Tensions in Reconstruction Mardi Gras Celebrations
Three years ago, I wrote exploring Mardi Gras in Civil War New Orleans. This year I wanted to continue examining Civil War era Mardi Gras by exploring how Reconstruction tensions impacted Carnival.
In 1866, with hostilities over, Mardi Gras reignited across New Orleans. The Mystik Krewe of Comus, the Crescent City’s first modern parading organization, recommenced with its ball themed “The Past, in which the horrors of war were depicted; The Present, which illustrated the blessings of peace; and The Future, over which peace and plenty presided.”[1] That year’s ball invitation, along with 1867’s, however, ensured cancelled wartime celebrations were acknowledged, with previous parades being featured, but with dark orbs commemorating the years 1862-1865.
In 1867 former Confederate sergeant John Sparkman recorded Mardi Gras festivities: “You could see occasionally a boy or man and sometimes even a lady with a mask on promenading the streets and as it grew later in the day the number gradually increased till by the middle of the evening there were a great many, some with horrid faces and almost any kind of a dress that was odd or ugly.”[2]
The Republican Party gained a foothold across Reconstruction Louisiana, thanks in part to the enfranchisement of those formerly enslaved. In the decade after the Confederate defeat, New Orleans joined the South in a battle against Republican dominance. Mardi Gras provided a focal point across the Crescent City for subtle commentary and overt challenges by Democrats. British traveler Greville Chester documented 1869 Mardi Gras. The day began with “continuous parading about the city of masquers of all ages and both sexes.” He noticed political commentary by paraders criticizing Reconstruction policies, as “the favorite characters which were assumed were Yankee carpetbaggers.”[3]
One week before Mardi Gras Day 1871 saw a pair of military-themed events. The first was a performance by the Shakespeare Club at the St. Charles Theater to fund raise for “the Washington Artillery tomb fund” to construct a memorial honoring members of that Confederate artillery organization.[4] The second was a masquerade ball hosted by the reconstituted 5th Louisiana Militia regiment. Besides containing former Confederates, the regiment sported uniforms that were “gray, trimmed with blue, look very neat, and bear a striking resemblance to the uniforms worn by the gallant boys who fought so well during the four years’ conflict.”[5]
The most influential modern parade krewe, Rex, formed in 1872, was also packed with Reconstruction commentary. Numerous former Confederates planned Rex’s first appearance, including General P. G. T. Beauregard and former Louisiana governor and Brig. Gen. Paul Hébert. Louisiana Militia colonel and “Commander-in-chief of his Majesty’s [Rex’s] forces” Charles Squires fired a thirteen-gun salute from his artillery battalion to start the parade.[6] Squires and many of his gunners were veterans of the Army of Northern Virginia’s Washington Artillery.
Among Rex paraders that day were fully-costumed Ku Klux Klansmen. Later in the procession were effigies of Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, Louisiana Republican Governor Henry Warmoth, and Republican New Orleans Mayor Benjamin Flanders. The parade’s highlight was when it reached Gallier Hall, where “a semi-circular platform, with wings, had been erected” and covered in flags of the United States, Russia (commemorating Russian Grand Duke Alexis Alexandrovich’s visit), France, Prussia, and the United Kingdom. “Among those we noticed also,” a reporter observed, were “emblems dear to those who labored in the ‘lost cause.’”[7]
A second salute by Squires ended the parade, allowing for the commencement of the Krewe of Comus, whose 1872 ball invitations featured a child holding balloons espousing previous parade themes. Once again, prominently centered were four blank balloons listing the years 1862-1865.[8]
Pro-Confederate and anti-Reconstruction rhetoric continued in 1873, with much challenging the disputed 1872 gubernatorial election putting William Kellogg in power. That year, the two-year-old Twelfth Night Revelers Society’s theme celebrated the works of famed local artist John James Audubon. Two parading cars openly mocked pro-Reconstruction unity between Republicans and the formerly enslaved, one showing “the union between ‘White Dove and Ground Dove in matrimony,” while another featured “The Crows in Council,” mocking the Louisiana legislature as pro-freedmen, corrupt, and illegitimate.[9]
