Virginia Civil War Series, Part 2: Central Region
The Piedmont, the Heart of Virginia
The State Capitol, Richmond, Va. [Photographed between 1861 and 1865, printed between 1880 and 1889] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2014645797/>.
Virginia’s piedmont region connects the foothills of the Shenandoah Mountains to the eastern coastline. It is the home of former presidents’ plantations: Thomas Jefferson (Monticello), James Madison (Montpelier), and James Monroe (Highland). This wide strip of land encompasses industrial cities and farmland, and it served as a recurring location for Civil War battles. Many Union tactics, like the Peninsula and Overland Campaigns, were aimed at capturing Richmond, the Confederate Capital, which would give the Union a decisive and symbolic victory.
A Transportation Hub
In 1861, Richmond was the well-connected transportation hub for the entirety of Virginia. Five railroads ended in the city, and through them, Richmond accessed northern Virginia, the Potomac and York Rivers, the North Carolina border, and the Shenandoah mountains. The James River cut through Virginia’s center, connecting Lynchburg and Richmond to Hampton, Norfolk, and the Chesapeake Bay. These pipelines for commerce promoted farming and industry.
Tobacco: Virginia’s Cash Crop
Unlike the light soil of Virginia’s Eastern shore, which cultivate wheat and cotton, the clay soil of Virginia’s Piedmont Region provides the ideal conditions for farming tobacco. The crop has been rooted in the Virginia economy since the 17th century. By the time of the Civil War, enslaved people farmed tobacco and provided the workforce of tobacco factories, where “plug” (chewing tobacco) was produced. Amongst the cities of highest tobacco production were Richmond, Lynchburg, and Danville.
In Lynchburg, tobacco manufacturing was the foundation of the town’s wealth. Though they also produced flour and worked iron, production was on a smaller scale. By 1860, there were 45 factories with a total workforce of 1,054, all of whom were black and most were slaves (Tripp, 7). For perspective, nearly 40% of the population were enslaved and approximately half worked in tobacco (Tripp, 12). Others, mostly enslaved women, worked in domestic positions.
Tobacco manufacturing had many moving parts:
Stemmers – steam the tobacco leaf and eliminate the midrib
Dippers – bathe the tobacco in spices (nutmeg, sugar, cinnamon, etc.) and line finished leaves on the factory rooftop to dry
Lumpmakers – shape leaves into rectangles
Screwman – operate the screwpress, which presses the “plug” into a pan, and fasten boxes before shipment
Most of Lynchburg’s enslaved laborers continued to work at factories until the end of 1863, when the Confederate government ordered the closure of all factories. Tobacco farmers were redirected to plant food and tobacco factory laborers were to be reassigned to the war effort. Around 400 in Lynchburg took on various roles in hospitals. Some took part in industry, like blacksmithing. Others were sent away to cities like Richmond or Petersburg (Tripp, 149). In Richmond, empty tobacco factories were repurposed as makeshift infirmaries after large scale combat, including the Battle of Seven Pines.
Tobacco was valued so highly that when the Confederates lost Petersburg, and subsequently Richmond, on April 2nd, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee ordered his troops to burn all tobacco stores in the city. They ignited the warehouses, fully aware that the fire would spread through the shops and residences of the town.
Map of the Burnt Districts of Richmond
Smith, William Ira. Map of a part of the city of Richmond showing the burnt districts. [S.l., Ira Smith, proprietor Richmond Whig, ?, 1865] Map. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/99448330/>.
Class Divisions and Hunger
Through the war, the sharp divide between rich and poor was impossible to overlook. Within cities, the two groups lived close together, often separated by only a couple of blocks. With surging inflation, many found themselves below the poverty line, which led to riots. The most famous was the Richmond Bread Riot of 1863.
Southern Women Feeling the Effects of the Rebellion, and Creating Bread Riots. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2007683044/>.
On Thursday, April 3rd, thousands of people, mostly women, stormed the streets and formed a mob. They marched through the business district on their way to the Capitol Square to demand food, specifically bread. When they found that the governor wasn’t there, they seized what they could find in the business district. They broke into shops and warehouses, looting shoes, food, tobacco, and more. Arrests were made, but the convicted were released when there wasn’t adequate food to feed them. This was one of several bread riots across the country.
Wealthy white women had the benefit of volunteering, even as costs continued to rise. They formed sewing circles for soldiers, often hosted through their places of worship. They joined organizations like the Ladies Defense Association, which fundraised for warships. In 1864, they fundraised to provide a feast for Confederate soldiers around the Christmas and New Year holidays. It was enough to offer small sandwiches to soldiers, while Richmond’s elite hosted lavish parties. In contrast, many poor were left to beg on the street, and occurrences of drunkenness, prostitution, and gambling rose.
Wages for Women in Richmond, Virginia
The Civil War dramatically changed preconceived notions of women’s work in America. With rising inflation in the city, men fighting on the battlefield, and increased competition from a refugee population fleeing Union occupation, a secure wage position became a requirement. Government employment was available everywhere, from official departments like the Post Office and War Department to hospitals and schools. For $500/year and 6 hours/day, women could work for the Confederate Treasury Department signing Confederate notes. Richmond’s enslaved, free blacks, and poor whites worked as laundresses, maids, cooks, and nurses. Many filled the roles of teachers.
