Essay On Food During The Civil War

An Illinois Civil War soldier named Charles Wright Wills wrote in his diary, “I enjoy the tramping, the mud, the cold, and being tired, and everything mean there is about soldiering, except being hungry. That beats me to a fraction. If I could only go without eating three or four days at a time I would pass as a soldier, but bless me, missing a meal is worse than drawing a tooth.” The Civil War was fought between the United States of America and the Confederate States of America. It took place during April 12, 1861 through April 9, 1865. The north was fighting for reunification and the south was fighting for independence. People may believe that food during this time was like the average meal they eat in a day however, it was not. Food during

There were 3 main rations, Pork, Coffee, Bread. They were the most stable foods. In the website, Tennessee State Museum it states, “Salt pork was the most common meat ration. It was similar to bacon and preserved by using a lot of salt. It was not very tasty. Have you ever had country ham? Salt pork was even saltier. They had to scrape the salt off and soak it in water or partially boil it first to make it edible.” This quote gives an idea of how salty it had to be in order to be preserved. The food given during the civil war was given just to feed them, it did not provide energy or guaranteed the soldier’s would be full by it. Often, there were food shortages, because the Union would blockade the south

Sanderson did understand the importance of cooking with well-cleaned pots and was quoted as saying, “Better wear out your pans with scouring than your stomachs with purging.”” This quote indicates that the food was unsanitary and soldiers were getting illnesses from it. Soldiers began developing an illness called scurvy. The illness was developed because of not having enough vitamin C in a diet. It can be argued that there is no importance in learning about what they ate expecting it to be like their average meal. Although, people fail to recognize the small aspects of wars while focusing more about deaths, causes, effects etc. Those things are important especially to the course of history, however about 750,00 soldiers died from diseases rather than war. Often those diseases would come from food being consumed. This is crucial to learn so people can get an insight of what food was like back then and the effect it had on war. Water was commonly contaminated and food was unhealthy to