News Journal, Number 124, 19 September 1963
Page 2
By Merton T. Akers Uaitui Press International ‘The guant form of wretched famine still approaches with rapid strides,” John B. Jones, the diarykeeping clerk in the Confederate war department in Richmond, Va., wrote on March 30, 1863. Jones was a white collar worker and was having trouble making ends meet on his salary which was shrinking because of inflation. “I am spading up my little garden, and hope to raise a few vegetables to eke out a miserable existence for my family,” he wrote tae same day, adding “it is strange that on the 30th of March, even in the ‘sunny south,’ fruit trees are as bare of blossoms and foliage as at midwinter.” The next day, still morose, he noted some prices of necessities, heading the list as “another stride of the grim specter”: Com meal, $17 —per bushel; coal, $20.50 a ton; wood, $30 a cord; common tallow candles, $4 a pound. Affluent Richmond people were having no food troubles. Mary Boykin Chestnut noted in her diary that she received wine, rice, potatoes, ham, eggs butter and pickles about once a month from the Chestnut plantation in South Carolina. Nor wa* there any dearth of luxury goods in Richmond shops. Stores displayed expensive silks and jewelry, English mutton — iced and run through the blockade — tropical fruits and chamP**nes. Few l few had enough money to buy tile luxuries but enough did to make business brisk. Some remarked it seemed strange that luxuries came up from blockade runner ports but staples like bacon, meal and flour, known to be plentiful in North Carolina, did not, the reason being given as the feeble state of the southern railroads. The rich could buy a good meal for $25 in Confederate money at a first class Richmond hotel but the poor people and lowpaid workers found it difficult to get enough bread to live. A few weeks earlier President Jefferson Davis had proclaimed a day of fasting and prayer. Church services were well attended that day but the sardonic jibed: “Pasting in the midst of famihe!” The stage was set for trouble and it came on April 2, a Thursday. A crowd of several hundred women and boys gathered early that day in Capitol Square. They ware quiet and orderly but determined. An emaciated girl of about 18 told a bystander, who asked why the crowd was forming, that they were starving and that they were going to raid the bakeries and each seize a loaf of bread. By 9 a. m. the crowd numbered about 1,000, nearly all women but with a sprinkling of men, boys and free Negroes. Led by a six-foot woman who wore a white feather in her hat. the crowd marched out of Capitol Square by the West Gate, down Ninth Street past the war department and flowed into Main and Cary Streets. Accounts differ about the stalwart leader’s name. The Richmond Examiner later Mid her name was Minerva Meredith and described her as a local character. Other accounts call her Mrs. Mary Jackson, a painter's wife. Whatever her name, she was reported to be armed with a pistol and bowie knife. Along Main and Cary Streets the mob smashed show windows and pillaged shops. They impressed drays and carts along the way to haul their loot. Some seized food but most of the rioters eagerly pillaged shoes, clothing and jewerly. Shoes and clothing were scarce articles in i 1
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Richmond and jewelry always could be traded off for necessities. A part of the crowd was diverted to the Y.M.C.A, where they reeived iooa but most of them rejected ti\e offer and remained with the mob. t GoV. John Letcher and Mayor Joseph Mayo met the crowd on Main Street. Neither had any influence with the rioters although the mayor read the riot act to them. Then a company of state troops was called from the armory and was posted in front of the mob. President Davis hastened to the scene. He mounted a dray and attempted to speak to the rioters. They threw crusts of bread at him, the leavings from the loaves they had stolen from the bakeries. But in a few minutes they quieted and listened. Varine Davis, wife of the president, wrote in later years: “He reminded them of how they had taken jewelry and finery instead of supplying themselves with bread, for the lack of which tliey claimed they were suffering. “He concluded by saying: ‘You say you are hungry and have no money. Here is all I have; it is not much, but take it’ “He then, emptying his pockets, threw all the money they contained among the mob, after which he took out his watch arid said: “We do not desire to injure anyone, but this lawlessness must stop. I will give you five minutes to disperse, otherwise you will be fired on.” The troops were workers at the armory. Some of the women in the mob were wives of the soldiers who stood with loaded muskets awaiting an order to fire on their own people. The situation was tense, with the soldiers and the president fair targets for any rioter. But within the five-minute limit Davis had set, the crowd thought better of its spree, and dispersed without the troops having to fire. Jcmes said the president “seem deeply moved; and indeed it was a frightful spectacle and perhaps an ominous one, if the government does not remove some of the quartermasters who have contrir buted very much to bring about the evil of scarcity. . . "All is quiet now (three p. m.) and I understand the government is issuing rice to the people.” He reported that those who received the government rice threw it into the streets in disgust. The riots shook the government
CEITEIML SCRAPBOOK TIm War lor th« Union 1861-65 in Pictures
Rocket missiles may be impressed upon most minds as ultra-modem weapons. Tet they wane fired on both sides of the Orest Rebellion. In his graphic new exposition, “Arms and Equipment of the Civil War” (Doubleday). Jack Coggins tells of Union use of Hale rockets. These, designed as improvements of the British Congreve rocket of War of 1812-15 days, were usually fired from tubes of light carriages. Range for the larger of two standard sixes (2 >4-inch diameter, 6 pounds; 3 K-inch, 1C pounds) was from 500 to 1,750 yards, dependent on firing elevation. The propellant was a slow-burning mixture of niter, charcoal and sulphur, forced into the ns so under pressure. The warheads were I solid, explosive or incendiary. The Hale, though intended to be spin-sta-bilised in rotation given it by three metal
drawing below), was often erratic Ik flight and therefore dangerous to the rocket mea and other Union army periamel Confederates bad ■!««««»- trrrnTilna wffch rockets. Coggins quotes to his book a diary entry of UL CoL W. W. Blackford, a staff officer with Jeb Stuart's Confederate cavalry division: “Stuart openad an the— with & Congreve rocket battery, the first and last time the latter aver eppeamd to action with us. It had been gotten op by some foreign chap who managed it on this occasion. They were huge rockets, fired from n sort of gun carriage, with a shall at the end, which exploded to due time, eraliening •Squid damnation.* as the man called it, but after striking, the flight might be continued
Secretary of War James A. Seddon “requested” the Richmond newspapers to avoid ail reference “directly or indirectly” to the riots for “obvious reasons.” But by Saturday April 4 the news broke in the Examiner, which opposed Davis, when some of the rioters appeared in police court. The Examiner laid the riots to! “foreigners and Yankees” and criticized the government for not shooting down the mobsters on the spot “If the officers of the law, with the ample force and power in their hands, had not enough decision to do more than arrest highway robbers and disperse a mob of idlers at their heels, whose presence there deserved immediate death quite as well,
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no woids or arguments can furnish them with the pluck they S need,” the Examiner said in An editorial. In a few days President Davis issued a proclamation to stimu
late patriotism and urging farmers to raise more food and lev cotton and tobaco. Some of the rioters were tried and convicted, one woman being , sentenced to five years.
