Civil War Cooking: What the Union Soldiers Ate

By Tori Avey, From pbs.org  "We grab our plates and cups, and wait for no second invitation. 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 over… 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." - Lawrence VanAlstyne, Union Soldier,...

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The Civil War and Nursing

By Cathryn Domrose Vivid, dramatic images of Civil War nursing spill from history books into the American psyche: Clara Barton, her apron soaked with blood, working tirelessly beside surgeons as they amputated arms and legs. Louisa May Alcott bringing water to crying soldiers, cradling their heads in her arms, scribbling as they dictated letters home. Sally Tompkins, a captain in the Confederate army, insisting on absolute cleanliness in the hospital she ran in Richmond, Va. Dorothea Dix and Mary Ann Bickerdyke defying male surgeons and administrators to make sure their nurses and patients got the respect and resources they deserved....

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Soldiers' Food During the Civil War

By far, the food soldiers received has been the source of more stories than any other aspect of army life. The Union soldier received a variety of edibles. The food issue, or ration, was usually meant to last three days while on active campaign and was based on the general staples of meat and bread. Meat usually came in the form of salted pork or, on rare occasions, fresh beef. Rations of pork or beef were boiled, broiled or fried over open campfires. Army bread was a flour biscuit called hardtack, re-named "tooth-dullers", "worm castles", and "sheet iron crackers" by the soldiers who ate them. Hardtack could be eaten plain though most men...

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Civil War Federal Navy Physicians

Author: John S. Lynch, Msc. The Federal Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery experienced a substantial loss of officers during 1861. It responded to the loss and the increased demand for its services by augmenting its regular medical officers with volunteer physicians. The medical corps more than doubled in size between 1861 and 1865 as a result of the recruiting efforts. Navy physicians were involved in blockade duty, anticommerce raider cruises, amphibious assaults, riverine duty, and staffing naval facilities ashore. Their services are virtually unknown despite their involvement in most naval activity during the war. This article...

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The Dietary Problems of Civil War Soldiers

By T. A. Wheat, from "Medicine in Virginia during the Civil War" Dietary problems also occurred because soldiers' meals consisted primarily of hard bread and some form of preserved meat. Union troops were consistently issued vegetables to prevent scurvy, now known to be caused by a vitamin C deficiency. The Confederate troops could usually procure similar dietary supplements by foraging or by paying exorbitant prices to camp merchants. This system worked well until the last year of the war when the Virginia countryside was picked bare of foodstuffs. As a result, cases of scurvy increased, as did the mortality rates of Confederate troops...

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A Civil War Pharmaceutical: Turpentine Production in 1800s Alabama

By Catherine Kim Gyllerstrom The longleaf pine forests that once covered much of Alabama provided ample resources for the establishment and growth of the state's turpentine industry. Between 1840 and 1930, turpentine distilling spanned Baldwin, Mobile, Washington, Choctaw, Escambia, and Tuscaloosa counties. Turpentine was used primarily as a solvent and for fuel, and resin was used in the soap and varnish industries. This industry promoted economic development and industrial expansion, but it also had a history of questionable labor practices, from using enslaved labor to exploiting convicts and immigrants. It was also known as the...

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A Taste of Civil War Food

Sampling Jaw-Cracking Hardtack, Hospital Gingerbread and "Idiot's Delight" By Hoag Levins CAMDEN, N.J.  The Camden County Historical Society's recent 19th-century food history event certainly brought to mind that famous adage about how an army marches on its stomach. The saying was never truer than during the American Civil War, as huge numbers of soldiers marauded across vast expanses of territory to wage North America's most savage military conflict. The Food Supply Through it all, the morale, as well as the physical stamina of each combatant, was directly dependent on what he had to put in his mouth each day. The quartermasters...

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African American Medical Pioneer Dr. James McCune Smith (1813-1865)

From: pbs.org James McCune Smith was the first African American to earn a medical degree and practice medicine in the United States. He was also the first to own and operate a pharmacy, in New York City. Smith was born on April 18, 1813 in New York City to parents who were former slaves. New York's Emancipation Act freed his father and his mother worked her way out of bondage. Smith began his education at the African Free School in New York City, but soon found he could go no further in U.S. education due to racial discrimination. So Smith crossed the Atlantic and studied instead at the University of Glasgow, in Scotland, where racial...

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What Did the Slaves Eat When They Arrived in America?

Research conducted by Lynne Olver, editor The Food Timeline "It is difficult to assess the abundance or the quality of average Southern food in the absence of an average Southerner--that is, a member of the middle class, for there was not much middle class to occupy the wide gap between the plantation owner and the poor white, a group which already existed in those times and could hardly expect to rise to any comfortable standards of living in competition with the unpaid labor of slaves. The famous "hog and hominy" diet was at least rendered a little less unhealthy by the prevalence on the Southern menu of greens, often ignored by food...

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Jonathan Letterman: Civil War Surgeon Set The Standard For Battlefield Medicine

Surgeon in Blue (Book) Jonathan Letterman, the Civil War Doctor Who Pioneered Battlefield Care by Scott McGaugh Article by NPR Staff July 1, 2013, marked 150 years since the beginning of the Battle of Gettysburg, a crucial victory for the Union and a turning point in the Civil War. But it came at an enormous cost to both sides — thousands of soldiers were killed and tens of thousands more were wounded. However, it might have been even worse had it not been for a surgeon named Jonathan Letterman, who served as the chief medical officer of the Union's Army of the Potomac. He presided over some of the bloodiest battles in...

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