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was carried out to the street again. There it was placed in a hearse, which then joined a mile-long procession to the cemetery, led by the chief’s riderless jet-black horse. After a stop at St. Joseph’s Church, where Rev. Patrick O’Neill led a funeral service to overflowing pews, the procession continued up Canal Street. Twilight had just set in when the hearse crossed the bridge and passed under the stone arches of the Metairie Cemetery. Here Hennessy’s casket was set down inside a white-painted brick vault luxuriantly entwined with honeysuckle vines.
    Father O’Neill said a few last words of benediction. As a tribute to their slain chief, scores of New Orleans policemen came forward to throw their badges into the vault. And then a single man stepped up to close the tomb with a makeshift wooden tablet—a temporary marker that would eventually be replaced by a carved marble slab. The man was Thomas C. Anderson, described by the Daily Picayune as David Hennessy’s “bosom friend,” ashort but powerfully built figure with penetrating blue eyes and a lush, reddish-blond mustache. No one present could possibly realize it at that moment, but this young man honoring the first victim of New Orleans’ war against its underworlds would someday find himself at the very center of that war. Over the next thirty years, in fact, Tom Anderson would come to be regarded as the principal symbol of lawlessness in New Orleans—the enemy of the city’s better half, the nemesis to all of their aims, and the main target of their efforts to reform and control the city. Nor could Anderson himself have known that his next act would in a sense mark the beginning of that era of turmoil in New Orleans, a time that would see his own star as leader of the city’s underworlds rise and fall precipitously. For now, he was just memorializing his old friend Dave Hennessy, a symbol of law and order cut down too soon in the line of duty.
    Anderson stepped up to the wooden tablet, took a pencil from his vest pocket, and wrote out the chief’s simple epitaph: “David Hennessy, died Oct. 16, 1890”—the date that would mark the beginning of New Orleans’ civil war.

    F RIDAY —the day of Chief Hennessy’s funeral—had been the time for mourning the dead. Saturday was the time to act, and city officials were ready for battle. The man chosen by respectable New Orleans to lead their crusade had been killed before he’d even had a chance to strike the first blow. Now others would have to take command.
    At 12:35 on Saturday afternoon, a still-irate Mayor Shakspeare strode into a special council session at City Hall. The room was filled to capacity with the city’s aldermen, members of the police board, and other city officials. Reading from a prepared text, the mayor formally announced the death of David C. Hennessy “by the hands of despicable assassins.” Four of the five supposed gunmen were already in custody, and police were reportedly closing in on the fifth. But these five men represented just a small fraction of the enemy they were facing. “It is clear to me,” the mayor stated, “that the wretches who committed this foul deed are the mere hirelings and instruments of others higher and more powerful than they. These instigators are the men we must find at any cost.” Then, pointing out that he himself had received death threats in the days since Hennessy’s shooting, he called upon the assembled aldermen to take action. “The people look to you to take the initiative in this matter,” he said. “Act promptly, without fear or favor.”
    The council responded with a standing ovation as well as a plan. The time had come, Alderman Brittin said, for the city to call upon her best citizens to rise to her aid. He proposed the formation of a “Committee of Fifty,” its members to be selected by the mayor. The committee would investigate the matter of secret Italian murder societies and to devise “the most effectual and speedy