Richmond from Holywood, c. 1865
A Richmond mill is selling flour below the market price and limiting quantities to stymie speculators; another novel food substitute; a meeting is planned to protest flour speculators and another to consider a petition for sentinels to guard Richmond’s near food supplies. Despite increasing food scarcity (and interesting substitute foods?) some wounded soldiers are returning to the army. A hot August affects all shapes and sizes.
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch August 8, 1863:
Local matters.
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Worthy of Praise.
–We understand that Messrs. Warwick & Barksdale, of the Galleg[o] Mills, Richmond, are supplying families with flour at from $31 to $35 per barrel, according to grade, and that they refuse to sell more than one barrel to any one man, thus keeping off the hands of speculators, who are holding the same article at $60 per barrel. By adopting this course, hundreds of families will be able to buy flour who could not do so at $60, and speculators will be prevented from getting the stock on hand into their possession, and, by refusing to sell, soon run up the price to $100 per barrel. Let families get their supplies at once before the stock is [?]
Attention, soldiers.
–Every soldier in the field knows the importance to health of good bread, but many of them have to do without that necessary article because they cannot obtain hope, and know of no substitute. We learn from reliable authority that the dried leaf of corn (fodder) is an admirable substitute for hope. The infusion is prepared in the same way. Practice will soon determine the quantity of fodder necessary to be used. At the Huguenot Springs Hospital, where there are now four hundred and fifty patients, fodder is used instead of hope by the bakers, and those who have tasted the bread say it is equal in every respect to any they ever saw. Let every soldier note this fact.
Moving.
–A meeting of citizens will be held some afternoon this week to take action on ” flour speculations.” unless the Government first moves in the matter. The people are prepared to endure all necessary hardships for our cause, even to abandoning the use of flour altogether, but they are not willing to be fleeced of their last time by speculators, nor will they stand by and see women and children suffer for bread merely to gratify the sordid desire of speculators and extortioners.–They can give up bread and meat, when necessity requires it, without murmuring at the sacrifice made for the independence of their country, but they will no longer submit to the murderous fire which speculators have showered upon them since the beginning of the war.
Securing supplies.
–All the Justices of Henrico county are summoned to attend at their Court House to day to consider the propriety of petitioning the Secretary of War for a line of sentinels around Richmond, to guard the suburban farms and gardens against depredations. The question is one of meal and bread to the people of Richmond, and is worthy of careful consideration.
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Getting well.
–Large numbers of convalescent soldiers are leaving the hospitals every day, and moving forward to join their commands under Gen. Lee. If the skulkers and desertage could be coaked or driven to their camps the Army of Northern Virginia would be numerically stronger at this time than at any period during the war. Those who fall to avail themselves of the amnesty offered by the President should be captured and shot.
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The Weather
has at length arrived at melting heat. Fat men are but skins of grease, literally running away as they attempt locomotion, and lean ones are so dried and porched that their bones rattle as skeletons in the wind when they move about. We may expect a thunder storm at any moment, judging from the flying clouds and occasional guate of wind.
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You can read more about the Gallego Mills and see a photo at the Virginia Historical Society
