Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Civil War 1863 Richmond Bread Rio

To find everything we want to, such as Hand Sanitizer or toilet paper or pasta. And this was one of the big problems that provoked the bread riot, were shortages in the market. So well be talking about that tonight. And what i want to do at the beginning of the talk is kind of set the stage for the bread riot, give you an idea for the conditions under which it could which it occurred. Then i will talk about the riot itself, and then ill end with the aftermath of the riot. I have a slight up here of e. Bert garlick keen wrote some insightful things in the days leading up to the bread riots. I want to share something from his diary. On march 7, this is what he said. He was an official in the War Department. He said flour in the city is , 30, but butchers are closing their stalls. Meat, 1. 25 per pound. Farmers are making preparations. Then he went on to say, they resent the secretarys scheduled prices, which are often 50 below the market or neighborhood price. And this price schedule he is talking about i will go into a little more detail but basically it was the government setting prices that farmers had to abide by when they sold goods to the army. So the farmers resent these prices. The impressment of flour, corn, and meat as soon as they are brought to towns is causing a universal withholding of surplus. The army will be starved and famine will ensue in the cities unless the secretary changes his policy and buys in the market for the best price. And then keene concluded, there is a manifest uneasiness in the public mind, different from anything i have noticed heretofor. Now, by 1863, the war had done much to change the structure of the south, the socioeconomic structure of the south. Of course during this time period, women were supposed to be subservient to men. Womens domain was the hearth and home. They were supposed to be the Spiritual Center of the home. They were supposed to basically take care of their family and their husband, attend church. But they were not the breadwinners. They were not supposed to be out in the public sphere. They were not supposed to participate in the political process. But as the war occurs, you have men leaving homes, leaving behind businesses and farms, and so women really come into this new role of managing business and going out and earning money. So their status changed as a result of the war. And another thing that happened as a result of the war is the disparity that existed between the upper and the lower classes becomes more and more obvious. Before the war, you had the wealthy, the upperclass people, seeing it as their duty to care for the poor, to be benefactors, to clothe them and feed them. With the coming of war, the upperclass focus and the middle class focus is on, how do we support our troops . How do we support the soldiers in the field . So there is this shift so there is not people looking out for the poor and taking care of them. And then theres this also, because of the extreme shortages that occur, they hit these people in the poor and the working classes the hardest. So if you look at the memoirs of the women who wrote during the civil war, upperclass or upper middleclass women, theyre certainly lamenting the shortages of luxury items. But at the same time, you have poor people who cant even put food on the table. And as i was reading over this talk, i was struck by the similarities to today. I had a friend do a post on facebook saying she was going through a feed. She was noticing people complaining about how much longer it takes things to get from amazon, the slow food delivery, and not being able to go out to dinner. And people were talking about, you know, theyre doing household projects. So you have people who are middleclass, uppermiddleclass certainly complaining about the changes that covid19 has brought. But there are people out there who are wondering how theyre going to put food on the table and how theyre going to pay their rent. So i think there are some similarities that we can find in this circumstance. Now, another thing that happens is congress produces some legislation that is quite unpopular. In fact, in april of 1862, they first conscription act in American History, the draft. And this calls for men between the ages of 18 and 35 to be drafted. And then in september, there was a second act that raised that age to 45. But there were some exemptions to this act and some provisions. And one of those is that men, if they had the money, could purchase a substitute. And there are accounts of some substitutes being paid as much as 4000. So this really gives credence to that cry, a rich mans war and a poor mans fight. There are also some exemptions to the draft. Some people that are considered essential workers. National and state officers, railroad workers, druggists, professors, teachers, miners, ministers, pilots, nurses, iron furnace and iron foundry workers. All those people were exempted. As you are thinking about that list of exemptions, there is one other set of essential workers that are not exempted, and these are the farmers. Farmers are essential to grow those crops, to feed the army, and to feed people on the home front. But they were not exempted from the draft. There was an act that was passed, the 20 negro act. Thats what it was called. It exempted owners or overseers of 20 or more slaves, or enslaved people. So this is, yet again, something that appears to be and is geared toward benefiting the upper class. Because only about 12 of the population owned 20 or more people, enslaved 20 or more people. So this created a great deal of unrest. And then at the same time, the confederate government begins or continues to print and print more money. That money is not backed by anything other than the hope of future cotton sales. That means as more money floods the economy, that money becomes useless. The value of the dollar declines. And it declines along with shortages increasing due to the blockade and due to farmland being ravaged. Richmonds population in at the beginning of the war was just under 38,000. And we dont know exactly what the population was by 1863, but jb