Johnnycake
Similarities do exist between Confederate and Union diets. Confederate soldiers dined on salt pork, potatoes and beans just like Union soldiers did, but there were also lots of differences. The Confederate government didn’t have the money or the food to send to the armies, so they had to resort to buying or even stealing from the farms in the surrounding Southern countryside. This provided fresh food, but it also took from the people they were fighting to protect. Kind of beats the purpose, doesn’t it?
Another difference that separated the two armies was in their coffee. The Confederates couldn’t get that luxury, so often the soldiers (and civilians) would make their own with roasted acorns, or a caffeine-free herb called chicory. The one thing Confederates were able to get was cornmeal, and just like the Union soldiers’ problems with hardtack (See Survival: One Meal At a Time --> Union), the Confederates had to get creative with making cornmeal edible. They would make it into a mush, called "cush", but the men disliked that. So, they tried other methods of cornmeal cooking. Some were content with cooking the mixture in ashes. This they called, appropriately enough, ash cake. Some men would take a pancake-sort of approach in a frying pan, this is johnnycake; however some didn't have a frying pan. So they used a hoe. Good substitution for a pan, right? They would heat it over the fire and fry the mixture on it. This was (you guessed it!) hoecake. As stated before, many men didn't have pans to actually bake cornbread; anybody with an actual cooking vessel was considered lucky. To make “battlefield cornbread”, soldiers would make a paste of cornmeal and meat grease, stick it on the end of their bayonet, and stick it in the fire. The bayonet wasn’t that long, so the soldiers would attach a stick to it to avoid burning their hands. It probably tasted like dust and corn essence, but it was food to fill their growling stomachs. With such meager food and depressing times, how did the Rebels hang on for so long?
Goober Peas
The Confederates definitely had their share of gloom as they would finish their food and barely settle their stomach’s gnawing. It would be enough to make a man bitter, angry, and maybe even desert his regiment. Some did. But those that remained had to find a way to see past the depressing state that they lived in, inside and outside of battle. So, soldiers on both sides of the war made up catchy songs about their life in the army and even about their meager food supplies. For instance, Confederates created a song called “Goober peas”, named after a main component of their diet. Goober peas are simply boiled peanuts, something they had in abundance in the south. The boys in gray got so tired of eating these “peas” that they made up a song all about them.
Click Here to read the lyrics to Goober Peas.
Like I’ve stated before, both sides ate lots of beans. An unknown soldier in the Civil War wrote a song called “The Army Bean”, to the tune of “Sweet Bye and Bye”.
Click Here to listen to The Army Bean.
Union soldiers also created songs to make up for their tasteless diet. Their archenemy, hardtack, earned its own song in a parody of a song written by Stephen Foster in 1854 called “Hard Times, Come Again No More”. The soldiers, sick of their concrete crackers, called it “Hard Crackers, Come Again No More”.
Click Here to read the lyrics to Hard Crackers, Come Again No More.
Click Here to read the lyrics to Hard Crackers, Come Again No More.
Off Key
Now I know even the most basic cracker is better than johnnycakes and goober peas. The soldiers on both sides had it really rough, each fighting for what he thought was right. But what I think we each need to take from our soldiers fighting is that they didn’t let unhappy or unpleasant experience overcome them. They found ways to find joy in the moment. Can you image what it would’ve been like to hear 5 or 10 men singing together at the top of their lungs, (possibly quite a few off key…), about their concrete crackers? How dumbstruck would we be to hear them harmonizing over boiled peanuts? Sometimes the two armies, (camped side by side) would sing together, and a Rebel wouldn’t know where his company ended and the Yankees began. Do we have that joy inside of us? Do we sing over work that needs to be done, over situations we don’t want to be in? In everything do we give thanks? What would we do in their situation? Grumble and complain, or rise to the challenge and overcome? We need to find that perseverance in America. We need to stand up and remind our nation where we came from: Once we were the men frying (and burning) lumps of dough on whatever utensil they could find just so they could eat that night. Will we lead the charge heading towards perseverance? Will you?
~In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus, concerning you.~ 1 Thessalonians 5:18, KJV
Sources:
http://coffeetea.about.com/od/typesoftea/a/Chicory.htm
http://history.loftinnc.com/Civil_War_Reenactment.htm
King James Version Bible
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