Tintype of federal soldiers enjoying coffee and hardtack. Credit: Heritage Auctions.
If you had a choice, which would you give up? Food? Or coffee? After looking at photography of the Civil War, we are reminded of the difficulties of producing photographs during war, especially with the wet-plate collodion process. To help better understand the conditions that photographers worked in, this weekās homework explores what Civil War soldiers ate and their dependence on coffee. The typical food ration for a Union soldier included small amounts of meat, coffee, and hardtack (what is hardtack? Look here to find out.) The Union side half-jokingly believed coffee helped fuel their soldiers. Meanwhile, the Confederate South suffered vast food shortages due to strong Union blockades, and resorted to unique recipes (called receipts in the 19th century) to produce coffee substitutes. Read about cooking on the battlefront and the importance of coffee (the word ācoffeeā appears more frequently than ārifleā or ābulletā in Civil War diaries).
- Share what you think is most fascinating about a Civil War soldierās diet AND post an image of a food item that you cannot live without. You can link to a photo on the web, or take a picture!Ā 2. Then comment on a fellow student’s photo.
Please make sure you only check off the category #studentHW.
Read about what Union soldiers ate at PBS.org.
Read the NYT’s article “How Coffee Fueled the Civil War”
PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR POSTS BY THURSDAY OCTOBER 12, 2017 — two days AFTER Paper #1 is DUE.
If I had a choice of giving up either coffee or food during the time of the civil war. I would give up coffee. Human lives depend on food to survive. At day 7 without food makes is very hard for a person to survive. Coffee is good for awakening the body and the brain. After reviewing the civil war photos, if I had a choice, I cannot give up food.
– Hw 2
According to the article, Civil War Cooking, What the Soldiers Ate by Tori Avey, she states that, “We each get a piece of meat and a potato, a chunk of bread and a cup of coffee with a spoonful of brown sugar in it. Milk and butter we buy, or go without. We settle down, generally in groups, and the meal is soon overā¦ We save a piece of bread for the last, with which we wipe up everything, and then eat the dish rag. Dinner and breakfast are alike, only sometimes the meat and potatoes are cut up and cooked together, which makes a really delicious stew. Supper is the same, minus the meat and potatoes.” I think that it is a bit depressing that they ate a lotĀ of the same meals every day. Although they ate hardy meals that would fill them up for at least half the day, its just boring that they didn’t experiment with different flavors of foods.
What I think what is most fascinating about the civil war soldiers diet is that they had very little culinary skills to cook up a healthy meal a day. Although they may have had a wife or a female slave to cook for them, when they were on the battle field they had to find their own way of eating food. In the article, it states that, “In the early stages of the war, the Union soldiers of the North benefited from supervision by the United States Sanitary Commission. Commonly known as The Sanitary, it made the soldiersā health and nutrition a top priority.” In order to battle, soldiers had to be eating a healthy balanced meal and be energized for battle. I think that it is interesting that they were very conditioned to make sure they knew what foods were in seasons and how to learn how to preserve foods for transportation and storage. I read that because there were over 2 million soldiers, the Sanitary didn’t focus on taste of the foods provided, they just made sure that all the soldiers got food to eat.Ā
The photograph in City Point, Virginia shows a picture of a soldier standing in front of a cooking kettle, which is a lot different from what we cook with and different devices we use today to cook. In the article, it states that, “Sanderson believed his efforts were so successful that āno man could consume his daily ration, although many waste(d) it.ā This certainly was not the case, as many men still suffered from hunger, illness and death from unsanitary and poorly cooked food. Sanderson did understand the importance of cooking with well-cleaned pots and was quoted as saying, āBetter wear out your pans with scouring than your stomachs with purging.”Ā It is important to have sanitary cooking equipment and also have completely cooked meals to prevent illness and death. Today, I believe food is very asses-sable and we have a variety of foods to choose and eat from. There are many techniques on ways to cook a healthy meal.
For Union soldiers, and the lucky Confederates who could scrounge some, coffee fueled the war. Soldiers drank it before marches, after marches, on patrol, during combat. In their diaries, ācoffeeā appears more frequently than the words ārifle,ā ācannonā or ābullet.ā Ragged veterans and tired nurses agreed with one diarist: āNobody can āsoldierā without coffee.ā Coffee was often the last comfort troops enjoyed before entering battle, and the first sign of safety for those who survived,” according to the article.
If I had to choose between food and coffee, I would defiantly be giving up coffee. I love food. Two of my favorite foods that I can live with out is any type of Lasagna and Salmon (cooked).
http://assets.kraftfoods.com/recipe_images/opendeploy/Table-for-Two_Lasagna_640x428.jpg
https://www.onceuponachef.com/images/2011/10/Thai-Chili-Glazed-Salmon-1-1024×699-1-1024×699.jpg
1. One of the most interesting things i read about a civil war soldier diet was that they barely eat meat but they eat coffee and hardtrack which makes me think how were the soldiers healthy or even
fit.http://www.shawnlankton.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/cornbread.jpg