The Brown’s Island Girls
Ammunitions manufacturing was a dangerous profession. Even though papers frequently reported fires and explosions at munitions factories, the Confederate States (C.S.) Laboratory employed approximately 300 white girls and women through the war. These girls often had family on the battlefield and their work expanded past making gun cartridges to packing ammunition, producing percussion caps, and constructing and deconstructing primers. Many were illiterate, and at the war’s outbreak they were paid a daily wage between $1.50 to $2.40. In January 1863, for safety, they moved their operations to Brown’s Island, which was surrounded by the James River and contained a dozen buildings.
On the morning of Friday, March 13th, teenaged Mary Ryan accidentally ignited a friction primer. According to the Richmond Examiner, “the building that blew up was the department in which condemned cartridges were broken up, and where over sixty females were at work.” The ignition set off all gunpowder in the department. Windows were blown out. Debris was inescapable. 69 were killed or wounded – 34 of those were girls who succumbed to their burns.
By the end of March, work on the island continued.
In December 1863, Brown’s Island was in the news again for a strike. Married women with children were being paid $7 per day while single women were paid $5. Married and single women banded together to protest for pay equity. They were promptly fired, the laboratory closed, and ads were placed for immediate replacements.
Sewing for Soldiers
In 1862, the Confederate Clothing Bureau employed 2,000 Richmond women. They were given cloth to sew into soldiers’ uniforms. This rigorous work could be completed in their own homes. When the Union disrupted the transport of cloth from the South, women produced their own homespun cloth. In addition to sewing, they carded the raw wool or cotton, spun it into yarn, and wove the yarn into cloth. Despite this extra work, their pay remained the same - $1 for a shirt, $1.50 for pants, or $4.00 for a coat (Faust, 89). This is at a time of rapid inflation when flour was $16 per barrel in Fall 1862 and $700 per barrel in Spring 1865. Despite the low pay, the number of wage workers increased to nearly 4,000 by the end of the war.
SITE VISIT: The American Civil War Museum, Browns Island, and the Hollywood Cemetery
On February 19th, I visited the American Civil War Museum at the old Tredegar Iron Works, which had supplied nearly half of the artillery for the Confederate army. Not only did it provide a comprehensive overview of the Civil War, specifically in Richmond, but it focused on matters of the home front. Special attention was paid to the contributions of women and people of color, such as Elizabeth Van Lew, a white Richmond spy for the Union, and Mary Kelsey Peake, a free black educator at Fort Monroe. The special exhibits were particularly impactful, especially Southern Ambitions, which debunked the Lost Cause mythology and uncovered the Confederacy’s intentions to expand slavery globally.
After the museum, I walked Brown’s Island, which was a short bridge away from the Tredegar. There are no remnants of the Confederate States Laboratory, and the sprawling lawn would be the perfect place for a summer picnic. There are two art pieces to signify the history of African Americans – the Emancipation and Freedom Monument and the Headman Statue. At the entrance to Brown’s Island, there is a pedestrian bridge over the James River with a built-in exhibit. It’s called “Three Days in April: The Evacuation and Burning of Richmond.” The walking exhibit is a series of testimonials and quotes during the Confederate evacuation and Union occupation of Richmond (April 2nd through 4th, 1865). They are etched into the wood and metal supporting the bridge, both in the planks and in the railing.
My last stop was Hollywood Cemetery, a hilltop Richmond graveyard which overlooks the James River. Established in the 19th century, it contains the final resting places of two United States presidents (Taylor and Monroe), Jefferson Davis, and several Confederate Civil War soldiers. It was impactful to see the overwhelming number of Confederate dead, with some graves marked for soldiers unidentified or unknown. There was also a plaque dedicated to the Confederate women of the Civil War. Though I didn’t have a chance to search for them, many victims of the Brown’s Island explosion are buried in this graveyard.
Additional Research Ideas
Central Virginia has many urban centers that defined southern industry before and during the Civil War. I’ve conducted some research on plantations to better understand farming, slavery, and the integration of farming into the thriving tobacco and flour industries. I want to come back and research plantations like Tuckahoe, which is Thomas Jefferson’s birthplace, and the Avenel House. However, due to time, I was not able to delve into this research for this blogpost. I plan to conduct additional research on these plantations after this semester.
Works Cited
“The American Civil War Museum at Historic Tredegar.” American Civil War Museum, 17 Jan. 2022, https://acwm.org/historic-tredegar/.
DeCredico, Mary A. Confederate Citadel: Richmond and Its People at War. The University Press of Kentucky, 2020.
Faust, Drew Gilpin. Mothers of Invention : Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War, The University of North Carolina Press, 1996. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.mutex.gmu.edu/lib/GMU/detail.action?docID=475176.
“From the Richmond Examiner, 3/14/1863.” 1863-03-14, Richmond Examiner; Explosion at C. S. Laboratory, Civil War Richmond, 12 Oct. 2014, https://civilwarrichmond.com/people/women/2714-1863-03-14-richmond-examiner-explosion-at-c-s-laboratory.
Harper, Judith E. Women during the Civil War: An Encyclopedia. Routledge, 2007.
“Richmond's Riverfront Public Art & Statues.” Venture Richmond, https://venturerichmond.com/explore-downtown/outdoors/riverfront-public-art/.
Tripp, Steven E. Yankee Town, Southern City: Race and Class Relations in Civil War Lynchburg. New York University Press, 1999.
Virginia Department of Education. (n.d.). Virginia's Agricultural Resources . Virginia Department of Education. Retrieved March 6, 2022, from https://www.doe.virginia.gov/instruction/environmental_literacy/va-natural/docs/vnreg-ag-resource.pdf