Louisiana secession Orleans. Two days before the city surrendered in April 1862, Moore and the legislature abandoned Baton Rouge as the state capital, relocating to Opelousas in May 1, 1862. Governor Moore began to organize military resistance at the state level, ordered the burning of cotton, cessation of trade with the Union forces, and heavily recruited troops for the state militia. However, despite a brief check at Baton Rouge, Union forces continued to advance into Louisiana and up the Mississippi, and the capital was moved again to Shreveport. New Orleans, Louisiana, the largest city in the entire South, was strategically important as
Louisiana State Lottery Company Louisiana State Lottery Company The Louisiana State Lottery Company was a private corporation that in the mid-19th century ran the Louisiana lottery. It was for a time the only legal lottery in the United States, and for much of that time had a very foul reputation as a swindle of the state and citizens and a repository of corruption. The company, initially a syndicate from New York, was chartered on August 11, 1868 by the Louisiana General Assembly with a 25-year charter and in exchange gave the State $40,000 a year. With the passage of the charter, all other organized