Agriculture. Nations ive talked about this before, the vast majority of the population are people who live on farms. Especially in the confederate states. Youre dealing with the population that is overwhelmingly people who live on farms. And yet, they will struggle to feed themselves. More often they will run out of our moments. This is surprising when you think of agriculture nation. The second big irony here, is that the foundations of the confederacy, the documents and the secession documents, before they join the confederate say, we want in limited government with more power to the states. Yet, the confederate government is going to become stronger, and more invasive than any Government People had seen to this point. In order to wage war, and try to feed everyone. Two key ironies, we are going to talk about how they come about. A flash point for this question of how you feed everyone is a series of riots. In the spring of 1863. In the confederacy, most notably in the capital city of and it happens elsewhere as well. Spring, 1863, timing here is crucial, we talked last time about the blockade more than a year into the world into the war, almost two years into the war. The blockade is now difficult to find special commodities and foods that cannot be grown locally throughout the south. Things are having trouble getting. In that is one key factor. Another key factor is that it simply early spring, and the food people stored, in the fall, and in the early winter as they were getting in their crops they started to walk out of it. The new things planted in the spring hadnt come into the ground yet. There is not a lot of things available. Theres always going to be as shortage of food at this particular moment. It is exasperated by some elements of the war as we will see in a moment. The richmond brand right, is predominantly activated by women, women who are working in the factories of richmond. Who were shopkeepers, who were small producers, so small scale formers who lived on the outskirts of the city. And, they had a number of concerns, the small scale for farmers found it harder and harder to bring the protests into the markets and sell it. The woman who are working in the factors shops, cannot get the food they need for the families, the wages are not keeping up with the cost of commodities as it is getting harder to find things. Most of them, their husbands are in the audience, or, there not enough windows, involved in this. Their initial plan is to go talk to the governor. See if the governor can help them. It is confederacy, but is also the capital of virginia. Richmond. We are going to go to the government, as for his. Help they get to his house, early in the morning on april 2nd, they find out he has already left to go to the capital. So, they march further into town. This, people join them, it gets bigger, it gets rowdy. Are they start breaking into stores and grabbing food. Grabbing close. Grabbing goods. They are struggling to get a hold of. That was the point of the protest in the first place. It becomes destructive and they meet, they get to the capital the capital of the confederacy jeffrey davis, comes out and he ordered them to disperse, tells them he, very suspicious of. Them tells them you, no go home to your families. Do what women are supposed to do. And they said, what we are supposed to feed our families, that is what were supposed to do. He throws coins at, them and tells them they are gonna be fired on by the soldiers of the area of the did not leave within five minutes. All in all, this is not good press for the confederacy. Richmond gets a lot of attention, this is an illustration that comes from the northern news. It is mocking the woman, were showing them, sending their husbands off to war early on. The southern bells in the beautiful dresses, after two years of war, this is what they have become. They have become these sort of unattractive animal like women in the streets, stealing food. There are riots elsewhere, which man gets the most because it is the capital. Also, because of the way Jefferson Davis responded, and particularly those soldiers, they are not too thrilled when they hear the president has suggested firing guns on women in the streets, some of whom might be there wipes are the sisters, who are just demanding food. Cell, so the response from the government will be important. It does not look to a lot of people like the confederate government does anything in response to this. That is not the case. And we will see this as we move forward. I want to go forward a little bit, to what leads up to this. What causes this particular crisis. What are the factors going on, in the confederacy. Well, on some level, they are deep proof. In the agricultural choices made in the 20 years prior to the war. Nobody expected his civil war, they were not preparing for that, and we talked about this very effective, productive slave hole in a economy, that created great wealth. People invested their money and their energy and lent, and slaves, and in the cash crops of cotton, primarily, but also to a lesser extent, like rice, and sugar. Then, in virginia, when we looked at some of that data, the king crash crop. A lot of the effort that was put into finding ways to get crops to market quickly, and shared quickly, was really focused on cotton and export, rather than spreading food around that was less of a priority. That is not where the money was meant to be made. There was an economically logical decision, in the 20 years pride to war. It ends up being a problem, because of this war is going on, and on, anand,. Who said last, time nobody thought it was going to last more than a couple of months. Here they, are two years in, and all of these problems have begun to emerge. We will see fewer problems getting crops to people who need it, in the United States. In the northern states, union states, because there had been more effort put in 18 forties and 18 fifties in the processing food craps, and getting them ready for distribution. We talked about the stock yards in the United States, and the week being brought their, and processed in huge quantities and shipped out. There is a mechanism that already exist, forgetting pigs to market, slaughter, turned