What The Soldier Ate
doesn't sound so bad. That good wholesome southern cornbread is the best you'll ever come across." Well, while I don't contest the sweet taste of southern cornbread. But what you and I might be familiar with any soldier of the Confederacy would probably die for if he could substitute it for what he was forced to stomach. Army-issued cornbread was often over-cooked, hard, and wormy. Like their Northern counterparts, Confederate soldiers would often find themselves frying their ration in bacon grease and water.
The universal element in just about every soldiers' diet was, you guessed it, coffee. Coffee was as much of a part of everyday soldier life as drilling and firing a weapon. In fact, many quartermasters made certain that coffee beans over any other commodity would be a guarantee (Robertson, 1984). While the Federals were rarely without this great product (they were issued a ration of up to four pints a day), Southern soldiers often felt experienced a coffee shortage. To remedy this the Rebs would either do some trading with those "damn Yankees"-usually swapping tobacco for coffee beans-or substitute the beans with peanuts, potatoes, corn, or peas (interesting flavors came out of those, I'm sure).
So as you can tell, the average soldier's diet left a lot to be desired. By examining what these soldiers ate day in and day out, it should be no surprise then to find out that disease, not battle, was the number one killer of the War. Of course, a poor diet was only one of the many contributing factors to this phenomenon. Inadequate hospital facilities and medicines, poor surgical techniques, deplorable sanitary conditions, and natural diseases in certain areas of the country like malaria and tuberculosis also had powerful roles in killing a soldier. But the diets of the men in blue and gray lacked the proper nutrition enough to allow these other forces to take hold with greater intensity and speed.
So there you have it. When the rigors of battle eased and the men had time to look at their menu for the day, those were the items they had to choose from. Not much of a choice, you say? Their sentiments exactly!
Source
Robertson, Jr., J.I. (1984). Tenting tonight: The soldier's life. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books.
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