The modern American military has a wide range of food products at its disposal in base camps and in the field. There are a lot of MREs (which are actually quite tasty) and other portable foods available to them when they are on missions and when they are stationed in hostile terrain. And when placed in an established base camp, the food that is prepared is pretty good too. A big part of this is, of course, the immediate availability of large quantities of any type of food imaginable in today’s modern environment. In fact, today’s soldiers have the best food ever made available to a fighting force.
But it was not always like this.
Take the Civil War. The Civil War food kept the soldiers fed and not much else. Let’s take a look at the diet that comprised the typical Civil War food ration. There were several issues that affected the food that was supplied to the Civil War soldiers. These include the organization of the Commissary Department, which was tasked with the procurement and distribution of food to soldiers in the field, the season that determined whether fresh food was available or was preserved in some way, and the ability of food to stay good for long-term storage and transportation.
Before the war, the concentration of Commissars was in the North, so when the Civil War began, the North had a great advantage as they already had an existing Commissary Department that was already trained in how to acquire and transport food to the soldiers in the field . His job was to work with the numbers and schedules of the troops and to maintain a constant supply of food in each area where the troops were stationed so that the soldiers could continue fighting without worrying about where their next meal would come from. It took the Confederacy several years to develop a functioning Commissar, so being a soldier from the South was more difficult. It took real dedication to fight when you didn’t know where your next meal would come from. Due to this lack of infrastructure, the South had to forage for food between battles until the supply lines were working.
The food of Civil War soldiers was typically a very simple meal, often consisting of meat, coffee, sugar, and hard cookies, a type of dry cookie. Meat was often salted or dried to last a bit longer, and fruits and vegetables were rarities on the battlefield. Because the soldiers were often in the field, they needed to carry rations with them. They had a special bag, called a backpack, which was made of canvas with an inner cloth bag that could be washed to clean up food scraps from time to time. But even with this design, the bags were often quite contaminated and smelled bad. Cleanliness was generally not high on the Civil War soldiers’ priority list.
Union soldiers and Confederate soldiers generally had a different mix of rations. A Union soldier can eat salted pork, fresh or salted beef, coffee, sugar, salt, vinegar, dried fruits, and vegetables. And if it’s out of season, they might have fresh carrots, onions, turnips, and potatoes. A Confederate soldier typically ate bacon, cornmeal, tea, sugar, molasses, and a few other fresh vegetables.
The other difference in Civil War food between the Union and Confederate armies was the type of bread product they had at their disposal. The Confederate soldiers had something called “Johnnie Cake” that they made in the field with cornmeal, milk, and a few other ingredients. Union soldiers had hard paste, also called “dull teeth” or “sheet iron biscuits.” Hardtack was made in large factories in the north and was a staple food for Union soldiers. Hardtack got its name because it was often not used until months after it was made and during that time, it hardened like a rock, thus earning its nicknames.
As you can see, food has come a long way due to the advent of technologies that allow better preservation of a wide variety of foods. Gone are the days of the weevil infested hard pie. They have been replaced by modern vacuum sealing technologies that allow food to stay fresh and tasty years after it has been packaged. And since they say that an army is ruled by the stomach, it is no wonder that the modern soldier is the best the world has ever seen.