The 1873 Mystik Krewe of Comus contained similar attitudes, with a theme exploring missing links of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Parading members donned costumes showcasing such missing links, with many personifying actual leadership through effigy. President Ulysses Grant was displayed as a cigar-smoking alligator wearing a military slouch hat. Another costume hearkened to the start of United States military occupation of New Orleans, with a hyena bearing the face of Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler. The costume is festooned with military equipment, as the hyena Butler wears a sword and carries a large spoon, a direct reference to the general’s nickname for supposedly confiscating fine silver of New Orleans elites. Other costumes, such as the gorilla, mocked freedmen as uneducated.[10] (Check out many of these costumes here)
In 1874, the Krewe of Rex continued challenging Louisiana’s Republican government. That year, Rex’s poet laureate, Xariffa, penned a note highlighting the corruption and illegitimacy of Governor William Kellogg.[11] Such sentiments boosted the ranks of the White League, Democrats and former Confederates bent on challenging the Republican government. Their increased popularity resulted in the battle of Liberty Place, where on September 14, 1874 the White League attempted a coup against Louisiana’s Republican government by assaulting New Orleans police and state militia to seize the statehouse, armory, and downtown sector of town. White Leaguers also besieged the custom house until United States soldiers arrived. One early history of Mardi Gras published in late 1874 suggested that Rex, king of Carnival, fomented anti-Reconstruction activity across New Orleans, even being responsible for the battle of Liberty Place! That 1874 history noted that “only a few days have elapsed since his successful attempt at overthrowing the government of Louisiana—one of the most remarkable occurrences on record.”[12]
Ramifications abounded following the failed coup, chiefly a military redeployment into New Orleans by Lt. Gen. Philip Sheridan. Arriving in January 1875, Sheridan suspended Carnival that year. Many White Leaguers paraded, and Sheridan wished to minimize political condemnation of the state’s Republican Party and resistance to Reconstruction. The invitation for the cancelled 1875 ball of the Twelfth Night Revelers mirrored the battle of Liberty Place by having a white-clad army from heaven carrying flags mirroring the Confederacy’s battle flag into combat against a shadowed force from hell itself.
Mardi Gras 1877 occurred as debates, negotiations, and political dealings related to the 1876 presidential election continued. Louisiana Democrats saw an imminent end to Reconstruction and used Carnival to claim victory across New Orleans.
It was not only in New Orleans that Reconstruction tensions emerged in Mardi Gras festivities. During the first Carnival parade in Memphis, Tennessee in 1872, the Ku Klux Klan “appeared in full regalia” on their own float, where one Klansman wearing blackface was “executed” as African Americans in the streets looked on and “saw how the horrid deed was done.”[13] In 1878 a Memphis Mardi Gras float celebrated ending military Reconstruction, showing United States soldiers departing a pelican-strewn Louisiana for the Reunited States of North America. The message in both floats was clear: Anglo dominance of the South would stay by force and intimidation.
Mardi Gras celebrations often provide commentary on contemporary politics and current events, and Carnival celebrations during Reconstruction were no exception. In those post-Civil War festivities, the commentary originated from Democrats and former Confederates criticizing Republican Reconstruction polices. It provides a good case study in how deep Reconstruction policies, and the resistance against it, penetrated all areas of Southern society.
For more about Mardi Gras in the Civil War era, check out my 2021 article about Mardi Gras in Civil War New Orleans and several articles by Patrick Young on the Reconstruction Era site.
Endnotes:
[1] William H. Forman Jr., “William P. Harper and the Early New Orleans Carnival,” Louisiana History, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Winter, 1973), 41.
[2] John W. Sparkman, The Diary of Sgt. John W. Sparkman, Sr, (Birmingham, AL: Birmingham Public Library: 1940), 93.
[3] Greville John Chester, Transatlantic Sketches in the West Indies, South America, Canada, and the United States, (London: Smith, Elder, and Company, 1869), 208.
[4] “At the St. Charles Theater Tonight,” Daily Picayune, New Orleans, LA, February 16, 1871.
[5] “A Scene of Enchantment,” Ibid.
[6] “Edict No. XI. By H.R.H., The King of the Carnival,” Ibid, February 9, 1872.
[7] “Reign of King Carnival,” Ibid, February 14, 1872.
[8] Mardi Gras Scrapbook, Mss. 1344, Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, LSU Libraries, Baton Rouge, LA.
[9] Justin A. Nystrom, New Orleans After the Civil War, (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 133.
[10] Designs from the Mystik Krewe of Comus 1873 parade, Carnival Collection, Manuscripts Collection, Louisiana Research Center, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA.
[11] Perry Young, The Mistik Krewe, (New Orleans, LA: Carnival Press, 1931), 130-131.
[12] Handbook of the Carnival, 82.
[13] “High Carnival,” Daily Appeal, Memphis, TN, February 14, 1872.