jones, who was another employee in the War Department, he wrote there was 100,000 people in the city. This certainly seems believable. Richmond was overflowing with refugees, with government employees, with soldiers and prisoners of war, men in hospitals. So it very likely could have had a population of 100,000 by this point. And between october of 1861 and march of 1864, for 31 months straight, the price index rose by 10 each month. So every month, the price was compounded by 10 . Wages did not keep up with the prices. Robert keene wrote in his diary, i recently made a rough calculation to compare the present currency with a sound one in the matter of my household expenses. The result is that my salary of 3000 will go about as far as 700 would in 1860. Dispatch, in talking about the increase in prices , blamed the problem on speculators. And you do find a lot of this, not only in the press, but in the memoirs of the day. And they showed that in 1860, a a bill of groceries for a family cost 6. 55 a week, but by 1863, it was 68. 25. Just think about this. This at a time when a woman who was serving as a war matron in a hospital was making 35 a 30 a month. And groceries for a week are close to 70. So its no wonder that children were being put to work. Young girls began working in the Confederate States laboratory on Browns Island. The Confederate States laboratory employed around 300 women and girls. According to one of the richmond newspapers, young girls between the ages of nine and 12 were rolling 1200 cartridges a day. They were being paid between 1. 50 a day and 2. 40 a day. So certainly that is not going to be enough to support a family. But with children in the workforce and women in the workforce, the attempt was to make ends meet. In the lead up to the bread riot, i think this is one of the things that definitely increased tensions in the city, in addition to the legislation and the shortages. There is an explosion on Browns Island at the Confederate States laboratory. And in this explosion, there are missed my slide there. There are about 45 women and children, a few men, who were killed, and about another 20 who were injured. So this was a catastrophe that really hits home among the working class. And then, following this, is when james seton, the confederate secretary of war, introduced his price schedule. And this price schedule was in response to an act that had been passed by congress to regulate impressment. Impressment of porridge, so food for animals, crops, and also property. By property, what theyre talking about our are enslaved people, because the impressed enslaved people to build dig trenches, build fortifications, work for the army. This set a price for these various commodities. It is something farmers were not happy about. So some farmers boycotted and refused to bring goods into the city because they knew when they did that, the army would seize their goods and they would only pay what was in setons price schedule. In addition to this, there was a new act that required merchants to get a passport in order to enter the city. So this was just one more bit of red tape. And then finally, Mother Nature conspired. This winter of 1863 and 1864 was a harsh winter. Over half the days in february and march, there was either snow or rain. And on march 19, there was a tremendous snowfall of nine inches. And then the next day, there was another inch and a half added to that. And then all of a sudden on march 22, as so often the weather does in the spring in this area, you have this complete change. Its a bright, warm, sunny day, and that produced a rapid thaw. Keene reported, high water and deep mud would be the consequences. Even those farmers who were willing to get passports, who were willing to risk the chance of their crops being confiscated by the army, even those farmers that wanted to bring crops into the market, they werent able to do that. Now, one thing i found very frustrating as i was researching garlickk is that robert keene does this amazing job of setting the stage for the bread riots. And then, of all things, he is silent from april 2 to april 6. And when he begins writing again, he does not talk about the bread riot. Fortunately, there were other people that did mention what was going on. And one of those was jb jones, who was a war clerk. On april 2, which is the day of the riots, he reported, this morning, early, a few hundred women and boys met by concert in the Capitol Square, saying they were hungry and must have food. The number continued to swell until there were more than a thousand, but few men were among them, and these were mostly Foreign Residents with exemptions in their pockets. So there is a poke at the exemption law. Jones was correct in his assessment that the meeting had been prearranged. One of the leaders of the bread riot was a woman named mary jackson. And she was a 34yearold huckster, or seller, in the market. She had been in the market for seven years. She had a husband who was a painter. He was a little bit younger than she was. Together they had four children. One of them was a son who was in the army. In fact, mary jackson had made herself well known by continually going to the War Department and seeking a discharge for her son. But mary jackson spread word the day before. She was talking up this riot that was going to take place. Or not this riot, but a protest that was going to take place. Mary jackson was described by the richmond examiner as a good specimen of a 40yearold amazon, with the eye of a devil. Another paper said she had a vixenish eye. And i will talk a little bit more about the portrayal of the women in the bread riot as we go on. But mary jackson arranged for women of the town to meet in Belvedere Hill Baptist Church in oregon hill, which is a working class neighborhood. And at this meeting, they decided that they would go with a body to the Provision Stores and demand goods at government prices. So that was their goal. They wanted to be able to go to the market and pay the same price that the army was paying for the goods that it purchased for the soldiers. Now, its kind of interesting about this meeting that took place in the church because, immediately after the