"Hard Tack," from "Life in Camp" by Winslow Homer.
(Library of Congress)
Introduction
A couple of weeks before the Battle of Fredericksburg, Sgt. Lucien A. Vorhees of the 15th New Jersey Infantry wrote to his hometown newspaper from his Stafford County camp. In part of the letter, Vorhees provided a thorough and light-hearted discussion about life in camp, including the distribution of rations and their preparation. “When we arise the first impulse is to look out for something to gratify our ever devouring appetites, and as we now cook our individual ‘grub’ we pay strict attention to it,” he began. Vorhees then noted, “In the first place we draw our rations from the Commissary, which are generally Salt Pork, or in lieu thereof Salt Beef, commonly called ‘Salt Hoss,’ or in lieu thereof Fresh Beef, of which each man is entitled to 1 ½ lbs. Beef, or ¾ lb. of Pork and ‘Hard Tac,” 1 lb. to a man of Rice, Beans, Sugar, Coffee. . . .” Vorhees noted that, the rations were brought to camp and divided as equally as possible, “for if there is the least perceptible difference a series of growls is the consequence.” He explained that growls were a “contagious malady” and “prevails to an alarming extent in the regiment.” Growls were heard “when we draw rations,” “when we march,” “when we don’t march,” and “you are certain to hear it when we don’t draw rations, in fact it is heard continuously.” However Vorhees saw the grumbling as “an ally, for it crowds depression of spirits to the fair winds, and we thank God that it prevails among us.”
Next, Vorhees turned his discussion to cooking. “After the distribution [of rations] we repair to our fires and cook in the following manner. The meat is prepared for digestion in several ways, the most usual of which is to fry it till done, after which (the meat being fryed in grease, obtained from the pork,) we fry some ‘Hard Tac,’ which makes them very portable.” Other cooking methods included “‘broiling’ meat on a stick, toasting crackers, &c.” Vorhees said that beans and rice were not supplied on their marches, but they “get them when we are encamped for any length of time.”
If there is anything that Civil War soldiers mentioned more often in their letters and diaries than their desire for more news from home or the weather, it is probably food. Diary entries are particularly rich sources since they potentially recorded daily activities, one of which, of course, was hopefully cooking and eating.
Hardtack was a dietary staple for Civil War soldiers.
(Hardtack and Coffee, Or the Unwritten Story of Army Life by John Billings, 1887)
Soldiers’ complaints about their appetites, much like sleep deprivation, were usually temporary conditions. However, when rations ran short, they sought ways to supplement them. Whether that was begging at a stranger’s door, foraging a chicken, roasting ears, and sweet potatoes, fishing, or even requesting a box of provisions from home, soldiers more often than not found ways to temper their hunger pangs. Additionally, with the majority of Civil War soldiers being young men who burned tremendous amounts of calories on the march and doing fatigue duties, their appetites usually outsized their allotted rations. Were Civil War soldiers literally starving? In most cases outside of prisoner-of-war camps, no, they were not. But, were they often hungry? Yes.
US Army regulations in 1861 called for daily rations of meat and bread to consist of 12 ounces of pork or bacon; or 1 pound, 4 ounces of fresh or salt beef. For their bread ration, soldiers were to receive 1 pound, 6 ounces of soft bread or flour, or 1 pound of hard bread, which was approximately the equivalent of 9 or 10 individual hardtack crackers.
Hardtack crackers were a staple diet for campaigning Federal soldiers during the Civil War, and Confederate soldiers received them sometimes, too. Usually consisting of only baked flour and water, hardtack provided filler field rations for soldiers. Soldiers often joked about hardtack’s durability. Sometimes called “sheet iron crackers,” or “teeth-dullers,” and packaged in leaky wooden boxes, these army bread rations were often issued moldy, and sometimes infested with weevils. The monotony of army bread as part of their diet inspired soldiers to alter the title and lyrics of the popular period song “Hard Times Come Again No More” to “Hard Tack Come Again No More.” Regardless of its seeming limitations, soldiers developed numerous ways to prepare hardtack to fit their tastes.
While enlisted men and non-commissioned officers received their rations—drawing rations as they called it—officers normally had to supply their own rations or pay for them from the commissary.
