Introduction

Dennis Gould 0:00

Meanwhile Mobile. Welcome to Meanwhile Mobile, the podcast that climbs into the attic of history and opens a trunk filled with hidden, lost, or forgotten pieces of the puzzle that make Mobile Alabama unique. Here's your host, Kathy Richardson.

Kathy Richardson 0:20

Thank you, Dennis Gould. And along with author Joe Cuhaj, we open that trunk and find people and stories that will surprise and even amaze. Joe?

Joe Cuhaj 0:32

Let's open the trunk.

Kathy Richardson 0:36

The Mobile Bread Riot. In part one, we set the scene and learned about life in Mobile prior to the Civil War-antebellum Mobile, the city's economy, the people, and life in general in the Port City. In part two, the war is on, and the women of Mobile take up arms and march to Dauphin Street to fend for their families.

Robin Long Introduction

Kathy Richardson 0:58

Joining us to continue the discussion is actor, producer, and writer Robin Long, who has uncovered some fascinating information about this forgotten piece of mobile history. Welcome, Robin. We are thrilled to have you here to share your insights into the 1863 Mobile bread riot.

Robin Long 1:15

Hi, Joe. Thanks for having me. And yeah, it's a pretty incredible story.

Kathy Richardson 1:19

Before we dig into the details, why don't you tell us about yourself?

Robin Long 1:23

Sure. After graduating from Murphy High School in 2000, I went to St. Edwards University in Austin as a theater major. And then after my sophomore year, I took off to go to Circle in the Square Theater School in New York, where I spent about six years on stage. And then it was off to Hollywood. And while I was there, I had some wonderful experiences. I got to work a little bit in film and television, got a few commercials, but it ultimately didn't go the way I'd hoped. And I started getting restless and feeling called to go in a different direction. And one night I was out to dinner with a good friend of mine who's about a decade older than I am. And so she was 50 and about to embark on this huge life change. And I thought, wow, how is it that she feels so youthful and vibrant at 50? And I feel stuck at 40. And so I just kind of offhand said, well, you know, I'm not gonna do it, but in an alternate life, I always thought I would be an attorney. And she said, What? And I said, Yeah, yeah, I know, but I'm not gonna do it. And then throughout the course of the dinner, I thought, well, why wouldn't I do it? Like what's what's holding me back? Nothing is keeping me here. And so it was really practical to just return back to St. Edwards to go back where I started, because when you go to your old university, they still have to count that math class from 26 years ago, which for me is a very good thing because I would definitely fail math for the liberal arts major now. So I returned to complete my undergraduate degree, this time in history, where I stumbled across this bread riot in Mobile during a Civil War class. And I was shocked that I had never heard of this because I grew up in Mobile, and I couldn't believe that this wasn't part of our common history because it was such a wild event. So I wrote about it for a research term paper that semester, and then over the summer I became a little obsessed and I dug in deeper, traveling to the New York Public Library, where mysteriously that is where the safe the minutes for the Mobile Safety Committee during the Civil War are housed in the New York Public Library of all places. It's really fascinating to learn where archives get stored because it's not always close to the source. There are some really cool pieces in Mobile, but some far away. And I went to Tulane University, I went to Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and then I also returned to Mobile to the local history and genealogy branch of the public library where I combed through the microfilm of the Mobile Daily Tribune and uh the register of Mobile during 1863.

What Made the Women Rise Up

Joe Cuhaj 4:11

You've been everywhere researching this subject, and there are plenty of nooks, crannies, and back alleys to the story, but we should start at the beginning. Things are not good for Mobilians in 1863. What actually caused the problems that made the women decide it was time to rise up and fight for their families?

