popular foods of soldiers during civil war?

Question

please help. what are some foods that soldiers ate while training and stuff?

Answer 1

Good question !!!!!!!
Actually anything that was NOT rancid pork, cornmeal, or beans was VERY popular.
Seriously though, it is amazing that soldiers back then survived their diet long enough to actually fight. Salt pork, corn, and beans were the staples along with a hard unleavened bread called 'hardtack'. Of course like everything else, war profiteering was rampant on both sides of the conflict and the food that the government paid for was often not what showed up. Pork-and beef, though the soldiers REALLY detested the beef- would recieve too little salt for too little time and would be green and moldy by the time the soldiers would open the casks.
In a book on the private recollections of a private in the Confederate's Army of Tenneesse, he recalls that during the retreat from Kentucky in the Fall of 1862, he felt that he was lucky to have found a cask of mollasses because that was all he had to eat for 5 days.
Needless to say, scavaging was rampant and pigs, cows, and chickens had a life expectancy of minutes once an Army, any Army, showed up to march through.
A favorite with the Rebs was what they called 'sluish'. Fry salt pork till ya get some grease and then toss into the pan a handfull of cornmeal. It got it's name from the sound the cornmeal made when hitting the grease. Or they would add flour if they had it to the grease until they had a thick 'dough'. Roll the dough into long rolls and stick a ramrod thru it and place over a fire till the "bread' was done.
Luckily a little Dutchman by the name of vanCamp came to America during the war with the 'new' technology of putting food into cans. Along the Carolina coasts, the Navy was still blockading the Southern ports of Wilmington and Charleston and running long cruises up and down to stop smaller ships from entering even smaller ports to unload cargo. Long and boring cruises up and down the coast. One thing the Navy had plenty of though was Beans and saltPork....Raiding plantations along the coast for food was the best form of entertainment the Navy had. So they also got onions and molasses. The crews loved this combination so when vanCamp was trying to find recipes for inexpensive food to can and heard about this....WOW, Onions and Molasses and Pork and Beans...and we have enjoyed vanCamps' Pork and Beans ever since.
But by 1864, dried vegetables, called 'dessicated' back then and called 'desecrated' by the soldiers, and canned foods were definitely making a diference in soldiers culinary pursuit for taste.
One thing all soldiers of all armies on both sides agreed on though was their hatred of the bread called 'Hardtack'. Soldiers would soak that hard biscuit in coffee to make the weevils float to the surface to be skimmed off and the biscuit made halfway soft. IF they had the time and the coffee. If not just chew and chew and don't mind the extra protein. It was taken as gospel that one piece of hardtack would stop a bullet and a case would stop a cannonball.

Answer 2

Civil war was a fun time. Corn meal was an important staple for both armies and soldiers would have eaten corn bread and jonny cake. Gingerbread was also a favorite when it was available. During the war the four items that caused the most food-related fights within the ranks were bread, meat, apples and pickles. Documents record that soldiers were court martialed, beaten almost to death, and even shot over apples as they went foraging. These were desperate times when large numbers of men often lived just this side of starvation for long periods of time. The most common -- and likely the most hated -- of all their foods was hardtack. Basically, it was a simple cracker made of flour and water, mixed and rolled to a thickness of about 3/8 of an inch. It was cut into squares and poked with a fork to speed baking time. It's been described by the men as 'indestructible, imperishable, practically inedible, too hard to chew, too small for shoeing mules and too big to use as bullets. One of the best-tasting foods was a deep-dish, dark brown float of biscuit-like objects in a thick cinnamon-raisin sauce. The sweet treat was known as "Idiot's Delight". Coffee being served was an item of great luxury for many of the combatants. The Union was fortunate to have a steady supply of coffee beans, although they were raw and green and had to be roasted over an open fire without being burnt. Then they were cracked with rifle butts before they could be used for brewing. The Confederacy was not so lucky. Blockades impeded its flow of equipment and arms as well as food, and its soldiers were forced to make due with things like chicory, burnt corn, peas, potatoes, peanuts and even acorns they would forage in the fall and winter.

Answer 3

I remember reading years ago that beans and hard tack or corn pone was a large part of their diet. Some ate their horses and leather from boots or saddles in particularly hard times. You might research canned food. It was invented about that same time and some had that to eat.

Answer 4

beef jerky,crawdads,hardtack, hardtack corn chowder,small birds , cabbage stew sow belly corn meal biscuits chicken purlough, (a coffee substitute); side pork