Why was New Orleans so important during the Civil War?

It was the last Confederate fort on the Mississippi River.

It was a key port for the Confederacy.

It was considered the capital of the Confederacy.

It was where all Confederate military planning occurred.

Its location near the mouth of the Mississippi River made the city an important and early target of the Union Army, which occupied the city for much of the war, interrupting its vital status as a port for export of cotton and other Southern-produced trade goods.