16 Civil War Recipes Made for Soldiers (2024)

FAQs

What kind of food did 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 soldier's diet consisted of fresh or pickled beef. It was heavily salted and frequently needed to be soaked prior to cooking and was often spoiled. Salt-cured pork was often rancid and mostly fat. Coffee and hard tack were staples of the diet.

This was usually simple, slow-perishing food like salted pork or boiled beef, along with some bread. They also received a morale-boosting daily ration of a pint of wine or a third of a pint of rum or gin.

According to army regulations for daily camp rations, a Union soldier was entitled to receive 12 oz of pork or bacon or 1 lb. 4 oz of salt or fresh beef; 1 lb. 6 oz of soft bread or flour or 1 lb. of hard bread (hardtack), or 4 oz of cornmeal.

Among the dishes prepared were chicken fricassee, mushroom ketchup (a condiment made by boiling mushrooms), a beef-and-potato stew, cornish game hens and ham and beans -- foods that would have been made by Union soldiers.

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. The Confederacy started out following the same rules. As the war went on, they weren't able to keep up.

Diarrhea and dysentery were the number one killers. (Dysentery is considered diarrhea with blood in the stool.) 57,000 deaths were directly recorded to these most disabling maladies. The total recorded Union cases was 1,528,098.

Pneumonia, typhoid, diarrhea/dysentery, and malaria were the predominant illnesses. Altogether, two-thirds of the approximately 660,000 deaths of soldiers were caused by uncontrolled infectious diseases, and epidemics played a major role in halting several major campaigns.

The William Underwood Company of Boston became prominent, supplying canned food to expeditions and Civil War combatants.

Soldiers were supposed to receive daily amounts of beef, pork or fish; flour or bread; cornmeal or rice; and rum or whiskey.

What were a soldier's rations? ›

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.

One pound of fresh beef, or ¾ of a pound of Pork, or one pound of Salt Fish, pr diem. One pound of Bread, or Flour pr diem. Three pints of Peas, or Beans pr Week, or Vegetables equivalent; at 5/s. pr Bushel for Peas or Beans.

What was the average soldier's age? The average Union soldier was 25.8 years old; there is no definite information on the average age of Confederate soldiers, but by the end of the war old men and young boys, who otherwise would have stayed home, were being pressed into service.

Whiskey, gin, beer, and wine were the favored drinks. However, drunkeness was not tolerated in either Federal or Confederate camps. Tobacco use was prevalent in both armies. It was not always available to the soldiers due to lack of money or a place to buy it.

Twice as many Civil War soldiers died from disease as from battle wounds, the result in considerable measure of poor sanitation in an era that created mass armies that did not yet understand the transmission of infectious diseases like typhoid, typhus, and dysentery.

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.

The greater portion of cattle went out of Texas on the hoof, to be served as fresh meat after being slaughtered in the army camp. So much beef, pork, mutton, grain, sugar, salt, peas, beans, flour and corn meal was shipped away that Texas became known as the breadbasket of the Confederacy.

Soldiers were supposed to receive daily amounts of beef, pork or fish; flour or bread; cornmeal or rice; and rum or whiskey.