into edible, and distributable meet. There is a process for doing that with the meat, that is very much in place, that can be used by the United States army. The confederacy does not have similar equivalent for sort of Long Distance distribution food. It has not been necessary before. So, trying to make up for, that and to make up for it, better than anyone was necessarily anticipating. It is still not a perfect system. When we turn to the advance of the war itself, a key thing, and we talk about the progress of the armys last, time where were they the, majority of the time . In 1862, they are in virginia. And they are in tennessee. In the upper Mississippi River valley. These are the places that grew most of the food. Particularly, the big wheat farms of the slaves states. These regions, im more heavily invested, and have armies traveling through than far more often in the first years of the war. More than places that have been primarily growing continent sugar. That is another defect. I mentioned already the blockade, it started to be effective. It is not keeping at everything by agent 63, but is keeping out enough things of what people can get a hold of, and how much it cost. So, wealthy people might still be able to get things, but the people involved in these bread writes, i really going to struggle to get commodities. Not bread so much, but coffee, things that have to be imported. To other key factors, tied to policy set in place, by state and national government, in 1862, again, to help the considering wage war. First of which is conscription. Ive said this last time. The draft of the confederacy are in the spring of 1862. When they are facing that string of defeats, in the mississippi feud. What the tennessee, but the Mississippi River, that have processed, and, all of those things were leading up to a sense in the 1862 that the confederacy was really struggling. The graph was part of. That what this does, is take more men out of the field, out of the farms, and put them into the. Armies sets in motion a process, by the end of the civil war, were put over a beauty percent of adults and older teenage white men into the armies. That is a huge number. So, under 80 circumstances, it will be difficult to keep the economy going, when you have that massive of a population, and putting them in the army. So, that process is not complete by the year of 1863, but the draft is created and it is having an impact. The labor unavailable, the precedent of free american slaves, and indian men, to do work for the army. These laws start and the state level. The state of virginia, and the fall of 1862. The state of north carolina, later in the fall of 1862, palazzo place to get together and make slave holders give up their workers. For several months at a time. And send them to fortifications, do all of the labor. The manual labor that the army needs. That is going to bring cold war people out of the fields. It starts in october, when the harvest is still going on. It is continued into the spring, into march, when the spring planting needs to happen. So, those factors as well are reducing the number of people who were available to grow, and maintain, and then harvest the crops. Many of the food producing areas in the confederacy, leading up to the brand it runs. Another key factor in peoples a ability to get food, if you live in the city, and you are not growing your own food, how are you getting it is youve got to go to your local stores, or from local producers. The cost of stuff is going up dramatically. What things are there, are getting to be more expensive because of inflation. The confederacy, announced currency it gets underway in 1862 as well. By the spring of 1863, things are not looking great. This graph you have here, is going to show you the increase in the cost of gold. So, what it takes to buy a dollars worth of gold and confederate dollar bills . The real job is a little bit later. In the summer of 1863, to 1864. We are not quite there yet in, the spring of 1863. It started, prices are going up. I know it is hard to see this, this very tiny this sort of midway points here, that is the start of 1863. So, we are seeing things really starting to shape up, and cost, and the value of the confederate Paper Currency is going down. The states are even painting their own Paper Currency, the more there is, the less it is worth. Makes it harder for wage earners, and factory owners who are being paid in currency, and their wages are not going up every time, the inflation rate goes up. So they are really struggling. That is another key factor in all of this. To put the inflation rate in more real terms, not everyone was going around buying gold, so there was a man named jon jones, whoever so often would write in his diary the cost of it went through, and picked some of the dates, and the cost of the barrel of flowers. This is the battle of flowers going up and cost from about 18 dollars, 18 to 20 dollars, the start of january 1861, when it begins, to the spring of 1863. It is doubled. Which is big. That is a huge difference. Compared to where it is going, 500 dollars brow by the end of the year, honey doesnt seem so bad in comparison. In two, years the cost of the barrel of flowers doubles, and your wages not. Doubled this is a huge factor in peoples experience of the war. I said before, we have often interpreted the confederate governments response, the National Response to all of this economic crisis, and to this unrest, as been insufficient. They did not really do anything. Part of why we have seen it that way, is why have storms have seen at this, where people have time living through it happen that way, is because of the way they responded, they did things. Very often the response was through National Policies and approaches, that got implemented by local governments. So, they gave local governments tools, for expressly told local governments to do things that would help. Mitigate some of this crisis, so, they do not get any credit for having got anything. The county court system, the county commissioners. The home garden, placed by the state. Others are going to locally be available elected fischel,s or appointed officials, are the ones doing these things. So, it does