This CVBT History Wire will explore soldiers’ comments about food around the time of and during the Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville Campaigns. A Part II post will follow next month with examples from the Mine Run Campaign and the Battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House.
Poultry like, turkeys, chickens, ducks, and geese were coveted by soldiers at holiday times.
(Library of Congress)
Writing home to his brother and sister on Thanksgiving Day, 1862, just a couple of weeks before the Battle of Fredericksburg, Pvt. Henry Howe, Oneida (New York) Independent Cavalry—which served as the Army of the Potomac’s headquarters guard—was on the Stafford County bank of the Rappahannock River across from Fredericksburg. “I wonder what you are all about today about dinner time. I suppose you will be eating chicken pie or something of that sort,” Howe opened. Probably expecting the war to be short, Howe explained that last year he thought that he would already be back home for Thanksgiving 1862, “instead it will be in Va.” However, he retained hope that he would return home for the holiday in 1863. As a soldier’s thoughts often turned to food, so did Howe’s: “What do you think my thanksgiving dinner will be,” he asked. “I will tell you—it will be fresh beef soup & crackers. It is prepared by our 'French cook' for you may believe we have one.”
Like Pvt. Howe, the Thanksgiving holiday reminded the 11th New Jersey's Pvt. Alonzo Searing of food. He described his Thanksgiving meal in a letter home while camped near Falmouth. “On Thanksgiving Day as I was eating the bountiful dinner of fried pork and hard tack, and drinking the coffee so generously provided by Uncle Sam I thought about home and the table spread with chicken, turkey, and other good things.” Searing expressed the wish that his family would “save me some.”
Leading up to the Battle of Fredericksburg, the fare was pretty lean for the men in the 5th Alabama Infantry. On December 7, Samuel Pickens noted his diary that he “Had poor supper Corn bread & cold boil beef without any salt. Rations are short ¾ lb. flour other day and three crackers. March one day on 1 ½ crackers.” On the morning of the battle he noted, “Got up hungry as ate no supper & boiled some fresh pork we had & ate all corn bread.” Later in the day Pickens wrote about food again: “Made fires & Col. [Edwin Lafayette] Hob.[son] gave me 2 bis.[cuits] gave 1 to Ned B.[ayol] & then we’d one apiece & broiled rest of Pork on coal & ate our scant supper & went to bed.” While apparently Pickens and his comrade scavanged some food from the Federal dead and wounded on the battlefield in the following days, by December 19, he penned “Often have been without salt given out & biscuits without grease—not even beef tallow & no salt.”
Writing to his wife, Margaret, on December 8, 1862, Corp. Peter Welsh, 28th Massachusetts, advised not to worry so much about what she read in the newspapers “not even the Generals themselves can tell when a battle will take place, it all depends on circumstances and there is no probability of our having a battle here at present. . . .” Corp. Welsh quickly turned his thoughts to food: “we all cook our own coffe in our company and we serve out our pork and bacon raw except when we have beans to boil with our pork i youst [used] to get meal when I had a chance and fry flap jacks you would laugh to see us frying them on a tin plate and our crackers[:] we sometimes soak them and fry them they go very well for a change our coffe is very good and that is a great thing for a good mug of coffee when a man is cold or tired refreshes him greatly.” Welsh survived the Battle of Fredericksburg, although his Irish Brigade suffered heavy casualties.
Pvt. Eli Penson Landers, 16th Georgia Infantry, was surprised to find some food stashed in a coat sent to him.
(Public Domain)
On December 10, 1862, Pvt. Eli Penson Landers, 16th Georgia Infantry, wrote to his mother. In the letter, Landers thanked her for the overcoat she sent him by way of a friend. Folded within the coat were potatoes. Pvt. Landers wrote, “I said I would not take 5 dollars for them. I roasted them last night.”
Pvt. William Stilwell, 53rd Georgia Infantry, wrote to his wife Molly on December 11, 1862, about a recent treat. Apparently, one of the men in his company received some ingredients from home that included “butter, large yam potatoes, [and] dried fruit.” Stilwell explained he served as “chief cook and bottle washer” and turned the items into “an old fashioned sliced pie, yes, a great big sliced pie.” Stilwell continued that he ate so much pie “I had to unbutton most all my clothes.”