Robin Long 4:29

That is a great question, and the answer is many fold. There were a lot of things that contributed to this. So, to start with, the policies of the Confederacy favored the planter class. So in 1862, a bill was passed that allowed for exemptions for planters who owned 20 or more slaves. Additionally, people who could afford to pay a substitute to serve in their place were able to get out of their service. So both of these things were out of reach for any of the common folk of Mobile. And so, as is often the case with wars, rich men vote for them, poor men fight in them. And so these women were left alone to tend to their families, any crops they might have, bring in a living wage because Confederate soldiers were paid $11 a month. And to put that into perspective, planters were paid $20 a month for their impressed slaves. For me, those two numbers next to each other bring up a lot of contradictions. And of course, we all know that the lie of race was a great motivator back then. So, but those two numbers right next to each other really put that in a beautiful contrast for me because I believe that the poor people of this time in the South were really manipulated by the planter class and by the leaders at the time with this idea of, hey, hey, you got more in common with me than you do with this poor enslaved black person. When really, if you looked at the realities of their lived experiences, they probably had more in common with an enslaved black person than they did with a slaveholder. So if you look at the fact that they valued the work of an enslaved person at almost double their soldiers that were fighting in this war in an effort to protect that institution, that right there speaks volumes to me. So that's one issue. Additionally, General Pemberton of Mississippi created a blockade on supplies leaving Mississippi. So this made goods harder to come by in Mobile, which by February-March of 1863 was creating a great deal of strain. In addition to that, you had the planter class that was still planting cotton instead of provisions. In addition to that, there's the blockade. Now, there are different opinions about how successful blockade runners were at the time. There were a lot of braggarts who claimed that they succeeded. It was nothing more than a paper blockade. It was very easy to overcome. And then even within that, if you look at newspaper ads from the day, a lot of the goods that were coming across the blockade were luxury items that they could charge an exorbitant amount of money for rather than corn, flour, things that women needed to feed their families. And then you also had inflation and extortion. So all of these things are contributing to these women who, by the spring of 1863, were becoming desperate in Mobile and across the Confederacy. And then in the summer of 1863, you had refugees from New Orleans come into Mobile. This was after Vicksburg. So after a battle was lost, prisoners were captured, they were held in camps where they had to sign a document stating that they would not fight again. And so after Vicksburg, many of these soldiers were brought to Mobile.

Joe Cuhaj 8:23

So the greater number of people coming into Mobile put additional pressure on the food supply and made it worse.

Speaker 4 8:30

Yes, a greater number of people, and these were not all very resourced people who were showing

How Many Men Went to War in Mobile

Speaker 4 8:36

up.

Joe Cuhaj 8:36

When historians talk about the war, they generically say that the women were left behind to tend to the farms, the household, and raise their families on their own. But I don't think people realize how many men actually left the city to fight in the war.

Robin Long 8:50

That is an excellent point. So Arthur Bergeron estimates that between 4,500 and 6,000 men in Mobile County served in the Confederacy. And the number of white males between the ages of 15 and 40 in 1860, according to the census, was around 8,000. So that is a huge portion of the white male population

Reaching the Boiling Point

Robin Long 9:16

in Mobile.

Joe Cuhaj 9:17

We should note here that Arthur Bergeron is an historian who penned the book Confederate Mobile. Now, by 1863, there was less and less food in Mobile and more and more people coming into the city. So you might say tensions had reached a boiling point.

Robin Long 9:32

You could absolutely say that they were reaching a boiling point. And in my mind, there are a couple of different points here. There is the time in spring of 1863, and this is a time when there were bread riots in other cities in the Confederacy. So Richmond had their large bread riot on April 2nd. This is the biggest in all of the cities that's been documented. It is recorded that up to a thousand women participated in this one. There is another one in Salisbury, North Carolina, and another one in Atlanta, Georgia. These are both recorded to have taken place in March of 1863. Mobile Papers denied any riot in Mobile at this time. However, the Richmond Examiner reported that there was a riot in the city of Mobile during the month of March of 1863. There are additional reasons to believe that there were disturbances in Mobile during this month. I especially believe that it is suspicious for a Mobile newspaper to report that there was not a riot. Because I have never read a news report of a crime that did not occur. So there are a few different things. There was a newspaper in Ohio, the Highland Weekly News, that reported signs threatening a bread riot. These were signs that were found reportedly around downtown Mobile in May. In addition to this, on March 29th, 1863, E.S. Dargan, who was the representative in the Confederate Congress for the City of Mobile, wrote to James Seddon, the Secretary of War for the Confederacy, and reported signs that were said bread or peace, etc. This was the rallying cry that was repeated in these riots throughout the Confederacy. This was the same day that a Mobile newspaper wrote, No riots here. Any northern city of this size would report daily riots, murders. We have none of that here in Mobile. And so it is possible that E.S. Dargan was only referring to signs and that nothing else occurred. However, that combined with the report of the Richmond Examiner. And additionally, we know that President Jefferson Davis attempted to suppress stories of the Richmond riot, but the Richmond Examiner reported them anyway. He said, we don't want the North to get wind of this because it could be seen as a sign of weakness on the side of the South, and the Richmond Examiner reported anyway. And it appears to me that Mobile papers were more compliant with Confederate officials than the Richmond Examiner. And so something to look at here is that there is reason to doubt an Ohio paper for their reports. However, the Richmond Examiner is a Southern paper. So what do they have to gain from writing about a riot that did not occur? In my mind, this makes Mobile very suspicious. So from my studies, it appears to me that there were disturbances in the spring of 1863, and then with this influx of strain over the summer, this all contributed to a much larger riot in September.

Joe Cuhaj 13:03

Did

Mobile Newspapers Ignored the Riot

Joe Cuhaj 13:04

the Mobile Papers report on the riot in the fall?

Robin Long 13:07

From what I looked at, I saw absolutely no report of the event in a Mobile paper until after the New York Times reported it. So in the Mobile Papers, if you look at September 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, I mean for the entire month, they report about a need to care for soldiers' wives. They make no mention of the riot. The only thing I found mentioning a riot came from one letter to the editor where they referred to it as a demonstration. But what they were reporting about was the influx of donations that they were receiving at the free market, which was set up to provide food for these women. The other thing I want to bring up about what drew my attention to the possibility of a spring riot is that in reading historians' accounts of this, they came up with a few different dates that were in the spring. When you just Google Mobile Bread Riot, September 4th, 1863 is what comes up. Encyclopedia of Alabama, everything is saying September 4th, 1863. And when you look up the New York Times, September 4th, 1863. And yet, very well-respected historians who specialize in subsistence issues during the Confederacy and who focused a great deal of their attention on Mobile have come up with different dates in the spring. So that was what really piqued my curiosity is how did all of these people get this date wrong? They're not dummies, they're not sloppy. Where is this coming from? It gets tricky because some of these historians are citing other historians. So the Richmond Examiner said there was a riot in Mobile. Officials said there is trouble here. There were many letters to the editor that were writing in about the food shortage. Additionally, the Mobile Safety Committee called for a study to find out what was going on, and they determined in the spring of 1863 that the trouble was not a food shortage, but was actually an issue of extortion.

Joe Cuhaj 15:22

And by extortion, you're really talking about price gouging, something we're all familiar with.

Robin Long 15:27

Yes. So there was enough of a problem for all of these people to be looking into it, for signs to be posted, and we also know that President Jefferson Davis was attempting to suppress stories. So for me, all of this leads to something was going on and something happened that didn't

Enter the Mob

Robin Long 15:45

get properly reported.

Joe Cuhaj 15:46

Enter the mob.

Robin Long 15:48

Yes. So reportedly when these women robbed all of these stores in Dauphin Street, General Dabney Morey, who was overseeing Mobile at the time, called in the troops to stop them. And the soldiers, instead of stopping them, cheered for the women. At which point they called in the Mobile cadets. And the women overpowered the cadets. Now, when you read firsthand accounts of soldiers who were there, that is not the story they tell. According to a member of the cavalry that I read, and according to a colonel, the soldiers were able to stop these women. Now, these are letters that they have written home to their wives, and so it is my suspicion that they were too embarrassed to report the truth of the matter. But according to the New York Times and according to William Ricks, a merchant from Vermont who published his memoirs about his time in Mobile during the Confederacy, the women overpowered the cadets, and the only thing that got the women to go home was when the mayor came out and said, Okay, we hear you, support is coming. Sent the women home. They reportedly came back later that night and pillaged some more. And according to one of the firsthand accounts, the women claimed that if they did not get support, the women would show the city what a mob was next Monday. So all of this provides reason for us to believe that that was some of the motivation to finally come to the aid of these women. And I should point out that these aid societies were established from the outset

The Free Market

Robin Long 17:24

of the war.

Joe Cuhaj 17:25

How many people took advantage of the free market?

Robin Long 17:28

The free market in 1861, 800 people were utilizing this service and provided free food for families in need. By 1863, 2,500 people

How Many Women Rioted

Robin Long 17:39

were utilizing this market.

Joe Cuhaj 17:41

Now there are a lot of different opinions about how many women marched down Spring Hill Avenue to Dauphin Street that day in September 1863. I've read some estimates ranging from 600 to 800. Do we really know how many women participated in the riot?

Robin Long 17:57

I don't know if we'll ever be able to know the actual number, but it's true. I read reports that varied from 400 to 600. But either way, that is a lot of people, especially considering that the population of Mobile in 1860 was under 30,000. So a city of under 30,000 had 400 to 600 women marching down the street, according to William Ricks, this merchant from Vermont, thousands of people watched. So to me, it is rather bizarre that some of these accounts that have remained from the more well-established members of society like General Dabney Morey, Kate Cumming, they make no mention of this riot. And to me, the only thing I can think of that justifies this or that explains this is that Kate Cummings' memoirs were published in the years after the war. The same is true for General Dabney Morey. And so during this time, there was a real effort to show the Southern side as genteel and heroic, and that we were a gentle people. And so I think that all of this influenced what was published during that time, because this is not a story that lines up with their narrative. In Mobile, they did not report about the event in the local papers. And additionally, I combed through court records, women were not prosecuted for this. And we know that an event of this size had to have been planned. And according to William Ricks, it was planned, and they had proof of it because he used a word we would not use anymore to describe the people who were working in the kitchens. But they knew what was going on with the poor white women. And so they warned slaveholders that something was going to happen, and they even warned them of the day that this event might occur. So people knew it was planned. But we don't know anything about this group of people. One thing we know is that they targeted Jewish merchants. At the time, it was very common for Jewish people to be scapegoated for any number of issues. And so I do think that is part of the reason that people sided with the women. I think that if the women had targeted planters, if they had targeted government buildings, I think it is unlikely that they would have received a sympathetic response.

Joe Cuhaj 20:25

That opens an interesting line because it talks about the attitudes of the people. I know that in both the Richmond account and other accounts I have read, there were people who were looking at those women and saying, eh, they're just lazy.

Robin Long 20:39

Yes, and that is actually in the gentleman from the cavalry and the colonel. I definitely noticed that there was a belief that the women were too lazy to work. But that was not the public response

William Ricks

Robin Long 20:53

to these women.

Joe Cuhaj 20:54

Earlier, the name William Ricks was mentioned. Tell us a little bit about him.

Robin Long 20:59

William Ricks was a merchant who lived in Mobile during the Civil War. By his own account, he was a slaveholder. William Ricks wrote in awe of these women and their efforts, and he also wrote quite fondly of his time in Mobile during the Civil War. There is a note in the beginning of William Ricks's memoir that he's sending it to a friend and sort of says, do with this what you will. So he didn't necessarily push to get it published, but I think it was part of that effort in the years immediately following the Civil War to present a certain image about the South.

It Really Was a Riot

Joe Cuhaj 21:41

Robin, we call it the bread riot, but I don't think we touched on the fact that the women really did riot. They brought axes, hatchets, broomsticks, anything they could find to loot the stores on Dauphin Street to get what they needed to provide for their families. They really meant business.

Robin Long 21:57

They did. They brought makeshift weapons. From home. They stormed into these stores and they took

Other Bread Riots

Robin Long 22:03

goods by force.

Joe Cuhaj 22:04

You're dealing with a situation that was not only Mobile, as you said, but there were also bread shortages and riots in Europe. So this was not a brand new thing. But the response to it is very interesting. How did other southern cities respond to it?

Robin Long 22:20

That is a great question. In Richmond, they accused the women of being outsiders, of being prostitutes, hucksters, and thieves. And in Mobile, at least the public response was these women are patriots, their husbands are serving, and we have to come together and support them. And in the days after this riot, in Mobile papers, they were printing how many donations were rolling in for the free market and for other relief societies. And part of this is because desertion was a major problem at this point during the war. And if you just pay attention to the way that the very soldiers responded to it, if they did not respond with support for these women, they had the potential for a much larger problem on their hands because the soldiers were going to side with these women, and so they needed to show the soldiers that they were supporting these women. If these women were not in support of the war efforts, they might

The Women Win the Day

Robin Long 23:23

not have a war anymore.

Joe Cuhaj 23:24

But in the end, the women of Mobile won the day.

