cent. It dropped to 33 per cent in 1870-1, and to 27 per cent in 1876-7,
A new era then began to dawn upon New Orleans-the era of railroads. The city had previously been almost hostile to railroads, confident that the water route was the cheaper ; but at last it was beginning to see that it needed the railroads as well as the Mississippi. In 1870 it secured its third road, the New Orleans, Mobile & Texas, a short line, and largely competing with the river ; but a step in the right direction. In 1871 was noted the first receipt of produce in New Orleans by rail from a river town. This was a large quantity of flour which came from St. Louis by rail, whereas, previously all such shipments had been made by river. The flour was brought from St. Louis for seventy-five cents a barrel, the same rate it would have cost had it been brought on a steamer, but it saved the ex- penses of insurance. This movement, prophetic of the future, was one to cause a great deal of surprise, because New Orleans had close, excellent and cheap water com- munication with St. Louis at the time, and boasted loudly of its barge line of seventy-three river barges.
The last twenty-five years have seen a radical change in the commerce of New Orleans and a steady improvement for the better. The turning point may be considered to be 1874-5, when the jetties were begun. The bad condition of the passes had been a source of constant worry and a serious hindrance and expense to commerce. It was evident that New Orleans could not hope to compete with other ports if vessels of over one thousand tons were completely shut out or
574
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
admitted only after long delay. In the seventies the question came to a focus. Three plans had been proposed; a canal, dredging, and jetties, which by contract- ing the river would increase its current and enable it to wash away the obstructive bars. The dredging was tried and proved a failure; and Congress then, with rare good luck for New Orleans, allowed Captain Eads to try his jetty plan. It was a grand success. Completed in 1879, it afforded a depth of thirty feet in the center of the channel and opened New Orleans to the largest vessels then afloat. To the jetties New Orleans owes much of its commercial prosperity to-day. They cx- pedited what had long hung fire-the construction of railroads to the city. In the days immediately succeeding the Civil War every inducement had been held out to the railroads to build to New Orleans. They were offered bonds, financial assistance and public lands, but they could not be induced to build. It was not until 1873 that New Orleans was connected by rail with the neighboring city of Mobile, only one hundred and forty miles away. But when the railroads saw that New Orleans had deep water, that it was one of the best ports from which to ship, they exhibited as great a desire to have terminal facilities there as they had shown disinclination before. The result was the completion of several trunk lines, making New Orleans the terminus of five of the largest railroad systems of the country.
By the purchase of the Mississippi Central and the New Orleans, Jackson & Great Northern, the Illinois Central obtained a direct rail route from Chicago and the grain fields of the Northwest to the Gulf, which connection was afterward strengthened by the purchase of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley system. Similarly, by the purchase of the New Orleans & Mobile Railroad, the Louisville & Nashville. system, with its lines through the States of Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee, found an outlet on the Gulf at New Orleans. The Cincinnati Southern and the Great Southern Railway system, running through half a dozen States, secured en- trance to New Orleans over the New Orleans & Northeastern.
On the west bank New Orleans, which had so long lacked railroad con- nection with Texas, secured two lines to that State. The Southern Pacific extended the old Opelousas road to connect with its Texas lines; and the Texas & Pacific road did the same for the old New Orleans, Mobile & Texas Railroad, building it to Shreveport, Dallas and Fort Worth.
The continuation of these several lines had a material effect upon the com- merce and trade of New Orleans, and the city regained much of its old business.
575
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
How much the railroads have contributed to this improvement the following figures show :
RAILROAD BUSINESS OF NEW ORLEANS.
Year.
Tons of freight forwarded.
Tons of freight received.
Total tons of freight handled.
