View source for Southern bread riots

{{Short description|Civil unrest during the American Civil War}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2018}}

{{Infobox historical event
| Event_Name = Southern bread riots
| partof = the [[American Civil War]]
| Image_Name = Apr2 richmond riot.jpg
| Imagesize = 
| Image_Alt = 
| Image_Caption = Detail of a propaganda cartoon showing bread riots in Richmond, [[Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper]]
| Thumb_Time = 
| AKA = 
| Participants = Civilians, mostly women<br>Confederate militia
| Location = [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]]
| Date = March–April 1863
| Result = 
| URL = 
}}
The '''Southern bread riots''' were events of [[civil disorder|civil unrest]] in the [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]] during the [[American Civil War]], perpetrated mostly by women in March and April 1863. During these riots, which occurred in cities throughout the [[Southern United States]], hungry women and men invaded and looted various shops and stores.

==Causes==
The riots were triggered by the women's lack of money, provisions, and food.<ref>Mary Elizabeth Massey,  "The food and drink shortage on the Confederate homefront." ''North Carolina Historical Review'' 26.3 (1949): 306–334. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/23515975 in JSTOR], p. 306.</ref> All were the result of multiple factors, mostly related to the Civil War:
* Inflation had caused prices to soar while incomes had not kept pace.<ref name="Chesson134">Chesson, 1984, p. 134</ref>
* Refugees had flooded the cities, causing severe shortages of housing and overwhelming the old food supply system.<ref>Titus, 2011, p. 86</ref> Richmond's population went from 38,000 people in 1860 to over 100,000 by 1863.<ref>Alfred Hoyt Bill, ''The Beleaguered City: Richmond, 1861–1865'' (1946) p. 3</ref><ref>Titus, 2011, p. 105</ref>
* Food supplies in rural areas were running short and less food was exported to cities; foraging armies, both Union and Confederate, ravaged crops and killed farm animals.<ref>Richard N. Current, ed. ''The Confederacy''  (MacMillan Information Now Encyclopedias, 1998; {{ISBN|0028649168}}) pp. 213–215.</ref><ref>Andrew F. Smith, ''Starving the South: How the North Won the Civil War'' (Macmillan, 2011).</ref>
* Many cities—especially Richmond—were at the end of long supply lines, and internal transportation became increasingly difficult.<ref>George Edgar Turner, ''Victory Rode the Rails: The Strategic Place of the Railroads in the Civil War'' (1953) pp. 313–318.</ref>
* Salt, which at the time was the only practical meat preservative, was very expensive (if available at all) because it was generally an imported item. The [[Union blockade]] prevented imports, and the capture of [[Avery Island, Louisiana]], with its salt-mine, exacerbated the problem.<ref>Ritzman, Dean F. "Lonn, Ella," Salt as a Factor in the Confederacy"(Book Review), ''The Historian'' 28.4 (1966): 685.</ref><ref>Mark Kurlansky, ''Salt: A World History''</ref>
* The [[Confederate States Army]] seized provisions meant for civilian use to feed its soldiers, which in turn spurred farmers to withhold shipments.<ref name="Chesson134" />
* As shortages became more prevalent in urban areas, those who could afford to do so began to hoard what they could, exacerbating the shortages.<ref name="Chesson134" />

Citizens, mostly women, began to protest the exorbitant price of bread. The protesters believed a negligent government and speculators were to blame. To show their displeasure, many protesters turned to violence. Robberies of grocery and merchandise stores were happening on nearly a daily basis.<ref>Chesson, 1984, p. 135</ref> Riots took place over food or flour in [[Atlanta]] (March 16), [[Salisbury, North Carolina]] (March 18), [[Mobile, Alabama|Mobile]] and [[High Point, North Carolina|High Point]] (March 25), and [[Petersburg, Virginia|Petersburg]] (April 1),<ref>Chesson, 1984, p. 136</ref> but the largest and most important of these was in [[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]] on April 2.<ref name="Chesson134" />

==Richmond bread riots==
{{expand section|Additional info from [[Mary Jackson (Richmond bread riot)]]|date=March 2024}}
On April 2, 1863, in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, about 5,500 people,<ref>Titus, 2011, p. 113</ref> mostly poor women, broke into shops and began seizing food, clothing, shoes, and even jewelry before the militia arrived to restore order. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of items were stolen. No one died and only a few were injured.<ref>Chesson, 1984, p. 152</ref> The riot was organized and instigated by [[Mary Jackson (Richmond Bread Riot)|Mary Jackson]], a peddler and the mother of a soldier.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.history.com/news/hungry-history/bread-or-blood-the-richmond-bread-riots|title=Bread or Blood: The Richmond Bread Riot – Hungry History|work=[[History (American TV network)|History]]|access-date=April 13, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180203015330/http://www.history.com/news/hungry-history/bread-or-blood-the-richmond-bread-riots |archive-date=2018-02-03 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

