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.

Salt-cured pork was often rancid and mostly fat. Coffee and hard tack were staples of the diet. Hard tack was a large biscuit that was often dipped in coffee to make it more palatable. There was very little in the way of fresh fruits or vegetables.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

Did Civil War soldiers eat beef jerky? ›

They'd slaughter bison, cattle, elk or deer, strip the meat and hang it out to dry. During the Civil War, an estimated 2 million Union Soldiers ate jerky with relish.

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.

Some common foods eaten were eggs, bacon and bread, mutton, pork, potatoes, and rice. They drank milk and ate sugar and jam.

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.

Now, US soldiers are fed a variety of MREs — they get more than 24 meal choices. The meal kits usually cover either a full meal or a day's worth of eating, and they come with utensils, a flameless heating tool, and drinks. Their options include chili beans, chicken noodles, or spaghetti bolognese.

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.