seceded
States, but the sixth in all the Union. With a population of nearly
170,000 souls, she carried on an export trade larger than that of
any other port in the country, and enjoyed a commerce in magnitude
and profit second only to that of New York. The year just ended
had witnessed the production of the largest crop of cotton ever
grown in America, fully two fifths of which passed through the
presses and paid toll to the factors of New Orleans. The receipts
of cotton at this port for the year 1860-1861 were but little less
than 2,000,000 bales, valued at nearly $100,000,000. Of sugar,
mainly the production of the State of Louisiana, the receipts
considerably exceeded 250,000 tons, valued at more than $25,000,000;
the total receipts of products of all kinds amounted to nearly
$200,000,000. The exports were valued at nearly $110,000,000; the
imports at nearly $23,000,000. It is doubtful if any other crop
in any part of the world then paid profits at once so large and so
uniform to all persons interested as the cotton and sugar of
Louisiana. If cotton were not exactly king, as it was in those
days the fashion to assert, there could be no doubt that cotton
was a banker, and a generous banker for New Orleans. The factors
of Carondelet Street grew rich upon the great profits that the
planters of the "coast," as the shores of the river are called,
paid them, almost without feeling it, while the planters came,
nearly every winter, to New Orleans to pass the season and to spend,
in a round of pleasure, at least a portion of the net proceeds of
the account sales. In the transport of these products nearly two
thousand sailing ships and steamers were engaged, and in the town
itself or its suburb of Algiers, on the opposite bank, were to be
found all the appliances and facilities necessary for the conduct
of so extensive a commerce. These, especially the work-shops and
factories, and the innumerable river and bayou steamers that thronged
the levee, were destined to prove of the greatest military value,
at first to the Confederacy, and later to the forces of the Union.
For food and fuel, however, New Orleans was largely dependent upon
the North and West. Finally, beside her importance as the guardian
of the gates of the Mississippi, New Orleans had a direct military
value as the basis of any operations destined for the control or
defence of the Mississippi River.

About the middle of November the plan took definite s