Some Civil War soldiers could find a bit of humor in almost any situation. Pvt. David Holt, 16th Mississippi Infantry, recalled an incident during the Battle of Fredericksburg involving his comrade, Pvt. John Stockett and a close call. Fighting to the left of Marye’s Heights in Gen. William S. Featherston’s brigade, Holt and Stockett hugged the ground. Holt remembered: “During the day [Stockett] took a piece of bread from his haversack and raised up to eat, and just at that moment a bullet flicked the bread out of his hand without touching him.” An astonished Stockett exclaimed, “Well, I call that a lowdown Yankee trick. If that fellow wanted my bread, he ought to have been more polite and come and asked for it. I believe they want to starve us out as that was the last piece of bread I had.”
The 51st Pennsylvania Infantry’s Col. William J. Bolton wrote in his diary on December 13 that “In coming off the field, many a poor fellow was trodden on, and it was truly heartrending to hear their groans and cries for water. The night was spent by all in cooking and sleeping, for it had been seven or eight days since the regiment had an hour or unbroken rest, and a great deal of that time without food.”
Charles Bowen of the 12th US Infantry wrote to his wife Kate about their adventures in Fredericksburg. “All through the streets, soldiers were eating & cooking, smashing chairs for fuel & eating off china dishes. We finally halted & stacked arms & went in for making up our fast. I broke into a dwelling & found a barrel of pork, a barrel of flour & some fish, this was rolled out and divided up. Some of the boys found a lot of preserves & canned fruit, & we set too & cooked hot cakes & eat our fill.”
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The day after the Battle of Fredericksburg, Maj. James Wren, 48th Pennsylvania, wrote a humorous account in his diary. Three of his men broke into a Fredericksburg house and found a “Carpenter’s store room.” One of the men thought he had found a cache of flour and told his pards, “We be got him now, lads. Fill your haversacks.” After all loaded up, one said “Now, lads, let’s go down to the fire & we will have some Johnny Cakes.” One got firewood, another got water, and the other started whipping up a batter. The cooking got underway, but the flap jacks weren’t browning. “Turn ‘em over any’ow,” said one. The chef said they were hard, but passed them out anyway. One soldier couldn’t cut his with his knife. Another grabbed a rock to break his and “tried to bite it.” One exclaimed after a taste, “Damn ‘em . . . is plaster [of] Paris!” Another said, “Well, Jack, I did think it was Damn heavy flour in my haversack.”
Spencer Bonsall, a hospital steward in the 81st Pennsylvania, wrote in his diary on December 14, 1862, that he was quartering in the Fredericksburg home of Rev. Alfred Randolph, an Episcopalian minister. He noted, “We found some fat chickens in a coop in the yard of our premises, flour, etc. in the pantry, and potatoes in the cellar, so we made a tolerable Sunday dinner for soldiers.” To make the occasion more special “Our table was laid with white cloth, plates, dishes, knives, forks, and spoons belonging to the Reverend absentee. . . .”
Col. Regis de Trobriand, 55th New York Infantry wrote his wife Lina on December 15, 1862, while still on the field and noting the difficulty of getting food: “Yesterday, we still had to maintain our position and finally, today the 55th [New York Infantry], is in the front line, one hundred yards from the enemy’s lines that we couldn’t take by assault the day before yesterday. No fire! Little food; only a few [hardtack] crackers to nibble on and a great number of bullets in the air, this is our position.”
Some Union soldiers pillaged Fredericksburg's damaged and abandoned houses for food and valuable items.
(Library of Congress)
Less than two weeks after the Battle of Fredericksburg and back in their Falmouth camps, the 9th New York Infantry’s Edward King Wightman commented on his Christmastime fare: “We enjoyed Christmas hugely here. There were multitudes of sutlers around with everything that nobody wanted to buy.” However, some had food, which was always in high demand to supplement monotonous army-issued rations. Butter, cheese, sausage, and apples were expensive, but a treat. Wightman and some of his comrades got a pass to go into Falmouth to find something for Christmas dinner but could only purchase a “haversack full of meal” at five cents and “3 small papers of black pepper” for eight cents. Sounding as if read by a waiter explaining the day’s special in a fine restaurant, but with primarily soldiers’ ingredients, Wightman wrote, “Our dinner consisted of fresh meat boiled and spiced with pepper sauce, crackers buttered and crowned with toasted cheese, sprinkled with black pepper, boiled pork cut up in pepper sauce, 2 onions in vinegar, and a pan full of warm mush.” A bit of holiday cheer came from “1/2 a bottle of what was called port wine, the ½ bottle costing $1.”