Robin Long 23:28

Yes, I would absolutely say that they won the day. Their demands were met, although this was still just a short-term solution. And throughout the Confederacy, these instances kept going for the remainder of the war. And there's something about placing the bread riot from Mobile in the spring of 1863, is that it fits into a very tidy narrative about these riots that erupted in the spring. But when you place the bread riot in September of 1863, and especially if you consider that there was probably an additional one in the spring, it ties into a longer, more accurate narrative that these women continued to struggle for the duration of the war. And especially the people who are hungry in your community because of their service for your effort. It is deeply unfair to refer to these women as lazy. And this is a narrative that continues to this day, and it's an inconvenient thing for all of us to look at. It has been widely understood that Mobile fared well during the Confederacy, especially compared to other cities, other areas, because it was attacked late in the war. It was a port city. There was a lot of wealth in the city. It was referred to as the Paris of the Confederacy. But when you are only measuring a city by its wealthy residents, you are not looking at the full picture. And when we look closer at these people who were struggling, it makes it clear that Mobile was not the rosy city it has been portrayed to be. I looked at records from the Protestant Orphan Asylum Society of the time, and there is a very heartbreaking story about a woman they call Mrs. Horn, who in August of 1864 needed to bring her children to the society because her husband was fighting in the war, and on her own, she couldn't afford to feed them. So she had to leave them in the care of this society, and the secretary who was taking the minutes made a note that she could not contribute the full amount that was required, but she would give over every penny she could. And so to me, that makes it very clear that while I fully believe that these relief societies were doing their best, they were not meeting the needs of these women. Because for a woman to leave her children in the care of strangers, that is not a woman whose needs are being met. And the thing that I have to remind myself, a lot of the documents that get preserved are from wealthy, well-connected people. And there are a lot of different reasons for that. One of them is potentially the women who were participants in this riot were not well educated enough to read and write and to leave their own records. Another possibility is that even if they did write something, it was not thought worthy of saving. And then additionally, there's the consideration of what narrative we want to put forward about who we are

Socioeconomic Differences Then and Now

Robin Long 26:33

as a people.

Joe Cuhaj 26:34

So what we really have here is a case of the well-resourced and those who are in need.

Robin Long 26:40

Exactly. For example, Kate Cumming was a well-connected resident of Mobile who was a volunteer nurse for the Confederate Army. And so she wrote about the hardships that were experienced on the battlefield. But in her accounts of Mobile, she writes that the city was gayer than ever as late as 1863 and 1865, and she writes that there was a ball every night. I believe that this story illustrates the way that those in power keep trying to divide those of us in the lower percentages. I think that it is very easy for them to say, don't look up. And I feel that that's what's happening right now in our country. I think that it's what happened then, I think it's what's happening now, and I think that will continue to be an issue because if those of us of lower socioeconomic status could actually look across and see what we have in common, the ruling class would not have a shot. But by telling us, no, no, you're like me, you're not like them. They keep us from speaking up for ourselves.

Thank You, Robin

Joe Cuhaj 27:45

Thank you, Robin Long, for putting life into another piece of Mobile's Forgotten History.

Robin Long 27:51

Well, thank you so much for having me. It's been a real pleasure to talk with you about this. And I also want to mention and thank my professor, Dr. Glenn, who brought this bread riot to my attention and really encouraged and mentored me throughout this research

Wrap Up

Robin Long 28:07

process.

Kathy Richardson 28:09

She was great. Sounded like a reporter who'd been on the scene.

Dennis Gould 28:14

Oh, yeah. And people should go to the IMDB app and search Robin Long Actor and check out her reel. She's really good.

Joe Cuhaj 28:22

And now on her way to studying law, a true Renaissance woman.

Kathy Richardson 28:26

And thanks to Mike Bunn, who in part one of this episode told us what life was like in Mobile before the Civil

Conclusion / Credits

Kathy Richardson 28:33

War.

Dennis Gould 28:34

Meanwhile, Mobile is produced at Soundworks in Mobile, Alabama, by Kathy Richardson, Joe Cuhaj, and me, Dennis Gould. No generative AI has been used in the research, writing, or recording of this podcast. Visit us on Facebook for additional information about this and upcoming episodes and links to related material. For comments, questions, or ideas for future podcasts, contact us at meanwhile mobile at gmail.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. But more importantly, tell just one person that you like Meanwhile Mobile. Word of mouth, more than any other form of promotion, is how creative works get noticed and sustain themselves. Thank you very much for listening.

Dennis Gould 29:23

 That horse sounds like Beavis.

Dennis Gould 29:23