JPK Huson 1863
Brev. Brig. Gen'l
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2012
- Location
- Central Pennsylvania
For those who haven't heard of the famous ' Bread Riots ', they were and still are controversial events in the South where women, mostly soldier's wives, took feeding their families into their own hands. Mobs formed, starving women, demanding shop owners hand over the goods ' or else'. There was more behind it than that- wealthy merchants, speculators had bought vast quantities of goods early in the war literally banking on making a killing as shortages would be certain. They were.
The reaction was swift and brutal. The women were largely denigrated in the press as harpies, street walkers and prostitutes, the truth being pretty darn damaging to moral since the shortages were felt horribly throughout the Confederacy. Nor were the women without sympathizers- The Cause was seen by many as hand in glove with the soldiers who fought it, not the men who made money from it.
To Govenor Vance, a now-famous letter.
Mcleanesville NC Aprile 9th 1863
Gov Vance
I have threatend for some time to write you a letter-a crowd of we Poor wemen went to Greenesborough yesterday for something to eat as we had not a mouthful meet nor bread in my house what did they do but put us in gail Jim Slone, Linsey Hilleshemer and several others I will not mention-thes are the ones that put us to gail in plase of giveing us aney thing to eat and I had to com hom without aneything-I have 6 little children and my husband in the armey and what am I to do. . . . if you dont take thes yankys a way from greenesborough we wemen will write for our husbans to come . . . home and help us. . . .
Yours very
Respectfuly
Nancy Mangum
http://moh.ncdcr.gov/exhibits/civilwar/explore_section3_5d.html
Press reports in Richmond were repressed, harm to The Cause being feared. When reports did appear they were garbled beyond reclaim. Some ' leaked ' reports are cited to this day citing the usual suspects- foreign agitators looting shops not at all interested in food. The women reported seen were all apparently quite fat and well fed- as if there was a chubby female to be found anywhere in Richmond at the time.
The sympathizers- of whom there were many were quick to back up the ladies- who, after all, were backing up the soldiers of the Confederacy.
There were a couple of articles not without humor I had to share- really do intend to further this thread but these two just too, too good. Bumped into one on a web site, thought I'd go looking to see what might be on LoC. Oh my gosh, crying!
" Salisbury has witnessed to-day one of the gayest and liveliest scenes of the age. About 12 o'clock, a rumor was afloat, that the wives of several soldiers now in the war, intended to make a dash on some flour and other necessities of life, belonging to certain gentlemen, who the ladies termed "speculators." They alleged that they were entirely out of provisions, and unable to give the enormous prices now asked, but were willing to give Government prices. Accordingly, about 2 O'clock they met, some 50 or 75 in number, with axes and hatchets, and proceeded to the depot of the North Carolina Central Road, to impress some there, but were very politely met by the agent, Mr. ---: "What on earth is the matter?" The excited women said they were in search of "flour" which they had learned had been stored there by a certain speculator. . . .
Finally . . . they returned to the depot . . . and again demanded the agent that they be allowed to go in. He still refused, but finally agreed to let two go in and examine the flour, and see if his statement was not correct. A restlessness pervaded the whole body, and but a few moments elapsed before a female voice was heard saying: "Let's go in." The agent remarked:-"Ladies . . . it is useless to attempt it, unless you go in over my dead body." A rush was made, and they went in, and the last I saw of the agent, he was sitting on a log blowing like a March wind. They took ten barrels, and rolled them out and were setting on them, when I left, waiting for a wagon to haul them away. . . .
—Salisbury Daily Carolina Watchman, 23 March, 1863
http://moh.ncdcr.gov/exhibits/civilwar/explore_section3_5c.html
Of course this is how the women were portrayed in the Richmond papers, as evil faced harpies, not hungry wives of soldiers.
Here's the party line, ' Ruffian Men ' ( before aliens ), coming in to towns, causing discontent. Before them, the general population we just fine.
" The first reports of the riot reaching the North came from paroled Union officers. They claimed that "three thousand women who were armed with clubs and guns and stones" took bread from bakeries, meat from groceries, flour and other provisions from government warehouses and accused merchants of price gouging, and finally looted stores of jewelry and millinery. Even to Northern editors, the story "looks very fishy." But the officers were right. "
Before anyone becomes defensive on the part of the Confederacy ( these threads sometimes head that way ), things really were dreadful for citizens of the Richmond that awful day- it was not confined to Richmond nor were the riots contained there. There really was very little food, crime was rampant, prices would shock us in 2015 and the death toll from a munitions factory accident left the city mourning dozens of working class women. Cold, hungry, having felt they had sacrificed beyond anything they could expect to be asked while wealth was flaunted behind store fronts.... it popped.
" On March 27, President Jefferson Davis made an unforgiveable faux pas, calling on Confederates everywhere to spend the day in prayer and fasting. ( ** OOPS!! ) J.B. Jones, a clerk in the War Department, wrote in his diary: "Fasting in the midst of famine! May God save this people!" Divine intervention didn't come during this long Lent. Instead newspapers reported angry women taking to the streets across the South, railing against grain speculators. "
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/the-richmond-bread-riot/?_r=0
Not many months past the riots this appeared- the few families receiving help in danger of losing even this. Haven't found what happened to this particular charity yet. It does seem from this and a few other thread I've done that the Carolinas operated quite differently from Virginia in addressing soldiers' families and citizens in general.
