Union soldiers cooking dinner in camp (Library of Congress)
The Civil War is such a complicated time period. I have been studying the Civil War for years, and I’m only scratching the surface of knowing what it was like to live in 1860’s America. The soldiers experienced more than just battle, they also suffered from camp sicknesses and starvation. The governments, both North and South, did their best to feed the 4,000,000 soldiers, but still men went hungry. According to statistics, the Union Army alone had 2,700,000 men enlisted. Among those numbers, there were approximately 100,000 men under 18, and 25 of them were 10 years old or younger! There definitely weren’t any buses to take all the men over to the closest McDonald’s! How did the armies feed their millions of hungry men and boys?
What’s on the Menu? A Union Soldier’s Daily Food Supply
The men/boys were given salted beef or pork, bread or crackers, coffee, sugar, a potato, and some various luxuries such as tea, molasses or rice. Not to mention lots of beans. Sounds delicious, right? Well, the soldiers didn’t usually think so. They were used to women cooking for them, so they found it a challenge when they had to cook for themselves. What exactly did they do to make it edible?
Salt, Stew, and Sweat; Oh my!
The salted pork they would treat just like bacon. That doesn’t sound that bad. The salted beef, however, was so salty that it proved to be a challenge. They would actually soak it in a creek to draw out some of the salt. On the rare occasion that they would get real beef, they broiled it on sticks over the fire. But for the most part 5-10 men would compile their potatoes and meat and make a sort of stew.
The bread they would eat last, soaking up the last juices of their dinner, especially near the end of the war when there was little to eat: every bite was savored. But when there wasn’t any bread, they would get tasteless crackers called ‘hardtack’. Remember me mentioning those in my Thanksgiving Article? Let's talk some more about them: Hardtack would last for a long period of time, (one of the reasons they were so popular) but the crackers were so hard the soldiers had to get creative with softening it. Those around horses would put it under their horse’s saddle so the horse’s sweat could soften it. Some crumbled it, boiled it and then fried it in pork grease, and called it “skillygalee”. Others even would simply make gravy and pour it over the crackers, not only softening them but also supplying some much needed flavor. This mixture was called “Yankee Potpie”, and this has been a favorite recipe for my family growing up.
Hardtack (Provided by the Minnesota History Center)**
So, as you can see, the soldiers had quite a diet! But they also got sick daily by the hundreds because of malnutrition. That’s why the United States Sanitary Commission was begun before the war; it was an organization that tried to keep soldiers healthy on and off the battlefield. They tried to provide sources of vitamins for the soldiers in packs of dehydrated vegetables, but they didn’t help much, either. Mainly, the soldiers had to depend on sutlers (wagons that traveled with the armies providing items such as vegetables, meats, stamps, paper, etc.) to help supplement their rations to stay healthy.
Now, what do starving soldiers have to do with us today? Why should we care what a boy ate every day while serving as a drummer boy in the Union Army? History is who we are, so there are many ways we can apply this discussion of food to our life in 2015. First of all, the diet of Civil War soldiers helped to show that soldiers need more than just beans and fried pork to keep them healthy, so the military’s Meals Ready to Eat (MRE’s) are more nutritious for soldiers today. Second, it puts us in perspective of what we have versus what they had available to eat. My dad says that “What you eat is directly proportional to what you have to eat”. So we can appreciate what we have, even if we really don’t like it, just by thinking about the soldiers’ menu and how they dealt with the flavorless food that lacked in all things healthy. Lastly, we can appreciate the creative recipes they did come up with. For example, my family eats Yankee Potpie every Thanksgiving, and each time I eat it I think about the soldiers in the past, just trying to make the next meal taste better than the last one.
Keep in Mind...
Don’t take your food for granted. That’s the bottom line. And if ever you wish to complain, think about the soldiers of the Civil War, living with the hardtack and salty beef not out of choice, but out of necessity to keep their country, our country, united and free.
Psalm 146:7 He [God] upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.
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