not seem like it is the confederacy. But often, there is a National Policy behind all of that. , so what is some examples of confederate Economic Policy . One that everyone knew is the confederacy. When they didnt like so much, is the tax and kind. Big surprise, people do not want to pay taxes. No one ever wants to pay taxes. Have that before. They are not paying these, confederacy has no national tax currency, or gold. The taxing kind, is taxing in what is your produced. So, if you are a wheat farmer, it is a portion of your weed farm. If you raise hogs, or, calves, it is a portion of your livestock. Whatever it is you are producing, as a portion of your crop. There is a regularly sort of scheduled announced 10 is due on this day, the tax collectors are going to be coming through. They take your taxes, in whatever it is you grow, so. If you are already struggling, or someone who is on the margins, and your farmers just barely enough for you to make. It having to hand over ten 15 to the government, is a big deal. Particularly, if you are struggling before the war. Now, your husband is away before, or you have been injured, and you come home, you are trying to keep things going, this can be a significant burden this tax. So, this is a policy everyone knows from the federal government. And no one is talking about. Another policy everyone knows is the confederate government, everyone is not happy about, is impeachment of stuff. Not just and president of labour, we are talking about slaves, and free people of color, both African American and American Indian being impressed. But, the confederate government is also impressing food supplies, wagons, furnaces, horses, mules, cows, whatever it is they need when they come through your community. Theres two versions, theres two types of pressure. One is, the army is here, it is marching through your town, they are going to take what they need. There is not a lot of notice that they are coming necessarily, and, you pretty much have to give them what they are asking for. They will give you receipts, the receipt is for, confederate currency, which we have already discussed. It is declining in value. People are often very unhappy about. This as they get back. Sometimes people are shocked, or refusing to hand over goods to the federal authorities. That sort of illegal, but is unclear what is going to happen. The other foreign repress meant, is this quotas. Each committee is expected, on top your taxes you are expected to hand over another portion of your stuff. In this case, you get a receipt, or reimbursement. Taxing kind, you do not get agreeing embers directly. You get a government and an army. Sometimes you get paid, if you look close to richmond, you can go and demand, you can get it, sometimes the local impressed when agent will come back and bring this is one of those policies that is a National Policy. There are state laws and National Laws about. This the work of doing it is done by local people. Ive been studying this man in william campbell, he lives in a county in central virginia, and he was appointed. He was in the Confederate Army. Then he was sent home, in what they called detailed, to do this work. He was part of a prominent family, he had been a teacher at some point in his life, he was well respected in his community. This is important. You want someone who is well respected and seen as honest. And they are gonna keep good records of what they have taken he spends the whole spring and summer, traveling around his county. Collecting information from people about what theyre growing, and what they are producing, so that he could come back and collect corn, we, to meet, things that the army needs to function. In the provide payment, or provide a receipt. Then he will collect it ever so often on the boat hes got, and take it down to richmond, and hand over to the War Department. This is happening in counties throughout the confederacy, on a daytoday basis. So, we have this government that is intruding in your production, on your farm. On a daily basis. We will see a number of other state policies, kind aligned them up here. Theres so many of them. Virginia in particular, because they are in the middle of it all the time, is a medicinal states law, that adds to this. For example, in virginia, they put their own spin on the conscription laws. So, prescription law which i mention, the conscription love for the confederate says if you have 20 or more slaves you get one exemption for prescription. Near a lot of rules put in place on. This by the end of the civil war, confederate conscription covers all white men ages 17 to 55. If you have 20 or more slaves, you get an exemption. You are supposed to use the exemption for the overseeing youre, or the person who runs the farm on a daytoday basis, the reason for this, you have to keep feeding people. You have to keep the farms going. You cannot keep the farms going, if you there is no one making the slaves work. So, the conscription policies designed to make sure there is someone on the ground, making sure the slaves are doing their work. And going to. Food that the army needs to eat. What we will see, is the states putting their own spins on these conscription laws, and saying, if you dont grow of food crop as your primary crop, we get, corn, you raise pigs, you raise cattle, whatever it is if you are not going food is a prima crop you did not get the exemption. Because we need more food, we did not need more and cotton in the last year of war. You can eat cotton. Virginia reduces, it they say if you have 15 or more slaves, you get the exemption, but again, you have to be growing food crops to back those out. We will see communities detail farmers, so someone who gets a it is a big producer of crops who does not have enough slaves, the communities will work with the confederacy and the person will be requested to get more details. And sent home. Goes through training, and then he is sent home and told his job for the army, for the time being, is to grow food. If needed, he will be called out to fight, but he is probably more value growing the food. So, theres all of these kind of tweaks, on the policy of getting and thats why we will see the numbers say, 90 plus percent of the wh