During the American Civil War, more than a dozen food riots erupted in a number of Southern cities. Planned and executed largely by women, these riots were precipitated by extreme food shortages and high market prices, both the result of impressment activity and widespread speculation in foodstuffs. Although several scholars have examined the largest riot which occurred in Richmond, Virginia, in 1863, none have studied them collectively to determine the impact all of these riots exerted on the Confederate war effort or on the roles of Southern women in wartime. Nor has any attempt been made to place these riots in the context of American and European patterns of rioting. In response to riots or as attempts to prevent riots from occurring, a number of state and local governments moved to establish welfare programs to aid the women left destitute by the war. In cities, this took the form of free markets which distributed commodities donated by local farmers. In areas where the population was more dispersed, county or state relief agencies performed a similar function. Women who received supplies had to meet specific requirements to qualify for aid, and, at least in Richmond, the female rioters were excluded from the welfare program because their behavior violated traditional behavioral norms. As the war neared its conclusion, however, this type of riotous activity by Southern women ceased, and the women returned to their more traditional roles in nineteenth-century Southern society. When examined as a group, these riots tend to conform to traditional European food riot patterns such as those described by E.P. Thompson and Louise Tilly, thus giving the women's activities a broader and deeper historical context than they otherwise would have had.