riot, the pastor of the church paid for an announcement in the paper that said, so far as known to this church, not one of the members knew about the meeting being held in our meeting house. So the pastor was very quickly to distance himself from this discontent. But this crowd of women decided to gather at the capitol. So, they went to Capitol Square and their plan was to seek out governor letcher. So they went to the governors mansion. They were told letcher had actually gone over to the capitol to begin his days work. And the woman who kind of led the delegation, approaching the staff at the Governors Office was a mrs. Johnson. And she also is described in an unflattering way, a toothless old woman. But she spoke to colonel bassett french who was on , letchers staff, and said that bread they would have or they would die. And french said, you are not proceeding in the right way to get bread. And so the governor is already gone, but because this is a very big crowd and a noisy crowd, the governor, governor john letcher, did eventually come out and speak to the crowd. What he told them is, i dont have the authority to make farmers sell you goods at the government prices. I cant do that. Definitely not what these ladies wanted to hear. So they left the Capitol Square. And according to jb jones, about 9 00 a. M. , the mob emerged from the western gates of the square and proceeded down 9th street, passing the War Department, crossing main street, increasing in magnitude at every step. But preserving silence and, so far, good order. Now, where had this gathering of over 300 women come from . We are going to take a look here at our map of richmond with the capitol at the center. These women came from all over. You have women coming from what was the west end of the city at the time, from oregon hill and penitentiary bottom and sydney, and then also up at sheep hill. And then from the east side of the city, you have them coming from rockets landing and port mayo. There were also women that came from the outlying counties, so obviously this is something that was planned. This is something that had advance word, and people stopped what they were doing so that they could gather. Now, this riot was not without precedent. In atlanta, georgia, there had been a riot in march. Also in march were riots at salisbury, high point, and raleigh, north carolina. There was one in mobile, alabama. Thats what this illustration is of. And then on april 1, just a day before the bread riot, there was one in petersburg. Jones said, not knowing the meaning of such a procession, i asked a pale boy where they were going. A young woman, seemingly emaciated, but yet with a smile, answered that they were going to find something to eat. I could not, for the life of me, refrain from expressing the hope that they might be successful, and i remarked they were going in the right direction to find plenty in the hands of the extortion or. Extortioner. So jones is a bit sympathetic towards these workers. So the women left the capitol. They headed down main street and then another group headed down cary street. Their targets were the warehouses in the shaco slip area, places like pollard and son, and tyler and son, and also the government commissary was one of the targets. The riot begins with around a little over 300 women. Some accounts put it over a thousand people, mainly women, but some men involved as well. But these people did a great deal of damage. Tyler and son lost over 6,000. Tj hicks lost 3500. And i should note that tj hicks was a jewish businessman. And in some of the writings, you do see that there is a great deal of antisemitism, and the people are often equating the with jewish businessmen. One interesting incident that i came across as i was researching for this talk was in the testimony following the riots. They did have trials of the rioters. And in the store of james knotts, he said he instructed someone to throw a box of needles out the window, hoping, that he said, that it would appease the mob until the officers could come up. When i read that statement, i thought, thats just strange. Why would you think in the middle of the riot, people would stop to pick up pins and needles . I just thought, thats odd. And then a few days later, i was reading in jb jones diary, and on april 17 he said, pins are so scarce and costly, it is a pretty general practice to stoop down and pick up any found in the street. That gave me pause. Here we have this going on twice, these references to pins and needles. So i asked our Collections Department if we had anything. We actually have two different items, or sets of items. We have these brass pins. They are looking a little tarnished because they were in a blockade runner, the georgianna that sank off the coast of south carolina. But the ascension note with them, the donor said brass pins were unavailable in the confederacy. Imported pins were a prized commodity in the south. These needles, even more interesting, because the donor of them, catherine stiles, wrote this nice little note. Needles that were left as a money fromed as buying from the women in halverson county, georgia in 1864 and 1865. Never going out on horseback without a few to use as money or give when absolutely needed. So this is something of value. I just found that kind of an interesting aside. How did this riot end . Well, because of the noise, mayor mayo did read the riot act on scene. Jefferson davis appeared on the scene, as well as governor lecher. All three of these men tried to put down the riot. What was effective in ending the riot was the arrival of the public guard, which was commanded by lieutenant edward scott gray. And he had about 20 men with him. They went down main street in pursuit of the rioters. The crowd was ordered to disperse or they would be fired pon. We dont know who that someone is. 25 years after the riot, the richmond dispatch held a paper debate about who put down the riot. And they asked the question, was it governor letcher or was it Jefferson Davis or was it mayor mayo . There were very few votes for mayo, giving the order to fire. Five of them give the governor prominent role in putting down the riot, and four of them have letcher