America saw the loss of 260,000 of her sons in the Civil War. The number one killer was not the bullet, but rather disease. Illness accounted for sixty percent of all Union fatalities and sixty-seven percent of all deaths among Southern troops. The role played by unsanitary conditions, poor hygienic practices, and bacterial infections- all of which could be interrelated- should not be understressed. However, poor diets and inadequate nutrition, which were just as prevalent as disease among the men, had a strong correlation to much sickness during the war. As Civil War historian William C. Davis wrote, “[n]o one completely escaped the rotten meat, the worm-infested bread, the illness from want of fruits and vegetables, or the utter absence of even the basic principles of nutrition and a balanced diet.”
Civil War nutrition has been a topic that many authors have flirted with but never really delved into in any great depth. The subject earns some recognition n Richard Cummings’ 1940 work American and His Food, but only briefly. Richard Hooker’s Food and Drink in America: A History, released in 1981, treats the topic with no more importance that Cummings- simply a chapter in a chronological account of America’s eating habits. In Hardtack and Homefries: An Uncommon History of American Cooks and Meals, Barbara Haber only discusses hospital nutrition during the war. Soldiers’ diets receive more attention in Mary Gillett’s Army Medical Department: 1818-1865, the middle piece of a three-volume work. Gillett relates inadequate nutrition to the poor health of the soldiers but gives the subject more passing mention in a medical rather than nutritional account.
In 2002 Alfred Bollet released Civil War Medicine: Challenges and Triumphs, a medical account of the war. Though the focus of the book is not on nutrition’s impact, he gives it more space than did Gillett and in particular describes the onnection between nutrition and certain afflictions. However, like his predecessors, Bollet gives very little attention to the actual diet of the soldiers. The following year this subject received its due focus in Davis’ A Taste for War: The Culinary History of the Blue and the Gray. In his book, Davis outlines the diet of the soldiers, detailing the different foods and their sources, methods of preparation, and the difficulty in supplying the men with adequate provisions; he even includes recipes for various dishes. Davis concludes that while the diets of the soldiers were for the most part all together lacking, they did not contribute decisively to the outcome of the war.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1: Meat and Grease: The American Diet
The American Diet
- Regional differences in diet
Land of abundance
The Temperance Movement
- Sylvester Graham and the health reformers
Restricted Diets
- Slave diet
Frontier diet
Transportation and Agricultural Advancements
CHAPTER 2: Bread and Beef the Usual Diet of a Soldier: The Civil War Diet
- The U.S. