SMILE, MR. DAVIS
A smoky spring dawn came to Richmond, with a hint of hot weather in the swamp-scented breeze that crept among the Seven Hills. In the east a Federal observation balloon hung over the verdant tangle, like a monstrous new planet in the April sunshine. The James rolled beneath the ranks of its bridges, but its familiar voice was unheard.
The city had not slept, was full of the passage of soldiers, and caught in the frenzy of preparation for a siege.
Bitter odors rose from the ruins of a cartridge factory, where last night an explosion had killed ten women and girls.
A squad of workmen shambled through paling shadows to dig up the Revolutionary cannon from their honored places as curbstones to provide metal for the shells of the army. The groaning wagons went downhill to the Tredegar Iron Works, where the night shift was dragging out, and the low plumes of smoke drifted about the heads of the aristocrats of the city’s laborers—sixteen dollars a day.
A shop window held a wry cartoon this morning. It depicted the flight of Confederate Congressmen from the Yankees by canalboat, for they feared the railroads; an escort of women gave protection from frogs and snakes on the bank.
The views were lovely, for it was a city of long white bridges, wooded islands in its river, and with charming hills: Shockoe, Union, Church, Council Chamber, Gamble’s, French Garden, Navy. From the heights could be seen the oldest part of the city, all but filling the mile-long plain which swept from the river up the tree-covered terraces to the Capitol.
The day’s papers had little news of the armies, and almost all the rest was unpleasant:
The Dispatch complained of a new bordello in front of the soldier’s hospital of the Young Men’s Christian Association, from which women beckoned to the wounded. The paper was incensed over the prostitutes “of both sexes” swarming in the city: “They have been disporting themselves extensively on the sidewalks and in hacks and open carriages … [indulging in] smirks and smiles, winks and remarks not of a choice kind in loud voices.”
Last week there had been a Thanksgiving Day, but feasts were skimpy, except in the hotels, where rich officers and profiteers lived extravagantly. The Secretary of War had a letter from General Lee, and it had not been kept a secret:
The troops … have for some time past been confined to reduced rations consisting of 18 ounces of flour, four ounces of bacon of indifferent quality, with occasional supplies of rice, sugar or molasses [this for each 100 men, every third day].
The men are cheerful, and I receive but few complaints.… Symtoms of scurvy are appearing among them, and … each regiment is directed to send a daily detail to gather sassafras buds, wild onions and garlic, lambs quarters and poke sprouts, but for so large an army the supply obtained is very small.
Early on this morning, a remarkable mob began to assemble inside the wrought-iron fence in Capitol Square before the venerable building which was a replica of Jefferson’s love, the Maison Carée of Nîmes. The guards paid little attention as the people gathered on the steps of the Capitol, for most of them were young women and girls, with a sprinkling of old men and adolescent boys. They had clearly met by concert, drifting in by twos and threes, quietly, nodding to friends, sitting, talking in hushed voices. The guards were aware that something unusual was astir, but there was yet no hint of violence; in fact, the square bore a singularly peaceful look, as if these people had gathered for a Sunday service of some sort, for most were dressed in their simple best. They clustered under the linden trees, milling patiently, as if in expectation. A number stared at the surrounding buildings as if these bore some special significance, at the roughly stuccoed brickwork of the Capitol which was, close at hand, a rather ignoble edition of its famed ancestor.
Some women harangued their neighbors at the fringes of the crowd:
“I took out $800 of their damned money yesterday, and all it bought was two pounds of tea, and a sack of coffee and 60 pounds of sugar! Do they think we’ll stand it forever?”
Another shouted, and for the first time the guards turned to watch: “Yes, by God—and milk for our babies is just $4 the quart! That’s all. And who’s to pay?”
Other voices: “And the damned planters lying up drunk at the Spotswood Hotel, drinking $10 likker and eating up $3 venison.”
“And they pay their army substitutes $5,000—to go and get killed for them.”
Some women shouted now at the guards, as if they were to blame for the troubles of the city.
“Damn your kind! You let the rich out of the army on habeas corpus, or whatever in God’s name it is, and you run down the poor by night! You’re worse than the Yankees!”
Abruptly, the mob had a leader. As if she had been in hiding, a huge woman appeared in the crowd, shouldering into the open before a guard, heedless of the cocked musket in his hands. She wore an old army jacket cut off at the shoulders and exposing huge reddened arms. Flecks of blood laced the yellow butcher’s apron which strained about her body. She turned to the crowd, holding up a dirty palm.
A few wails burst from the throng:
“Bread! Bread!”
“The Union! Give us the Union!”
“Feed our babies!”
The woman glared over the crowd as if judging whether she could quiet it; and then, astonishingly, she leapt to the rim of a fountain, and standing with the sparkling water over her ankles, and grimacing hugely, she flung one hand in a silent, eloquent gesture, pointing out of the square. For an instant she was like some grotesque figure cast on the fountain. The crowd, with undertones of guttural excitement, began to stream away.
The guards assumed poses of nonchalance until the last of the people had left the square, and then they ran. Within a few moments the bell in the city alarm tower began to toll.
The mob flowed westward, hurrying and almost noiseless, going down Ninth Street, past the offices of the War Department and across Main Street, growing larger at each step, with curiosity-seekers coming to join.