Like Thanksgiving the month before Christmas had soldiers thinking of food and good cheer, too. Two days before Christmas, 1862, Pvt. Alonzo Bump, 77th New York Infantry, wrote to his wife Mary asking for things to help his cooking and diet. He requested her to send him a “small sheet iron Spider,” a skillet with legs, “with a handle on it.” Pvt. Bump also requested mustard, “for we have Lots of Fresh Beeaf now [that] we are in Camp.” Asking to make sure the box that she sent was not too large, because he would have to probably carry it, he mentioned some comrades who had received one recently and had “to Lug it 3 miles.” However, when they opened it they were rewarded for their hard work. “the Boys Give me a Peace of Bread and Butter and 2 round Shurgar cakes and some small crackers and I tell you they Did taste good. it made me think of home when I was eating them,” Bump wrote. He wanted more bread and butter and mince pies. Explaining he could put the mince pies in his haversack if they had to move quickly, he implored her to “hurry it up for we all feal ancious to get Something from home. it will taste so Good the boys are saying when I Git my Box from home I will have about 3 inches [of fat] on the ribs the first Day.” An additional request was for a fruit cake made by Bump’s mother, “for i can eat Like a horse down hear when i ame well,” he begged.
Loved ones on the home front often sent foodstuffs in soldier care boxes that came to the camps
via Adams Express, the UPS of the day.
(Public Domain)
Between the Battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and while camped near Falmouth, Thaddeus Donnelly, 130th Pennsylvania Infantry (a nine-month regiment), took a few minutes to write to his friend Henry Bitner back home. In his letter Donnelly shared a little about his food and how it is prepared: “whe are just now cooking Dinner[.] whe have some potatoes and parsnips that I got in a garden when out picketing[.] I think it will make a fine dish. Whe have to manage a great many way to make hard tack and salt pork keep one alive[;] fried crackers and crackers hamered up and cakes made out of them is the principal living[.] I tele you I wish I had some of the siders and apples that are in Cumberland Co.[,] I could do well[.] their is not an apple to be had [here.]
Capt. Richard S. Thompson and his 12th New Jersey Infantry missed the Battle of Fredericksburg, but they were near Falmouth by Christmas. Writing home on January 4, 1863, Thompson shared his New Year’s Day meal. “Well, New Year’s day I dined on an inch of pork fat, two army crackers, some molasses, and a cup of tea. I trust you at least thought of me while eating your fine things at home,” he noted.
Capt. Henry Livermore Abbott, 20th Massachusetts Infantry, wrote soon after the 1863 new year to his mother that, “Your letter opens with such a charming scene that I wish I were with you.” The privations of soldiering, which at that time for Abbott was food, continued, “We haven’t been able to get anything of the commissary for 4 days but hard bread and rice,” and increased a sense of homesickness in Abbott.
Camped at Belle Plain in Stafford County, Henry Matrau, 6th Wisconsin Infantry (Iron Brigade), wrote home to his mother on January 14, 1863. Young Henry, only 17 at this time explained that “we have been camped here for about 6 weeks and have got pretty good winter quarters up, so we are beginning to live quite comfortably.” Matrau went on to detail the process of constructing and furnishing his shared dwelling and how it was stocked. “Our cupboard comprises a shelf on which you can see a frying pan, plate of beans, tin coffee cups, sugar & coffee bags, knife, fork, & spoon, big chunk of mess pork pies, and tobacco, & c, &c.,” Matrau penned.”