Joe Cain (Joseph Stillwell Cain, 1832-1904) was in New Orleans in 1867 for the Fireman’s Day parade. He stayed over until the next day which was Mardi Gras that year, saw the celebration in the streets, and he returned to Mobile determined to revive the spirits of the citizens and to create a similar celebration of Mardi Gras for the people. He conceived the fictional character of Chief Slacabamorinico (“slaka-BAM orin-ah-CO”) while he was the city clerk at the city market.
Dressed in costume with a plaid skirt and feathered headdress, Cain paraded through the city streets on a Tuesday in 1868, celebrating the day in front of the citizens of the city and Union Army troops.
A band of fellow Confederate veterans (including Thomas Burke, Rutledge Parham, John Payne, John Bohanan, Barney O’Rourke, and John Maguire) later accompanied Joe Cain as “Old Slac” riding through town on a decorated coal wagon, playing horns and drums, parading and celebrating.[1] The group became known as the “Lost Cause Minstrels Band” in Mobile.
The first appearance of Joe Cain occurred the afternoon in the same year as the evening parade of the Order of Myths (OOM), the final parade each year.. Joe Cain was one of the founders of the New Year’s Eve mystic society the T.D.S., and he built a tradition of Mardi Gras parades.
Joe Cain, who had played Old Slac until 1879, died in 1904 and was buried in the fishing village of Bayou La Batre (Alabama). Julian Lee “Judy” Rayford arranged to have Joe Cain reburied in Mobile’s Church Street Graveyard in 1966, and he established Joe Cain Day in 1967 by walking at the head of a jazz funeral down Government Street to the cemetery
Although The Big Easy in Louisiana is perhaps best-known for its Mardi Gras revelry, the port city of Mobile, Alabama, founded in 1702 by French settlers, lays claim to being the city that first observed the event.
Corruption, al;ways endemic to New Orleans and Louisiana, reached rarified heights during Reconstruction. Levees were a constant public need. In 1871, the Louisiana legislature gave $1 million to the Louisiana Levee Co. to work on the levees. The legislation authorized the Company to pay 60 cents a cubic foot, while at the same time, plantation owners were paying 15 to 18 cents per cubic foot for their private levees. State legislators were bribed to support that act. One state legislator, Africa-American, however, missed the vote. So, T.B,. Stamps wrote a letter to the Louisiana Levee Co. assuring them if he had not been away, he would certainly have voted for the act. Stamps said he was due his bribe and he promised the bribe to a friend.
The Louisiana Levee company cut corners on its levees. It allowed weds to grow, which prevent the better grasses to grow, which would hold the levee together better (such were the construction techniques of the day); they allowed roads to be built on top of the levee. In 1876, the state legislature repealed the act that authorized payment o the Louisiana Levee Co.
A white woman was robbed in broad daylight on a major street in New Orleans in 1874. The newspapers over-reacted and proclaimed the city was not safe from “Negro outrages.” But, still in a time when it was considered insulting to approach a woman to whom one had not been introduced, it was a shocking occurrence.
Pinckney B.S. Pinchback, a black from Mississippi, was active in New Orleans politics. He aligned himself with the “Customhouse gang” – lead by the Customs Collector who was related to Pres. Grant. After he had previously supported Gov. Warmoth. That means Pinchback now opposed the Clay Warmoth faction of the Republican party. But, Warmoth did not yet know he had switched allegiances.
In 1877, there were two competing state legislatures. One duly elected with partial support from the white voters. That faction elected Francis Nicholls, former Confederate. But, Gov. Warmoth was not willing to give up so easily. Pinchback learned that Warmoth had hidden four senators – that was Warmoth’s plan to control the state legislature and ensure he was recognized as governor. Seizing the opportunity, Pinchback acquired bribe money for the four senators and took them to his mansion and hid them. He hoped to obtain leverage with Warmoth, Franicis Nicholls, or both.
But, the head of the New Orleans Metropolitan police department – A.B. Badger, who was African-American and reasonably honest – learned about the four senators and went to Pinchback’s mansion to get the senators. But, Pinchback refused. Badger looked and saw several White League members armed, standing guard in the back. Badger decided he and his men should leave. But, as they withdrew, the White Leaguers arrested all of Badger’s Metropolitan police officers – except for Badger. Badger was one of the very few men, respected by all in state and city politics. Badger walked home alone, defeated by corruption he could not match.
That was Louisiana and New Orleans politics of the day.
Tom