Food Rations for Federal Soldiers During the Civil War

Typical Rations
        By definition, a ration is the amount of food authorized for one soldier (or animal) for one day.  The Confederate government adopted the official US Army ration at the start of the war, although by the spring of 1862 they had the reduce it.   According to army regulations for camp rations, a Union soldier was entitled to receive daily 12 oz of pork or bacon or 1 lb. 4 oz of fresh or salt beef; 1 lb. 6 oz of soft bread or flour, 1 lb. of hard bread, or 1 lb. 4 oz of cornmeal. Per every 100 rations there was issued 1 peck of beans or peas; 10 lb. of rice or hominy; 10 lb. of green coffee, 8 lb. of roasted and ground coffee, or 1 lb. 8 oz of tea; 15 lb. of sugar; 1 lb. 4 oz of candles, 4 lb. of soap; 1 qt of molasses. In addition to or as substitutes for other items, desiccated vegetables, dried fruit, pickles, or pickled cabbage might be issued.
        The marching ration consisted of 1 lb. of hard bread, 3/4 lb. of salt pork or 1 1/4 lb. of fresh meat, plus the sugar, coffee, and salt. The ration lacked variety but in general the complaints about starvation by the older soldiers was largely exaggerated.
        Generally the Confederate ration, though smaller in quantity after the spring of 1862 and tending to substitute cornmeal for wheat flour, was little different. But the Confederate commissary system had problems keeping rations flowing to the troops at a steady rate, thus alternating between abundance and scarcity in its issuances.
        Soldiers of both armies relied to a great extent on food sent from home and on the ubiquitous Sutler.
Source:  "The Civil War Dictionary" by Mark M. Boatner III

For an expanded definition of the typical rations, read the section below, "Food And Rations In The Civil War."

Rations for Events
Ration items available in modern grocery stores:

Common Items:  Salt pork(2); "country" (or smoke cured) slab bacon, fresh beef or pork; soft bread (home baked style loaves, not "Wonder bread"), rice, beans ("white" or "Navy"), corn meal, potatoes (small, red potatoes and sweet potatoes), onions, salt, coffee (either ground or bean is fine), tea (loose - not tea bags!), sugar ("Turbinado" or raw sugar is best), plain white candles (rare for CS), vinegar (issued but not listed), molasses (issued in lieu of sugar). Federal Hard Bread ("Hard Tack", "Hard Crackers")

Foraged items: Corn on the cob (in the shuck) and other period vegetables in season; period type apples (in season), 'country ham', eggs (will keep a week w/o refrigeration), bake biscuits at home and put in haversack, etc.

Items from home: Pickles (gherkins), jams or preserves, block cheese, mustard, etc.

Packaging food in a period manner:
1. No plastic ever!
2. Muslin "poke" bags for dry items / salt pork.
3. Brown paper or reproduction newspapers.
4. Period glass jars (found at antique shops) with zinc screw-on caps (this is good for 'from home' stuff).
5. Stoneware bottles or crocks. Crocks should be covered with paper or oilcloth and sealed with wax.
6. Glass container with cork.

 

Food And Rations In The Civil War
by William C. March
©2000 The Cincinnati Civil War Round Table

      Contrary to popular thinking, the average soldier in the Civil War seldom went hungry. True, he did not always have fresh vegetables, fresh eggs, roast beef, baked potatoes, and soft bread, but he did not starve. Late in the war the Confederates often did without many meals, but this was late in the war.
      In 1861-65, as 80 years later, the home folks often did without, that "the boys" could have the best food and the best clothing available. This was particularly true in the South. The industrial North provided the uniforms and transportation which the home looms and the small carriage-makers of the South could not, so the Northern troops and civilians fared much better.
      Both the North and the South had, basically, a farm economy, so until late in the war plenty of food was grown - although there was often no one to harvest it and no way to transport it after it was harvested. Again, the South was in far worse straits than the North. Much of the rich Virginia countryside, the breadbasket, had been ravaged, to say nothing of the fantastic damage done by Sherman on his march through Georgia and hence through the Carolinas.
      The basic rations of both armies consisted of four items. These were hardbread, beef, beans and coffee. Let's take these first.

Hard bread. Hardtack, ships biscuit, pilot bread: call it what you will. It was little other than flour and water. Still it was the second basic food of both the North and the South.
      Those of you who have eaten it know the taste, but few of you have eaten it when it was several weeks or months old. It was 3 1/8 inches long, 2 7/8 inches wide, and 1/2 inch thick, and hard as a rock. Sometimes it was moldy from being boxed too soon, while still warm. Properly aged before being packed, even mold hesitated to attack it. The weevils, yes; the mold, no. But the weevils could be driven out by heating it over a fire or by soaking it in boiling coffee.
      To make it edible it was usually broken up and soaked in the coffee or in the soup made of dessicated, or dehydrated vegetables. Some men mad "skillygalee," hardtack soaked in water and fried in pork or bacon fat. Some, if a sutler were near, and if they had any money, would toast it over the fire and then put butter on it.
      There were many jokes and stories about the uses and joys of 'tack: the Texan who swore he struck a piece of steel against the stuff to start a fire, or the Kansas sergeant who was eating a piece of 'tack one morning and bit into something soft -- a tenpenny nail.
      Ten to twelve of these usually made one pound and were considered a ration in the field. But, this was often reduced in both the North and the South, and, in many cases, such as Vicksburg, Petersburg, Chattanooga, and at times in the Valley, to less than one biscuit per day.
    