A faithful diarist stood on the street—J. B. Jones, a clerk in the War Office: “The mob … preserving silence, and so far, good order. 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 restrain from expressing the hope that they might be successful, and I remarked that they were going in the right direction to find plenty in the hands of extortioners. I did not follow to see what they did.”
The mob poured into Cary Street, still in its deadly silence, and approached the stores of the speculators, men who had become rich since war began. Windows began to smash. The women now ran and, in smaller mobs, rushed into doorways and drove out the merchants; some of these men howled in fear as they ran. The women, aided by a handful of men, seized all the drays and wagons in the street and sent out raiding parties for more; they commandeered drivers, and set groups to guard them. They loaded stores into wagons: flour, meal, shoes, cotton goods, jugs of molasses, baskets of eggs, jars of milk.
Others swarmed around the corner into Main Street, where shops had begun to close as word of the riot spread. The mob was now about four thousand strong and had a new set of leaders. Dozens of plate-glass windows were smashed; and in the clatter, people broke into the stores to drag out bolts of silk, arms full of jewelry, liquors, senseless luxuries from pharmacies, manikins from the windows, huge fashionable women’s hats, armloads of cigars.
In the midst of this, a company of the home guard wheeled into the street, advancing with bayonets; some of the mob ran. Governor Letcher appeared, shouting in an effort to get attention. There was a steady chorus of cries, and in the background looting continued. A bugle was blown. It became quieter. The governor beckoned to the mayor, who stood on the curb waving for silence. He had a clerk read the city’s Riot Act in a loud, contemptuous voice.
“I will fire on you in five minutes,” the governor yelled. “If you have not dispersed I will fire on you. In five minutes.” His face was red and sweating profusely, and he looked as if he would give the order with glee.
A buzzing at the rear announced the coming of Jefferson Davis. He stepped from his carriage at the moment a woman was screaming epithets at Governor Letcher, daring him to violence, and threatening him with lynching. Davis went past her fearlessly, a slight erect figure with a flushed face, its lantern jaws flexed in anger. The President mounted a dray piled with loot, breathing hard, looking down on the people.
“Bread! Bread!” the women chanted, lifting their hands.
“Citizens! Hear me!”
They hooted him down. “Our children are starving! We want bread and the Union!”
“You’re disgraceful!” the Mississippi soldier said to the mob. “This is worse than a Yankee victory. Go to your homes!”
“Bread! Bread or no soldiers. Throwing our sons to them damned butchers of yours—and the lapdog generals lie around your house!”
“Go home, people. So these bayonets can be sent against our common enemy!”
Laughter swept the street.
“This will bring famine on you! It is the sure way to prevent food coming to the city—the farmers will be afraid. Don’t you understand me?”
There were further catcalls and screams of derision. “Money! Bread! Union!”
“If any are in want …” the President began.
A fury of cries drowned him out.
“If you are in need, I will provide for you as I can from my own purse.”
A pandemonium of insults.
“I will share my last loaf with you. I hope you will bear our privations as our brave army does.”
A command unheard by the mob passed among the soldiers, who advanced to surround the President; the mob began to fall back, and to quiet. The people now seemed willing to listen.
“Bear privation with fortitude and continue united against the Northern invaders, who are the authors of all our sufferings. Hear me, people of the Confederacy!”
The cold-faced man was obviously sincere and, as he stepped down from the dray, seemed aware that he had not reached the people. There was something in his manner to indicate that he found the necessity of speaking to them unpleasant. He went back into his carriage, as stern and forthright as he had come. The crowd straggled away, ahead of the bayonets of the guard. There were few arrests.
The commander of the city guard asked the President for troops from near-by camps to teach the mob stern lessons, but Davis declined.
The President, however, took steps to close the incident, and to keep it from the ears of the enemy. He had an order sent to the newspapers:
To the Richmond Press,
Gentlemen:
The unfortunate disturbance which occurred today … is liable to misconstruction and misinterpretation abroad.
I … make a special appeal to the editors and reporters of the press at Richmond, and earnestly request them to avoid all reference directly or indirectly to the affair.…
There was a more direct order to the telegraph company to “permit nothing relative to the unfortunate disturbance … to be sent over the telegraph lines in any direction for any purpose.”
At three in the afternoon, when things were quiet, the Government opened its first free public commissary. Without previous announcement, rice was distributed to all who came; but the place was not open for long.
Two days later the Enquirer violated the order of censorship, but in this language:
A handful of prostitutes, professional thieves, Irish and Yankee hags, gallows birds from all lands but our own, congregated in Richmond with a woman huckster at their head, who buys veal at the toll gate for 100 and sells the same for 250 in the morning market, undertook the other day to put into private practice the principles of the commissary department.
Swearing that they would have goods at Government prices they broke open half a dozen shoe stores, hat stores and tobacco houses and robbed them of everything but bread, which was just the thing they wanted least.
That week, too, General Longstreet asked for more troops, but was refused because of the threat of riots in the city.
Squads of Yankee prisoners swung through the Richmond streets, defiantly shouting, “They’ll hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree!” Urchins ran behind them, enchanted by strange uniforms, learning the new song.
Sporadically, throughout the city, army bands appeared, as if on schedule. They played “Dixie,” and “Bonnie Blue Flag.” There was a good deal in the papers about Confederate victories and the sufferings of the faithful soldiers.