President [[Jefferson Davis]] pleaded with the women and even threw them money from his pockets, asking them to disperse, saying "You say you are hungry and have no money; here, this is all I have". The mayor read the [[Riot Act#United States|Riot Act]]; the governor called out the [[militia (United States)#Confederate militia|militia]], and it restored order.<ref>Titus, 2011, pp. 114–117</ref>

To protect morale, the Confederate government suppressed most news reports of the riot itself. Many newspapers, however, were keen to report on the trials of the participants themselves, and they usually portrayed those people in an unflattering light, suggesting that they were not actually starving, or that the rioters were mostly "[[Yankee]]s" or lower-class people, allowing many upper-class citizens to ignore the scope of the problems.<ref>Titus, 2011, pp. 120–123</ref> However, that only served to deepen the feelings of resentment and injustice among the lower classes, leading to the sentiment that the Civil War was "a rich man's war, but a poor man's fight".<ref>Titus, 2011, p. 133</ref> 

In Richmond, measures were undertaken to alleviate starvation and inflation for poor people, and special committees were held to classify "worthy poor" from "unworthy poor"; the city then opened special markets for "worthy poor" citizens to purchase goods and fuel at significantly reduced prices.<ref>{{Cite web |last=DeCredico |first=Mary |title=Bread Riot, Richmond |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/bread-riot-richmond/ |access-date=2023-03-02 |website=Encyclopedia Virginia |language=en-US}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Economy of the Confederate States of America]]
* [[List of food riots]]
* [[List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Bellemare, Marc F. "Rising food prices, food price volatility, and social unrest." ''American Journal of Agricultural Economics'' 97.1 (2015): 1–21. [https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/31888/1/MPRA_paper_31888.pdf online]

* Chesson, Michael B. "Harlots or Heroines? A New Look at the Richmond Bread Riot." ''Virginia Magazine of History and Biography'' 92#2 (1984): 131–175. {{JSTOR|4248710}}
* {{cite web |url=http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/the-richmond-bread-riot |title=Richmond Bread Riot |author=Grady, John |date=April 5, 2013 |work=New York Times }}
* Harper, Judith E. ''Women during the civil war: An encyclopedia'' (Routledge, 2004).
* Hurt, R. Douglas. ''Agriculture and the Confederacy: Policy, Productivity, and Power in the Civil War South'' (U North Carolina Press, 2015).
* Lerner, Eugene M. "Money, prices, and wages in the Confederacy, 1861–65." ''Journal of Political Economy'' (1955): 20–40. {{JSTOR|1826773}}
* {{cite book|author=McPherson, James M.|author-link=James M. McPherson|title=[[Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era]]|publisher=Ballantine Books; Random House Publishing Inc|year=1988|pages=[https://archive.org/details/battlecryoffreed00jame/page/617 617–619]|isbn=0-345-35942-9}}
* Rable, George C. ''Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism'' (U of Illinois Press, 1989).
* Smith, Andrew F. "Did hunger defeat the Confederacy." ''North & South'' 13.1 (2011): 7–10.
* Smith, Andrew F. ''Starving the South: How the North Won the Civil War'' (Macmillan, 2011).
* {{cite journal |first=Katherine R. |last=Titus |title=The Richmond Bread Riot of 1863: Class, Race, and Gender in the Urban Confederacy |journal=The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era |url=https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/gcjcwe/vol2/iss1/6/ |volume=2 |year=2011 |pages=86–146 |issn=2165-3666}}
* Williams, Teresa Crisp, and David Williams. "'The Women Rising': Cotton, Class, and Confederate Georgia's Rioting Women." ''Georgia Historical Quarterly'' 86.1 (2002): 49–83. {{JSTOR|40584640}}

{{American Civil War}}
{{Riots in the United States (1607–1865)}}

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{{portalbar|Food}}

[[Category:1863 riots]]
[[Category:1863 in the Confederate States of America]]
[[Category:Food riots]]
[[Category:Riots and civil unrest during the American Civil War]]
[[Category:Riots and civil disorder in Virginia]]
[[Category:Riots and civil disorder in Georgia (U.S. state)]]
[[Category:Riots and civil disorder in North Carolina]]
[[Category:1863 in Georgia (U.S. state)]]
[[Category:1863 in Virginia]]
[[Category:1863 in North Carolina]]
[[Category:March 1863]]
[[Category:April 1863]]
[[Category:Political riots in the United States]]
[[Category:19th-century political riots]]
[[Category:1863 in American politics]]