The reaction was swift and brutal. The women were largely denigrated in the press as harpies, street walkers and prostitutes, the truth being pretty darn damaging to moral since the shortages were felt horribly throughout the Confederacy. Nor were the women without sympathizers- The Cause was seen by many as hand in glove with the soldiers who fought it, not the men who made money from it.
To Govenor Vance, a now-famous letter.
Mcleanesville NC Aprile 9th 1863
Gov Vance
I have threatend for some time to write you a letter-a crowd of we Poor wemen went to Greenesborough yesterday for something to eat as we had not a mouthful meet nor bread in my house what did they do but put us in gail Jim Slone, Linsey Hilleshemer and several others I will not mention-thes are the ones that put us to gail in plase of giveing us aney thing to eat and I had to com hom without aneything-I have 6 little children and my husband in the armey and what am I to do. . . . if you dont take thes yankys a way from greenesborough we wemen will write for our husbans to come . . . home and help us. . . .
Yours very
Respectfuly
Nancy Mangum
http://moh.ncdcr.gov/exhibits/civilwar/explore_section3_5d.html
Press reports in Richmond were repressed, harm to The Cause being feared. When reports did appear they were garbled beyond reclaim. Some ' leaked ' reports are cited to this day citing the usual suspects- foreign agitators looting shops not at all interested in food. The women reported seen were all apparently quite fat and well fed- as if there was a chubby female to be found anywhere in Richmond at the time.
The sympathizers- of whom there were many were quick to back up the ladies- who, after all, were backing up the soldiers of the Confederacy.
There were a couple of articles not without humor I had to share- really do intend to further this thread but these two just too, too good. Bumped into one on a web site, thought I'd go looking to see what might be on LoC. Oh my gosh, crying!
" Salisbury has witnessed to-day one of the gayest and liveliest scenes of the age. About 12 o'clock, a rumor was afloat, that the wives of several soldiers now in the war, intended to make a dash on some flour and other necessities of life, belonging to certain gentlemen, who the ladies termed "speculators." They alleged that they were entirely out of provisions, and unable to give the enormous prices now asked, but were willing to give Government prices. Accordingly, about 2 O'clock they met, some 50 or 75 in number, with axes and hatchets, and proceeded to the depot of the North Carolina Central Road, to impress some there, but were very politely met by the agent, Mr. ---: "What on earth is the matter?" The excited women said they were in search of "flour" which they had learned had been stored there by a certain speculator. . . .
Finally . . . they returned to the depot . . . and again demanded the agent that they be allowed to go in. He still refused, but finally agreed to let two go in and examine the flour, and see if his statement was not correct. A restlessness pervaded the whole body, and but a few moments elapsed before a female voice was heard saying: "Let's go in." The agent remarked:-"Ladies . . . it is useless to attempt it, unless you go in over my dead body." A rush was made, and they went in, and the last I saw of the agent, he was sitting on a log blowing like a March wind. They took ten barrels, and rolled them out and were setting on them, when I left, waiting for a wagon to haul them away. . . .
—Salisbury Daily Carolina Watchman, 23 March, 1863
http://moh.ncdcr.gov/exhibits/civilwar/explore_section3_5c.html
Of course this is how the women were portrayed in the Richmond papers, as evil faced harpies, not hungry wives of soldiers.
Here's the party line, ' Ruffian Men ' ( before aliens ), coming in to towns, causing discontent. Before them, the general population we just fine.
" The first reports of the riot reaching the North came from paroled Union officers. They claimed that "three thousand women who were armed with clubs and guns and stones" took bread from bakeries, meat from groceries, flour and other provisions from government warehouses and accused merchants of price gouging, and finally looted stores of jewelry and millinery. Even to Northern editors, the story "looks very fishy." But the officers were right. "
Before anyone becomes defensive on the part of the Confederacy ( these threads sometimes head that way ), things really were dreadful for citizens of the Richmond that awful day- it was not confined to Richmond nor were the riots contained there. There really was very little food, crime was rampant, prices would shock us in 2015 and the death toll from a munitions factory accident left the city mourning dozens of working class women. Cold, hungry, having felt they had sacrificed beyond anything they could expect to be asked while wealth was flaunted behind store fronts.... it popped.
" On March 27, President Jefferson Davis made an unforgiveable faux pas, calling on Confederates everywhere to spend the day in prayer and fasting. ( ** OOPS!! ) J.B. Jones, a clerk in the War Department, wrote in his diary: "Fasting in the midst of famine! May God save this people!" Divine intervention didn't come during this long Lent. Instead newspapers reported angry women taking to the streets across the South, railing against grain speculators. "
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/the-richmond-bread-riot/?_r=0
Not many months past the riots this appeared- the few families receiving help in danger of losing even this. Haven't found what happened to this particular charity yet. It does seem from this and a few other thread I've done that the Carolinas operated quite differently from Virginia in addressing soldiers' families and citizens in general.
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