Rock Battles & Gangs
Information about rock battles and boy gangs in Richmond, VA during the Civil War.

Written Accounts

1866-01-16, Richmond Examiner; negroes attacked by soldiers at 7th and Main
1866-02-01, Richmond Examiner; Provost Court cases – two drunken soldiers, rock-throwing negro, and two other negro thieves sent to Libby Prison
1866-02-23, Richmond Examiner; “a number of negro boys” attacked with stones by white youths on Capitol Square. Freedmen’s Bureaus stops it and arrests culprits
1866-03-17, Richmond Dispatch, description of racial violence at Chimborazo – white child beaten and abused, negroes at Chimborazo attack in quasi-military fashion
1866-06-25, Richmond Dispatch; two negroes fight at Chimborazo – eventually beating each other with rocks. One man’s skull fractured, assumed fatally. The other not yet arrested.
1866-07-06, Richmond Whig; white youth shot through the heart by a negro at Chimborazo
1868-06-09, Richmond Dispatch; 1 white and 2 black boys fined for having a rock battle at Chimborazo
1871-04-25, Richmond Dispatch; long recommendation for Chimborazo to be made into a park. Details as to current ownership, its present use as a Freedmen’s camp, and pre-war use as a “common”
1901-03-17, Richmond Times; five boys charged with stoning “some young negroes” near the Van Lew house
1901-04-12, Richmond Times; fighting again between the “boys of Church Hill” and “the young negroes who inhabit the Van Lew property”

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