As the first month of 1863 came to an end, a soldier from Gen. Alexander Lawton’s Brigade penning under the name “Camp,” wrote from “near Port Royal” to the Atlanta Southern Confederacy newspaper to inform readers about the army’s situation. Camp was confident. After recently visiting other parts of the army, he found all “them in good health and spirits—ready as they have ever been, to meet the insolent foe,” and claimed the army “in its present position, is invincible.” Still, the army had needs. Camp penned that the men were largely in winter quarters and he found it “amusing to see what a variety of crude huts are constructed.” “Rations now are flour and pickled pork,” he noted, but “rather short” because the roads made delivery difficult. Camp suggested that the army would need to corduroy the road leading from the railroad to properly supply the men “with commissary stores” or “the army will have to change its position.”
The Chancellorsville Campaign
"Stoneman's Station"
The United States Military Railroad (USMRR) stockpiled boxes of hard bread and barrels of salt pork for distribution to and consumption by Union soldiers just before the Chancellorsville Campaign.
(Library of Congress)
In preparation for what would be the Chancellorsville Campaign, the United States Military Railroad (USMRR) stockpiled boxes of hard bread and barrels of salt pork for consumption by Union soldiers. Pennsylvania soldier, Charles Hunter, writing home to family in Philadelphia commented on April 20, 1863, that, “We are expecting to march every day as we are under orders.” Added to the weight of the load Hunter was expected to carry as a soldier was most of the food he was to eat while on campaign. “We have 8 days of rations to carry with us when we do go and every man has to carry that much,” he explained. Army rations typically consisted of about 9 or 10 hardtack crackers and a pound of salted pork per day per soldier. “So you can form some idea what a load, we will have 80 crackers, that is 10 a day,” he noted. Hunter also explained he would get “3 lbs. of fat pork for 3 days.” To fill out the other days’ meat rations, he stated that “the cattle will follow us up for the other 5 days for our fresh beef.”
In anticipation of his Chancellorsville Campaign experiences, Corp. Rice Bull of the 123rd New York Infantry similarly remembered that “We were issued eight days’ field rations consisting of hardtack, coffee, pork and sugar. Since our haversacks only had capacity for three days, the extra rations had to be stowed in our knapsacks. We were notified under no circumstances were we to part with either our rations or ammunition, except when their use became necessary. There would be no further issue of food . . . for eight days. . . .” Corp. Bull added that “our knapsacks which after they were strapped in the usual way presented a very inflated look. When we slung them on our shoulders they were heavy.”
Like many Union soldiers, Charles Bowen complained about the trouble of carrying so many days’ of ration on their person. “We now have to carry eight days rations when we march, three days in the haversack & five in the knapsack, & its more than men are able to bear, but they have no more mercy on us in this respect than they would have on a mule, so we have to take our choice, carry the load or go without food.”
Carrying eight days of rations (three in their haversacks and five in their knapsacks) created a heavy load for Union soldiers in the Chancellorsville Campaign.
(Library of Congress)
While on the move through Stafford County toward U.S. Ford on April 29, 1863, Pvt. George Perkins of the Sixth New York Independent Battery wrote in his diary, “Had a good dinner of ham and eggs, the latter being obtained by bartering coffee and sugar with the [local] inhabitants.” On the retreat a week later, Perkins jotted that he had watched a farmer’s house while he went to find some of his cattle. Apparently in thanks, Perkins wrote that the farmer “invited us to take dinner. Had bread and butter, fresh milk, and peach sauce. Tasted delicious.”
Lt. Cornelius Moore, 57th New York (Second Corps), wrote to his sister following the Battle of Chancellorsville and explained at on May 1 “we had scarcely swallowed our cup of coffee and eaten our allotted number of crackers, which constituted our breakfast, partaken of with astonishing zest . . . when firing (both musketry and artillery) was heard at the front and kept up at intervals for hours.”