Beans. The next basic food. Not the canned Boston baked beans we know today, but dried, white navy beans. Generally they were soaked overnight if at all possible, in fact, they were cooked overnight if at all possible. In half raw form they are something to remind one of the "Georgia Militia" verse of Goober Peas. Fifteen pounds of peas or beans were issued with every hundred rations to troops in garrison. That is one heck of lot of beans. Have you ever seen them swell?

Beef. The third staple of all troops. Generally, by the time they got it, it had been salted, but with any major troop movement, there was always a herd of cattle driven along with it, by hired drovers or by the soldiers themselves. In this way the beeves could be slaughtered, as they were needed. This was done particularly in the West and the Trans-Mississippi where there was the necessary graze.
      Unfortunately, it was not always possible to have fresh beef along, so salt beef or salt pork was used. The hit or miss methods used by many army meat contractors - meat purveyors - did little to enhance their prestige, and did a whole lot to increase the burden of medical orderlies and regimental surgeons. How many men became ill or died from eating bad beef will never be known, but it is an established fact that there were a lot more casualties from illness than from enemy action.
Coffee. There is not record of exactly what type of coffee was issued to the Northern troops. Neither the Library of Congress nor Official Records give any clue, other than the fact that the North bought the very best coffee it could buy. The South bought anything it could buy. Coffee was really more important to the average soldier than anything else he could beg, borrow, or steal. It got him up in the morning and put him to bed at night. Properly made it could float a horseshoe, or dissolve it. Like the Missouri River, it was too thick to swim in and too thin to walk on, and would make a jackrabbit spit in a rattlesnake's eye.
     
  General Orders No. 54, dated 10 Aug. 1861 specified the ration to be 22 ounces of soft bread or flour, or 1 pound of hardbread; fresh beef was to be issued whenever possible, rather than salt; 1 pound. of potatoes three times per week whenever practicable; 12 ounces pork or bacon, or 1 pound 4 ounces salt or fresh beef. To every 100 rations 15 pounds beans or peas AND 10 pounds rice or hominy; 10 pounds green coffee or 8 pounds roasted (or roasted and ground) coffee; 1 pound 8 ounces tea; 15 pounds sugar; 4 quarts vinegar; 3 pounds 12 ounces salt; 4 ounces pepper; and 1 quart molasses. By 7 July 1863 this was reduced or modified to 12 ounces pork or bacon; 1 pound 4 ounces fresh or salt beef; 18 ounces soft bread or flour, or 12 ounces hardbread, or 1 pound 4 ounces of corn meal.
      To these camp rations were added one pound and four ounces of star candles and four pounds of soap.
      The field rations consisted of 1 pound of hardbread and desiccated or compressed potatoes or mixed vegetables, at the rate of 1 1/2 ounce of the former and 1 ounce of the latter for each ration of beans, rice, peas, or hominy.
      The same orders told commanding officers that beans, peas, salt, and fresh potatoes might be purchased, issued, and sold by weight and that a bushel of each should be estimated at 60 pounds. When necessary, fresh fruits and vegetables, dried fruits, molasses, pickles, or any other proper food might be purchased and issued in lieu of any other component.
      I mentioned the dessicated potatoes and mixed vegetables earlier. They were much the same as the dehydrated vegetables that were issued to the troops in WWI and WWII. They were just that, and were compressed into a small compact packet which, when tossed into a can or bucket of water, swelled to many times its normal size. These were never popular, probably due to the fact that they were heavily spiced and seasoned as a preservative measure. They were generally used only as a last resort when the men could get nothing else.
      In addition to the beef there was much pork eaten. This, too was either salted or on the hoof. Again, when large numbers of troops were on the march the authorities tried to provide them with fresh pork.
      To us today this seems very drab, very "same," much like the "K" rations of subsequent wars, however, let us not forget "foraging" the troops, with their usual resourcefulness, came up with the right answer. Nothing was sacred to a forager. He took honey, eggs, poultry, potatoes, onions, sorghum, and all other garden truck. These were considered the property of the troops that got to them first, particularly in enemy country. It goes without saying that this was done by both the North and the South.
      In Virginia, of course, after four years of war, there was little left to take, nor was there much left in Georgia after Sherman's passage. This was the exception, however, rather than the rule.
     The second method of obtaining the extras was from sutlers. From these licensed traders, the 1860s version of the PX, one could buy pickles, cheese, sardines, cakes, candies, cigars, wine, beer, whiskey, champagne, pens, writing paper, needles and thread and all the other little things that mean so much. What did it matter that the pies were rubbery and tough, or that the whiskey was new, forty-rod, white lightening.
      The sutlers' wagons followed the troops when they were on the move and were assigned special areas in each camp. The prices charged were outrageous at times, particularly after a payday, and the sutlers ran the risk of losing their entire store to an irate regiment for some real or fancied insult. Nevertheless, the sutlers played an important part in the Civil War and were the forerunners of the Ships Stores or Post Exchanges of today.
      The third way of getting extras was by mail from home. In many letters and stories we see mention of butter, cheeses, jams, jellies, cookies, cakes, and many other items. Unfortunately, the postal department was not always too efficient, or the brigade was moving too fast, and these foods were often stale, rancid, or moldy. Still, they all helped to keep up what we now call "morale."