1872-3
464,240
1873-4
530,224
1874-5
615,963
1875-6
729,920
1876-7
807,672
1877-8
714,842
1878-9
722,213
1879-80
998,688
1880-1
372,964
564,660
937,624
1881-2
493,297
730,642
1,223,939
1882-3
603,912
902,046
1,505,958
1883-4
640,820
1,022,272
1,662,200
1884-5
642,820
1,113,462
1,754,282
1885-6
662,600
1,165,211
1,777,811
1886-7
685,447
1,254,616
1,940,063
1887-8
720,840
1,282,736
2,009,576
1888-9
1,324,208
1,749,892
3,074,200
1889-90
1,486,515
1,969,681
3,456,197
1890-1
1,493,226
2,064,516
3,555,742
1891-2
1,452,620
2,398,368
3,850,968
1892-3
1,403,538
2,554,484
3,958,022
1893-4
1,412,541
2,601,531
4,014,072
1894-5
1,374,677
2,731,932
4,106,599
1895-6
1,386,378
3,129,815
4,516,193
1896-7
1,530,481
3,401,371
4,932,212
1897-8
1,608,505
3,964,497
5,573,002
1898-9
1,534,234
3,390,381
5,464,615
The total commerce of New Orleans for the year season 1898-9 was as follows :
Receipts from interior by river, rail and canal
Tonnage. 5,096,660
Valuc. $147,731,618 59,986,872
Imports by coastwise vessels
505,819
Imports by foreign vessels
1,478,124
11,946,344
Total receipts
7,080,600
219,664,834
Shipments by rail and river
1,740,500
$82,165,860
Exports, coastwise
512,015
47,762,812
Exports, foreign
1,465,418
90,121,115
Total shipments
3,717,633
$220,059,787
Grand total of commerce of the port.
10,798,233
$430,724,621
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576
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
This port compares as follows with previous seasons :
Scason.
Total Com- merce of New Orleans.
1876
$371,664,126
1886
456,062,948
1889-90
521,484,618
1890-1
531,764,118
1891-2
496,465,741
1892-3
527,830,632
1893-4
483,507,065
1894-5
455,659,431
1895-6
419,580,908
1896-7
479,751,019
1897-8
486,131,712
1898-9
439,724,621
The maximum commerce would seem to have been reached in 1890-1. These figures, however, are somewhat misleading, for this reason: that the prices of staple products were much higher than they were later, so that the total does not really represent more in volume than the business of the later years. The last two years show some loss on account of the interruptions to business and the diversion of trade due to quarantine embargoes. The average business of New Orleans has materially changed from previous years. First the bulk of the products from the interior are brought to the city by rail instead of river. A much larger share is mere transit goods, not handled at all in the city, but sent there in transit for ship- ment abroad, and consequently leaving a smaller percentage of profit in the city. The business is done largely through the exchanges, the cotton and sugar exchanges and the board of trade, and the fluctuations are less marked than formerly. Exports are carried mainly in foreign vessels. Probably one-fourth of the exports are coast- wise, mainly to New York, the other Atlantic cities having little ocean trade with New Orleans. Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston occasionally send cargoes or receive produce from New Orleans, but the trade is uncertain and there are no regular lines, as to New York. On the other hand steamship, lines run regularly to most of the European ports, especially Liverpool, London, Havre, Bordeaux, Antwerp, Bremen and Palermo; and the bulk of the trade is in the hands of these vessels instead of the tramp steamers, as formerly. The direct import trade has shrunk very materially, although the imports are really much larger than ever before ; but they come by way of New York and the coastwise steam-
577
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
ers from that port. These steamers handle twice or three times as much in the way of imports to New Orleans as the foreign lines.
In the past few years the railroad rates between New Orleans and the interior were very greatly reduced, with the result that the city had become in 1896 the third largest grain port in the Union, and was handling a much larger share of the trade in Western produce,-flour, grain, pork, etc .; but this subject is more fully treated elsewhere in the commercial and other advantages of New Orleans. At the end of the nineteenth century New Orleans occupies a less exalted position relatively in the commerce of the world than it did at the beginning of the century, but it still possesses the same advantages and opportunities, only awaiting their utilization. Nor does commerce exercise the same supremacy in the city as of old. Up to 1860, New Orleans devoted itself almost exclusively to commerce and did little to encourage manufacture, whereas, in 1900, the latter industry gave employ- ment to more persons than all the branches of mercantile and commercial life. The promise seems to be a city equally divided between the two-a great mart of the world's trade, and a great manufacturing centre.
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