Samuel Pickens of the 5th Alabama Infantry noted in his diary on the evening of May 1 that “Had eaten very little for Brkfst. Carey [an enslaved camp servant] brot us biscuits Thurs. [April 30] morng. at day light & we had a little smoked beef wh[ich] we had lived on 2 days.” On May 2, Pickens wrote, “Stopped to rest a few min. & gave Matt Jones ½ biscuit & ate the other & scrap meat & afterwards 2 or 3 little butter crackers—while not more than 1 biscuit.” Soon after participating in Gen. Jackson’s famous flank attack, Pickens had some down time. “When it ceased a squad of men came by with some Prisoners & we started on back to go over the field & get some rations as we were very hungry. I had one crack[er] that [I] had taken fr[om] a Yank. Havresak, going on & divided it with J. Arrington,” wrote Pickens. But he was out of luck “did n’t find any plunder or rations—the troops behind had swept them [up].” However, someone in the Pickens’s company must have had better fortune as he noted “Stacked arms, made fires & ate supper wh[ich] was taken fr[om] Yanks. they best [I] had [in] some time. Crackers, ham & Coffee. Yanks had 8 da[ys] rations with them 5 in kn[apsack] and 3 in Haver s[ac[k.” Pickens was captured on May 3.
Lt. David Champion, 14th Georgia Infantry, remembered that on May 2, 1863, “Parts of the enemy lines were driven in two miles before dark and hundreds of men and quantities of supplies were captured. We were very hungry after an all-days march, so I cut a canteen and haversack from a dead Yankee and was sitting on a log enjoying a sumptuous meal, when a Minnie ball sang right by my head . . . I moved to a less conspicuous place and kept on eating.”
Writing to his father about Chancellorsville, Sgt. Oliver C. Hamilton, 38th North Carolina (Pender’s Brigade) stated that following Jackson’s flank attack the Federals “left their rations which they were cooking . . . scattered in great confusion, though we has not time to plunder and picked up but little more than some fresh cooked beef which they had just cooked and of which we were greatly in need.”
Attending to one’s basic needs sometimes tempered soldiers’ rejoicing. Twenty-one-year-old Pvt. Thornton Sexton, 37th North Carolina Infantry, wrote to his father and mother following the Battle of Chancellorsville. Written with phonetic spelling, and perhaps by semi-literate friends, Sexton had little to nothing to say about his army’s recent stunning triumph. Basic needs and making a connection with home dominated his letter. “I Can in form you that I have not had nothing to eat in two days an I am al Moost starved I want you Bring Mee a box of pervines [provisions] if you Can for times is hard hare now,” Sexton wrote. He assured his father of his safety by explaining: “i Com thru the Battle Safe an Was not hirt Maryin [brother Marion] was not hirt it was Bad looken times the trees an bushes was coot all to peses With balls an grap shoot” Turning to his mother, Sexton wrote her, “I would like be at hom if I cood mitey Well i never node what bad times before in my life all my frends my best respets i gve them I hauve not received no mooney Sence I was at home i need somthing to eat Mity bad if i cood git it” In closing, Sexton asked for a return letter and ended, “I still remin loving Son tel dath Thonten Sxten . . . My love an true respts to My father and mother”
Maj. Walter Taylor on Robert E. Lee's staff wrote his sister looking for some food for himself and his messmates.
(Public Domain)
Camped in Stafford County, Pvt. Alonzo Bump, 77th NY Inf. wrote to his wife Mary that he was not feeling well but hoped that she was. Not having been paid recently, Bump asked Mary to send him an account book. “You can by one Big enough for 25 cents,” he explained. Bump was also looking for an expected box from home, that probably contained at least some food items. “I think we will get it in a few days or i hope so at least.” Alonzo told Mary not to go without anything that she needed, but at the same time he asked her, “if you can spare me one Dollar or t[w]o i would like it.” He felt that having some spare money increased his chance of surviving: “i finde that when a man is sick hear with out money he minte as well make up his mind to Die for if he has money he can By something that he can eat when hee cant eat hardtacks.” He was also out of postage stamps and pled “send me some stamps fore i have not got eny.” In addition, he remembered from a previous letter that some of the neighbor ladies “were going to send me a nice necktie and if they Do I will send them somthing for it . . . as soone as i can git it to send.”
Writing in his diary on May 8, 1863, First Sgt. John F. L. Hartwell, 121st New York Infantry, jotted “I have got our tent repaired & a good fire burning to warm us. Have had a good supper of beans & [hard]tacks. We feel very contented but lonely as we have lost many of our brave fellows.” Four days later he noted: “We are drawing some better rations now since coming to camp. We have all gone hungry to bed every night or should if I had not found some beans that wer left when we started on the march. At any other time any one would not have thought them fit to eat as they wer wet & swollen from rains & sun & many wer spoild but I made a good meal of them for 3.”
