Mary Jackson

Mary Jackson (c. 1829 c. 1870) was a Virginian peddler known for her role in organizing the 1863 riots in Richmond, Virginia, during the Civil War, now known as the Richmond Bread Riots. Jackson instigated and led a group of around 300 armed women through the streets of Richmond, demanding food and supplies that were in shortage during wartime. Although for the most part the violence was only threatened and not actually perpetrated, the armed mob did succeed in stealing thousands of dollars in goods as an expression of their frustration and desperation as the government failed to care for them while most of the men were fighting in the war.

Biography Mary Jackson was born around 1829. Varina Davis, the wife of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, described Jackson as a "tall, daring, Amazonian-looking" woman. A court reporter remarked in 1863 that Jackson was "an athletic woman of 40, with straight, strong features and a vixenish eye." Another court reporter described her as "a forty-year-old Amazon with the eye of the Devil." Although both court reporters stated that Jackson was 40 years old in 1863, many other accounts put her age at 34 years old at the time of the riot.

Richmond Bread Riot

Background The Richmond Bread Riots were born out of Confederate soldiers' wives grievances as women were forced to represent themselves in community appeals and communicate with government and generals. They have been described as an expression of women's mass political mobilization.

By 8:00 am Jackson and a crowd of women had left the market. The crowd, numbering more than 300 women and including a growing number of men and boys, marched silently, per Jackson's instructions, up Ninth Street.

Aftermath In the aftermath of the riot, many of the women involved were arrested. A number were captured as they attempted to drive the stolen wagons filled with goods back to their neighborhoods.

Death Little is known about Jackson’s fate after her trial, largely because the circuit court records burned in a later fire. However, Jackson is believed to have died shortly after the end of the Civil War. An 1870 census shows a woman of a different name living with her husband in Brookland Township.