Justice / Explainer

What Happened at the Richmond Bread Riot?

The Richmond Bread Riot broke out during the Civil War when working-class women in the South became fed up with food shortages.

by Kellie B. Gormly via HISTORY on April 1, 2023

...the rioters. Many said the participants “are from the dregs of society.” “For women to do something this provocative in Southern society was not something that was looked upon positively,” Kimball says. “It went against this whole notion of the Southern woman that was constructed.”

The Bread Riot Ringleaders

History records two main women who planned and instigated the protest: Mary Jackson and Minerva Meredith. Jackson was a 34-year-old mother of four and a huckster who worked in the Richmond open market selling groceries, and loudly complaining about rising food prices to anyone who would listen. Little is known about Meredith, but she had a reputation of being very tall with a robust, and somewhat imposing presence, Kimball says.

Jackson and Meredith initially met with a small group of women on April 1 at Belvidere Hill Baptist Church. They resolved to meet at Capitol Square the next morning and demand to speak to Virginia Governor John Letcher, and word spread. On April 2, Jackson and Meredith and a group of as many as 200 to 300 women went to the George Washington Equestrian Statue, erected in 1857.

The leaders demanded to the governor’s aide that they speak to Letcher. There are some conflicting accounts: Some say the governor refused to see them, while others say he did speak to the women.

Regardless, the women were displeased with the governor’s dismissive attitude and unwillingness to help them. The protesters, many armed with knives and pistols, stormed off down Richmond’s 9^th Street, crying out: “We celebrate our right to live! We are starving! Bread or blood!”

They marched along the cobblestones of 9^th Street right by the capitol building, both of Virginia and the Confederacy itself. As onlookers watched the march, hundreds joined in. Some men also joined, most likely as opportunistic looters for merchants like jewelry stores rather than crusaders for hungry families, Kimball and Ayers say.

The rioters—at least 400 to 500 of them, by estimates—plundered warehouses where bacon and flour and other foods were stored, along with grocers and other stores. The Bread Riot name reflects stealing flour for baking bread more than stealing loaves of bread, Ayers explains. The word “bread” served as a general word for food.

Although some injuries were reported, nobody was killed during the incident, which was more like a mass looting and protest than a violent riot. The mayhem lasted about two hours, during which both Gov. Letcher and Confederate President Jefferson Davis reportedly went out to the streets to tell the rioters to stop. Richmond Mayor Joseph Mayo read the protesters the Riot Act—a British edict for stopping insurgents that the American government adopted in the Militia Act of 1792, and individual states personalized. Law enforcement then came in to squelch the riot.