Civil War Rations: The Civil War in Four Minutes

[Music] when Union veteran John D Billings wrote his classic history of soldier life hartack and coffee he devoted an entire chapter 34 pages to be exact to army rations how they were issued and how they were cooked his primary aim was to dispel the false impressions that had come about regarding what soldiers ate now one of the most widely known pieces of civil war food was hardtack partek was a soldier's bread ration and had been around since the Crusades the version of hardtack issued to Civil War soldiers was invented in 1801 by a man named Josiah bent then called his concoction a water cracker and for good reason the recipe if you could call it that had two ingredients flour and water which were then mixed into a paste and baked the result was a dry cracker that would stay more or less edible for an extended period of time and I do mean extended in fact some Civil War soldiers received issues of hardtack that had been left over from the Mexican War more than ten years earlier the longevity of a single piece of heart attack depended greatly on how it was made and how it was stored improperly packaged or under baked biscuits could become infested with maggots or weevil larvae prompting many soldiers to call them maggot castles and even when properly cared for the crackers were incredibly tough leaving many soldiers to call them flower tiles tooth breakers and other names the solution to both problems was one in the same break up the cracker and boil it soldiers would break up the heart egg with the butts of their muskets and boil it in hot water or coffee which would then cause the maggots and weevil larvae to float to the surface allowing soldiers to skim them off the top and continue drinking their cup of joe boiling heart a canned coffee also gave the heart attack itself at least some degree of flavor these of course were not the only food items issued to the Civil War soldier each day a soldier in one of the US Army's was entitled to one pound of meat and one pound of bread now occasionally fresh beef was the meat ration but more often than not they got pork and this pork was salted for preservation and it was known then as salt pork or sometimes salt horse which gives you an idea of how it tasted for bread partek was generally the rule but when armies were encamped in winter quarters or in the same place for a long period of time they might have access to soft bread an example of this is when Joe hooker took command of the army the Potomac in the spring of 1863 and ordered that ovens be built outside of the Army's camps so that soft fresh bread could be issued to his soldiers now bread and meat were issued to soldiers individually other items however were issued in larger quantities of 10 or 15 pounds which would then be split up among a hundred soldiers or so items in this category included beans peas rice sugar and of course coffee as you can probably guess this was the ration under the best of circumstances and soldiers didn't always get all they were entitled to for instance beans and rice were not issued to soldiers on the march and fresh bread was usually one of the first luxuries to go it's also worth pointing out that even civil war soldiers knew that even the most fulsome ration was lacking in key vitamins and nutrients so much so that it was not uncommon for officers to use their own money to supplement their troops diet an example of this is Captain Henry Abbott of the 20th Massachusetts who will have his family in Boston send onions and lemons to his troops in Virginia to help supplement their diet now mostly what we've talked about so far pertains primarily to the Union Army robert e lee's men and automatics were considerably less well fed than their counterparts in the army of the potomac however this was not the case at the start of the war the Confederate government adopted the US Army standards for feeding its troops with many men boasting that they got fed better in the army than they did at home unfortunately for Johnny Reb this didn't last very long the Confederacy did not have the same manufacturing capability as the north and southern ports were blockaded by the US Navy even worse the Confederacy's railway system was simply inadequate for moving the vast quantity of food required to feed the armies on the eve of the Battle of Chancellorsville Lee recorded that his soldiers daily ration consisted of 18 ounces of flour 4 ounces of bacon and the occasional issue of rice sugar or molasses it's no wonder then that one of Lee's primary objectives in the Gettysburg Campaign was to secure food and supplies for his literally starving army now whether he ate the standard government issue or something appropriated from a local farm the Civil War soldier was expert making delicious dishes out of whatever they could get Veterans accounts are chock-full of suggestions of things you could make telling us that the Civil War culinary experience is only limited by our imagination [Music] you 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Channel: American Battlefield Trust

Views: 112,065

Keywords: American Battlefield Trust, Civil War Trust, Civil War Food, Diet of Civil War soldiers, Hardtack and coffee, John D. Billings, Civil War hardtack, Salt Pork, Union Army Rations, Confederate Army Rations, civil war rations for soldiers, civil war rations union, american civil war rations, civil war food, how to make civil war hardtack, american civil war hardtack

Id: LpACpzFdURc

Length: 4min 57sec (297 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 17 2020