April 17, 1864

April 17, 1864

---Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, as General-in-Chief, issues orders that all prisoner exchanges will stop, so as to starve the South of its meager manpower.

 

---Civil unrest springs up in cities of the South, due to food shortages.  In Savannah, Georgia, a mob of women, armed and angry, rioted in the streets, taking bread and any foodstuffs from wherever they could find it.  Only after troops came did the crowd disperse.

 

---The schooner Lily, from England, is captured as a blockade runner by the Federal gunboat USS Owasco, offshore near Velasco, Texas.

 

---Confederate troops under George Pickett (Hoke’s division) attack Fort Gray, near Plymouth, North Carolina, garrisoned by a detachment of the 85^th New York Infantry.  The attack is called off after several assaults are repulsed.