16 Civil War Recipes Made for Soldiers (2024)

FAQs

What foods did the soldiers eat during the Civil War? ›

These rations allotted just over a pound of meat, likely beef or pork, just under a pound of "hard bread," and a small collection of dried vegetables. The most common form of hard bread, was called hard tack, a basic wheat biscuit that did not easily decay and could survive a rough march.

THE FULL CAMPAIGN RATION OF THESE MEN IN THIS LITHOGRAPH IS ONE POUND OF HARDTACK, THREE-QUARTER POUNDS OF SALT PORK, OR ONE AND A QUARTER POUNDS OF FRESH MEAT, SALT, SUGAR, COFFEE. THIS EQUATES TO ROUGHLY 4000 CALORIES. YOU ARE LOOKING AT THE CALORIC INTAKE OF WHAT OUR MODERN TROOPS SHOULD BE GETTING. PER DAY.

Camp rations could substitute soft bread, flour, or cornmeal for hardtack, and included extras such as dried beans or peas, rice, vinegar, and molasses, along with an allotment of soap and candles. The ration was designed to fill a soldier's stomach, not to provide energy to march or fight.

The most common food given to soldiers was bread, coffee, and salt pork. The typical ration for every Union soldier was about a pound of meat and a pound of bread or flour.

During the Civil War one of the most common meals for soldiers was a cracker-like food called hardtack. Hardtack is made from flour, water, and salt.

Troops supplemented government rations with found or purchased foods whenever possible: ripe or unripe fruits and vegetables, and pies, cakes and canned goods bought from sutlers (mobile storekeepers).

About once every week to ten days, Soldiers would go to the rear for their shower. Upon entering the shower area they turned in their dirty clothing. After showering they received new cloths. They had their choice for size: small, medium, or large.

Union soldiers were fed pork or beef, usually salted and boiled to extend the shelf life, coffee, sugar, salt, vinegar, and sometimes dried fruits and vegetables if they were in season. Hard tack, a type of biscuit made from unleavened flour and water, was commonly used to stave off hunger on both sides.

Officers and enlisted men drank licit and illicit alcohol to alleviate the alternating boredom and horror of camp life and combat; commanders issued whiskey rations to troops for unusual exertion; and army doctors used medicinal alcohol to treat a variety of wounds and illnesses.

What would you smell in the trenches? ›

Stinking mud mingled with rotting corpses, lingering gas, open latrines, wet clothes and unwashed bodies to produce an overpowering stench. The main latrines were located behind the lines, but front-line soldiers had to dig small waste pits in their own trenches.

In 1861 to June 1864, union army private's base was $13.00 per month. Confederate private remained at $11.00 per month until June 1864, when the rebel's pay was increased actually to a base slightly higher than union private—to $18.00 per month.

Hardtack and salt pork. Think of a really stale biscuit, like one that you'd soak in water for 1/2 hour before risking breaking your teeth on it and pork so salty that most soldiers would soak it in water 2–4 times to remove some salt to make it palatable.

Salting pork allows the meat to last for a considerable time, without spoiling, at a low cost. It resembles uncut bacon, but, as the name suggests, is highly salted — often too highly during the war. Excess salt was usually scraped off and used to flavor other rations.

Troops in the field were issued raw salted meat, pickled/dried fruits vegetables, hardtack, coffee, rice, flour maybe, etc. (In the South Coffee substitute, and corn meal.) and whatever they could beg, borrow, or steal from the locals.

Many of the soldiers had no cooking skills; women or slaves typically handled home kitchen chores. “As a result, almost every food in the Civil War was fried. It's easy to fry food,” Burke said. Despite the obstacles, military cooking over a campfire in the early 1860s resulted in some pleasing meals.

At first, the meals were stews, and more varieties were added as the war went on, including meat and spaghetti in tomato sauce, chopped ham, eggs and potatoes, meat and noodles, pork and beans; ham and lima beans, and chicken and vegetables.