Biloxi's Civil War Surrender — December 31, 1861

Mississippi was the second state to secede, in January 1861. By the end of that year, Biloxi — population about 420 — surrendered to the Union Navy without a fight on New Year's Eve. Ship Island, visible from the coast, had already become the staging ground for 18,000 Union troops under General Benjamin Butler, who would use it as the launch point for the assault on New Orleans. The Biloxi Lighthouse went dark for the duration of the war. The coast had never anchored Mississippi's power. At statehood in 1817, only 2.5 percent of the state's population lived here. The French had built Fort Maurepas near here in 1699, establishing the first capital of French Louisiana, but abandoned it by 1702 after crops failed, water ran short, and illness spread through the settlement. The capital moved to Mobile, then briefly back to Biloxi during the construction of New Orleans, but the coast remained a frontier — culturally Mediterranean, connected more easily to the rest of the world than to the rest of Mississippi. The occupation lasted the rest of the war. It took decades and a railroad to bring the resort economy back.