Henry Clay Warmoth, Louisiana governor, 1868-1872, and later owner of Magnolia Plantation, was born in Illinois in 1842. During the Civil War, he was lieutenant colonel of the 32nd Missouri Volunteers, assigned to the staff of General John A. McClernand. He was wounded in 1863 near Vicksburg, but returned to his command after being cleared of spreading false rumors about the strength of the Union Army. Post-war, Warmoth was judge of Provost Court in New Orleans, and, in 1868 at age 26, was elected Republican governor of Louisiana. His governorship was dominated by issues such as civil rights, suffrage, election fraud, party factionalism, and corruption. In 1872, Warmoth faced impeachment charges for official misconduct, but his trial ended when his term as governor expired. He served in the Louisiana legislature, 1876-1877, and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1888. Warmoth was Collector of Customs for the Port of New Orleans, 1889-1893. Beginning in 1874, Warmoth owned Magnolia, a Plaquemines Parish sugar plantation where he modernized sugar refining. Warmoth published in 1930 and died in New Orleans in 1931. War, Politics, and Reconstruction: Stormy Days in Louisiana The collection includes correspondence and diaries related to Warmoth's service in the Union Army, his tenure as governor of Louisiana during Reconstruction, and political affairs in Louisiana. Topics discussed include civil rights; the Freedmen's Bureau; the Fourteenth Amendment; suffrage for Louisiana freedmen; segregation on railroads; opposition to President Grant; violence in Louisiana; elections and election fraud; the Republican Party, both local and national, and party factionalism; management of the United States Mint in New Orleans; and the construction of railroads, levees, and canals. There are also letters, diaries, plantation journals, daybooks, ledgers, slave lists, and scrapbooks related to Magnolia Plantation, sugar refining, investment in railroads, and his service as Collector of Customs for the Port of New Orleans, 1889-1893. The 1865-1867 diary provides an eye witness account of the New Orleans Race Riot of 30 July 1866. Photographs depict Warmoth and his family; structures, machinery, and workers at Magnolia Plantation; and other scenes and individuals. Frequent and notable correspondents include Henry C. Dibble, Thomas Jefferson Durant, Charles Foster, Francis J. Herron, William Pitt Kellogg, Effingham Lawrence, W. L. McMillan, Stephen B. Packard, P. B. S. Pinchback, John R. G. Pitkin, Lionel A. Sheldon, George A. Sheridan, J. H. Sypher, J. R. West, and H. W. Whittlesay. There are also a few letters from presidents Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, and William H. Taft, as well as a few letters from notable Civil War generals such as Benjamin F. Butler, James Longstreet, and John A. McClernand, and an 1868 letter of warning to Warmoth from the Ku Klux Klan.
