Five days after the Richmond Bread Riot the following report was published in the Richmond Daily Dispatch of April 7, 1863:
Relief for the poor.
–For the purpose of relieving the wants and necessities of the wives and families of our brave soldiery in the field as well as the honest poor generally, the following arrangements have been made.
A committee of forty-eight gentleman, two for each of the twenty four districts, will be appointed in co-operation with the ladies of the Union Benevolent Society, to visit each family in the city, uncertain its actual condition, and furnish tickets the holder to such supplies as may be received at the depot. Two depots have been established.
1st. Corner of 6th and Clay streets–C Bates Superintendent.
2d. On Cary, between 14th and 15th streets–Jno Lyon, Superintendent.
Committee.
1st District.–1st street, below Cary, out west, including Penitentiary Hill– Geo Gibson …
The committee will processed [proceed?] at once to visit the poor and distribute tickets
Supplies may be sent to the Superintendents at their depots.
Contributions in money may be handed to the Visiting Committee, or to Wm P Munford Treasurer.
The Union Benevolent Society was founded in 1836 as an ecumenical woman’s group. Two visitors were assigned to each of 20 Richmond districts to ascertain needs and possible ways for the poor to improve their lot. It started a small “Depository of Work” and “distributed clothing, blankets, fuel, and money to the poor in the city” throughout the antebellum years[1]
The Society’s 1860 annual report showed a big focus on fuel. From the Richmond Daily Dispatch November 15, 1860:
Union Benevolent Society.
–The annual report of this Society shows that the labors of the Visitors have been arduous, and that they have performed them in the most satisfactory manner, thereby ameliorating the condition of the poor of the city and of the suburbs.–The Visitors, while administering to the temporal wants of the poor, pay some attention to their spiritual welfare, and labor zealously to improve their morals. To effect this object, they distribute a large number of religions tracts, and by persuasion and kindness, induce indigent children to attend the various Sabbath Schools and churches.
During the past year the Society received donations of fuel to the amount of 550 bushels of coal and eighteen cords of wood — in addition to which they purchased eight thousand two hundred and twelve and a half bushels of coal, and sixty-three cords of wood, at a cost of $1,597.50. …
To be prepared to carry on the good work in which they are engaged, the Society have appointed collectors, to call upon our citizens, and it is to be hoped that every one will be prepared to give something. Let the rich and the middle classes give according to their means — let all feel it to be a religious duty to give something — and the needy will have reason to rejoice that their lots are cast among the truly charitable.
Back to 150 years ago this week – there was some positive information about the guns part of the guns-butter Confederate economy. From the Richmond Daily Dispatch April 4, 1863:
Large Elephant of Nitre.
–We learn, says the Knoxville Register, that on Saturday last Capt. T. J. Finnis shipped from Knoxville, Jonesboro’, and Zollicoffer,fifty two thousand six hundred and seventy five barrels of nitre. When Capt. Finn’s was appointed to this district it was a forlorn hope. Yet by his energy and fact he has made it abundantly productive. The may now will be ranked at second in importance to none in the public defence. But for the establishment of the Nitre and Mining Bureau we would not now be able to hold the field against our remorseless foe, for the want of powder and lead.
It is written that East Tennessee was Confederate Niter District Seven.
- [1]Green, Elna C. This business of relief: confronting poverty in a Southern city, 1740-1940. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2003. Print. page 49.↩