News In A nd Around Cambria
By MM. J. B. BURNETT On lact Saturday night. Sept. 7, •t 7:30, Mrs. Llyod Helton presented her music pupils with a recital at Cambria baptist Church. Names of the pupils are as follows: San- ’ dra Altizer, Carrie and Vicky Charlton, Ann and Martha Ddar, Carol and Charles Edwards, Sybilla Helms, Robertine James, Tommy Price, Danny Overstreet, : Paulette Miles, end Brenda Wirt. The closing number was a trio by Sandra Altizer, Carol Edwards and Robertine James, “Overture” — from Carmen. Jack Mitchell from Greensboro, North Carolina, spent the week end with his mother and sister, Mrs. M. H. Mitchell and Elva. Mr. and Mrs. Poolie King from Mississippi, visited friends in Cambria this past week. The Woman's Missionary Society met at Cambria Baptist Church Tuesday night at 7:30. Mrs. Jean Earles had charge of the prayer league, followed with program presented by Mrs. C. V. Eames which wag a study course, entitled, “My Prayer Thanksgiving”. Mrs. Maggie Lawson held the business session, after which die circles met snd held their tegular meetings.. The WMU Associations! workshop will meet at First' Baptist Church in Pulaski on September 10th. Mr. snd Mrs. L. C. Hunghte spent the week end at Ted spendsn ce visiting Mr. mnd Mrs. Walters , an family. Mrs. Roy Hungate Is visiting her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and1 Mrs. Roy Hedrick in Raleigh, If. C. Her daughter, the former Sue Hungate has a little son, ben <m Tuesday, September 10. Douglas Lester general chairman of the Christiansburg-Csmbria ; Community Fund drive started his workers out on Monday; the goal being $8000.00. Mrs. E. Leslie Spence publicity chairmen announce the following appropris- i tions: Girl Scouts, $500.00, Chris- 1 tisnsburg High School Band, $1000.- j 00; Sandlot Recreation Program, $1300.00; Life Saving Crew, $3000.-1
00; Day Bible Teaching, $1000.00; and Miscellaneous $1800.00. Mr. J. S. Kitts will be working with Mrs. Spence representing Band Booster Club; Hubert Horne, representing the Life Saying Crew and Don Merriman representing the Kiwanis Club. The ladies Auxiliary to the Chria-tiansburg-Camhria Fire Depart, ment, will have a benefit card party .Monday evening, September 23, in the Recreation room of the Fire Hall at Chrigtiansburg. Miss Barbara Gail Witt, daughter of Mr. end Mrs. Clayboume Wirt of Cambria, entered Bluefield College, feluefteld, Virginia, and was enrolled as a freshman. Monday. Mrs. Rusha Compton and Mrs. Fred Akers entertained a brideelect, Miss tana Akers with a bridalshower last Tuesday evening at the home of Mrs. Melvin Akers. There were 2t present. Gifts were presented Miss Akers, after which the hostesses served party refreshments. Mr. and Mrs. Frad L. Williams enterttiaad with a birthday dinner in honor of her father, Mr. Frank Rugh, at their home in Cambria,
on Sunday, Sept. 1st, this being his 70th birthday. Those present j were, Mr. and Mrs. Lee VV. Linkj ous, Mr. and Mrs. Everett Shep- ! herd and son, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Rush and daughters. Ella Ruth and Shirley, Mrs. Virgie Collins and Mrs. Janie Epperly all from Cam- ■ bria, and Mr. and Mrs. Elmo Miles and daughter, from Collinsville, Mr. and Mrs. Ellis Carner, Mr. ■end Mrs. J. B? Martin and-son, Mr. Argel Hutchins and Mr. Bobby Atj kins from Christiansburg. After dinner. Mr Rush was presented a shower of useful gifts. Mr. and Mrs. Charles James and Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Burnett attended the covered dish supper Which ; was held for the Democratic committee men and wives and all the candidates running on Democratic ticket for November 5th election. The supper was held in the I Elementary school building at Prices Fork Saturday evening, at 6:45. Special guest speaker was Bill Cundiff from Roanoke. Mr. I James Neonkesler was master of ceremonies, candidates speaking were, Mr. Kenneth Devore, Mr. Grady McConnell ,Mr. O. R. MaContinued on Page IS)
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