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Newspaper of the 33rd Alabama Volunteer Infantry Regiment

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How to Eat Like a Yank on Campaign
(or any other event for that matter)
by Pvt. Partridge

Raymond II was only my second full-blown campaign event. My first campaign event was Chickamauga ’99, which was only my second event as a reenactor. I had gone from Ft. Morgan, otherwise know as Fort Hell, with its grand buffet table, to Chickamauga. For Chickamauga, I put in a call to one of my new comrades to ask what to bring to eat. “Just get some candy bars, some peanuts, and other snacks.” I think I ended up with some jerky, pita bread, and cheese. I made it through Chickamauga, and was never really hungry.

When it came time for Raymond II, I did a little research on what the Federals might have had during the Vicksburg Campaign. I could not find much information, so I decided to go with the “3 Days Rations” that you read about in all the books.

Federal issue of three days rations consists of :

Hard Bread (hardtack)                3 lbs.
Pork (bacon-sides, shoulders, hams, etc.)   2lbs. 4 oz.
Sugar      7.2 oz.
Coffee (roasted or roasted and ground)    3.84 oz.

Seems pretty simple until I realized that 3 lbs. of Hard Bread equals about 30 crackers. I had only ordered one box at the unit meeting, and that boxed contained 10 crackers. I decided to supplement my other two pounds with gingersnaps and dried apples, which I took out of the modern wrapping, and stuck in poke bags. Next I got 1.5 pounds of bacon, and .5 pounds of salt pork. When I got home, I wrapped the bacon in parchment paper, which can be found in rolls at the grocery store, tied some twine around it, and threw it in the freezer. Next I filled a poke bag with my 7.2 oz. of brown sugar. Since we were going to be Federals for the weekend, I decided to make some essence of coffee instead of taking coffee beans. There are lots of recipes out there for making essence of coffee. The one I used involved taking instant coffee, adding small drops of boiling water, and stirring until the coffee had the consistency of axle grease. I filled an old percussion cap tin with the essence of coffee. It was time for the event, so I stuffed my three days rations in my haversack. It was very full, but I could still get my canteen half and cup inside, which is where your cup should ride unless your haversack has no room.

The event started, and we did not have much time for lunch that day. When we finally got to our bivouac site for the night, I got with a few of my comrades, and started a small fire. Tonight’s smorgasbord would consist of bacon and skilleygalee, which was a Civil War favorite. I brought out my trusty canteen half, which no campaigner should be without. This handy item can be used as a frying pan, plate, shovel, or bullet shield. First I fried up half of my bacon, which was still very cold from the previous nights freezing. While the bacon was frying, I took a few hardtack crackers, and soaked them in water. When the bacon was done, I threw the hardtack in the hot grease, sprinkled some brown sugar on top, fried it to a golden brown, and had a nice stack of skilleygalee. I divided this up with some of my comrades, and we had a meal fit for a king, actually more like for a pauper. The skilleygalee was pretty darn good, and I think most of my comrades that ate it would agree. I saved some of my cooked bacon for breakfast, since we would be moving out sometime between 4 and 5 a.m. 

Unfortunately, I drew 4 o’clock guard duty, so I did not get to try my essence of coffee before we were assembled for the battle. On this day, we did have time to do some cooking at lunch, and it was getting hot, which meant the rest of my bacon needed cooking.  My comrades and I headed to the civilian camp to see if we could borrow a fire. Two nice ladies offered us their fire, so we commenced to cook the rest of everyone’s bacon, which was surprisingly still a little cold. I think we had 3 or 4 canteen halves frying at once.  After the bacon was done, apple skilleygalee was next on the menu. We soaked some more hardtack, and cooked as mentioned above. In the other canteen half, we fried up diced apples in bacon grease, and sprinkled with brown sugar. The dried apples I had brought along were originally going to go in this dish, but one of my comrades had the real thing, which is obviously better. If you were to use dried apples, you would need to soak them in water first. We mixed the fried apples with the skilleygalee, and had Civil War apple pie, which was excellent. That night I did some foraging, and acquired some cooked pork chops from some of the local populace of African descent They were eager to provide us with food, since we had liberated them from the nasty Sesesh. If my foraging had proved unproductive, then I still had plenty of cooked bacon.

For the third day in a row, I was woken up at 4 a.m., but this time from a small rain shower. I figured this was a good time to try out a cup of essence of coffee. I boiled some water, stirred in a spoon full of essence, and added some brown sugar. It made a surprisingly good cup of coffee. Throughout this the last day, I snacked on bacon, gingersnaps, and dried apples. I was too tired to cook, or eat.

When I got home from the event, I started unpacking my haversack. Surprisingly, there was a good amount of food left. All the cooked bacon was gone, but there was still a block of salt pork left. I had about three hardtack crackers, some dried apples, some crushed gingersnaps, and a good amount of essence of coffee left. What does all of this mean? It means that you can eat surprisingly well on 3 Days Rations at an event. I suggest that everyone at least try it once. 3 Days Rations should not be limited to a campaign event, but should be used in some form at almost every event we go to, since most events portray part of a campaign. You might just enjoy it, and it will bring you that much closer to how a Civil War soldier lived.

Other items to supplement rations:

Hoecakes (instead of hardtack when you are a Confederate)

Fresh fruits and vegetables (try to make sure they would have been in season for the time of year you are reenacting)

Dried fruits

Fresh beef (could be frozen the night before, and will be thawed by supper Friday night)

Boiled beef (slow cook beef cubes in a Crock Pot; will last a couple of days without refrigeration)

Peanuts (in the shells)

Beef jerky

Rice

Beans (you have to soak these for a few hours before they are ready to cook)

Molasses

Canned fruit (remove label and try to attach a period label; back in the day cans did not have ribs)