Symposium Spotlight: The Richmond Bread Riot of 1863

Welcome back to our spotlight series, highlighting speakers and topics for our upcoming symposium. Over the coming weeks, we will continue previewing of our speaker’s presentations for the 2025 Emerging Civil War Symposium. This week we feature Robert Dunkerly’s  topic.

The Richmond Bread Riot. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

The Richmond Bread Riot of 1863

The Richmond Bread Riot of 1863 was the largest anti-war protest in the Confederacy. It was also not the only one. Civilians with no political voice- women, poor, factory workers- loudly and violently reacted to the war’s impact on their lives. The Bread Riot allows us to understand the stresses that southern civilians faced, and shows that there was far from a unified home front.

Find more information and tickets for our 2025 Symposium by clicking here.