Battle of Liberty Place

The "Louisiana Outrages", as illustrated in Harper's Weekly, 1874.

Date	September 14, 1874
Location	New Orleans, Louisiana
Result	Split party government

Belligerents

White League

Louisiana State Government

Metropolitan Police
State Militia

Casualties and losses

Louisiana State Government

The Battle of Liberty Place, or Battle of Canal Street, was an attempted insurrection by the Crescent City White League against the Reconstruction Louisiana state government on September 14, 1874, in New Orleans, where the capital of Louisiana was at that time. Five thousand members of the White League, a paramilitary organization of the Democratic Party, made up largely of Confederate veterans, fought against the outnumbered Metropolitan Police and state militia. The insurgents held the statehouse, armory, and downtown for three days, retreating before arrival of Federal troops that restored the elected government. No insurgents were charged in the action. This was the last major event of violence stemming from the disputed 1872 gubernatorial election, after which Democrat John McEnery and Republican William Pitt Kellogg both claimed victory.

Among those injured in the fighting at Liberty Place was Algernon Sidney Badger, superintendent of the New Orleans Metropolitan Police. Born in Boston and a veteran of the Union Army, he had been living and working in New Orleans since the end of the war.

In 1891, the city erected a monument to commemorate and praise the insurrection from the Democratic Party point of view, which at the time was in firm political control of the city and state and was in the process of disenfranchising most blacks. The white marble obelisk was placed at a prominent location on Canal Street. In 1932, the city added an inscription that expressed a white supremacist view.

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