Pvt. William Stilwell wrote to his wife Molly on May 10, 1863, explaining that during the campaign, “I never drew but a days ration of meat in nine days, but I had plenty, captured my rations from the Yankee; meat, sugar, coffee, crackers, salt, pepper. . . .” But three days later he again wrote that, “The whole army is on quarter rations. A lb. and a half of meat for six days—take it as it comes—bone, skin, an dirt, and it was so rank that it can hardly be eaten, and ou know that I never could eat old bacon but I could now if I could get it.”
While enlisted men and noncommissioned officers seemed to refer to food much more often in their letters and diaries than officers, following the Battle of Chancellorsville, food was clearly on the mind of Maj. Walter Taylor of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s staff. Writing to his sister Mary Lou, Taylor explained: “I am caterer this month.” Which probably meant that Taylor was responsible for the food for his fellow messmates. “Can Mr. Wilson get me anything to eat? Can a fish be had now & then? piece of fresh beef? butter? Vegetables &c. If you see a chance of getting anything, buy it for me. Thomas can always bring it up.” Thomas may have been one of the Taylor’s enslaved men. “We have peas, rice, & potatoes. Can we not get greens of some sort? I would like also to buy a jar or two of pickles, can they be had. Never mind the price.”
Soldiers eagerly awaited care boxes from home with supplemental clothing and foodstuffs. Despite recovering from a digestive illness, and being warned to temper his desire to overconsume, Lt. Irby G. Scott, 12th Georgia Infantry, was thrilled to receive his box just after Chancellorsville. “My box and Abner’s came to hand last night all right. Dr. Etheridge says I must eat light but I could not make any promises on that score for to just peep into one of the boxes to make him feel like eating and I am going to eat (moderately though),” Lt. Scott wrote to his father.
Sgt. Shepherd Pryor, 12th Georgia Infantry, wrote to his wife Penelope on May 9, 1863, with a request common to soldiers: “I want Uncle Spencer to come see us right away now and bring us a trunk of some thing to eat. I think now will be the best time he will have to get to us.”
Conclusion
"Scenes on the Road: roasting corn and foraging."
Sketches by Alfred R. Waud
(Library of Congress)
The saying that "an army marches on its stomach" has been attributed to both Napoleon and Frederick the Great. Regardless of who said it first, there is certainly something to it. Without food, soldiers do not have the energy and ability to perform well and their health suffers. Without food, morale dissolves and discipline breaks down.
As the accounts above show, and like with so many other facets in their military lives, soldiers could get inventive when it came to feeding themselves. And while for the most part their governments supplied the basics, when rations ran short, or opportunities for supplementing or relieving their monotonous diets appeared, they usually took advantage of them while risking the consequences.
Additionally, too little has been made in previous scholarship about how much soldiers' families supplied dietary wants and needs. However, the primary source evidence clearly shows the large degree to which soldiers on both sides relied on support from home when the army would not or could not provide.
Some Sources and Suggested Reading
John D. Billings. Hardtack and Coffee, Or the Unwritten Story of Army Life. George M. Smith and Company, 1884.
Peter S. Carmichael. The War for the Common Soldier: How Men Thought, Fought, and Survived in Civil War Armies. The University of North Carolina Press, 2018.
William C. Davis. A Taste For War: A Culinary History of the Blue and the Gray. Stackpole Books, 2003
Bell Irvin Wiley. The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union. Louisiana State University Press, (reprint 2008).
Bell Irvin Wiley. The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy. Louisiana State University Press, (reprint 2008).
Parting Shot
"Hard Tack"
Capt. J. W. Forsythe with hardtack boxes at Aquia Landing.
(Library of Congress)
"Let us close our game of poker,
Take our tin cups in our hand,
While we gather 'round the cook's tent door,
Where dried mummies of hard crackers
Are given to each man;
Oh hard crackers come again no more.
'Tis the song of the soldier, weary, hungry, and faint.
Hardtack, hardtack, come again no more;
Many days have I chewed you and uttered no complaint,
Oh hard crackers, come again no more."
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