Transcript (excerpt):
New Orleans Daily Crescent, New Orleans, Friday Morning, April 19, 1861.
Page 1, Upper Half
Notwithstanding that the secession of Virginia had for some days been looked upon as a fixed fact, the final announcement of that fact, by telegraph, yesterday afternoon, threw the community into a state of the most noisy and jubilant excitement.
Before the news had appeared in the after-editions of the evening papers, it spread electrically about the streets, and for the time caused a very general suspension of business.
Some gentlemen connected with the cotton houses on Carondelet and Common streets, speedily brought out a small cannon, or swivel, and, at the intersection of the streets named, fired a salute of eight guns – seven for the Confederate States and one more for Virginia. In a moment all cottondom was out on the street, and the excitement and rejoicings were all-pervading and intense. We saw dignified and grave-mannered gentlemen, who had probably seldom or never shouted before, whirling their hats over their heads, and vieing with the lustiest in their loud huzzahs for the glorious Old Dominion.
Citation: New Orleans Daily Crescent. New Orleans, 19 April 1861. Gift of Steven and Susan Raab. AN .N557
As Federal troop pass through Baltimore on their way to Washington, DC riots break out. The violence kills 4 soldiers and 9 civilians.
President Lincoln proclaims a blockade of the South. Ineffective at first, by the end of the War it will prove to be disastrously effective against the South, strangling the Southern economy.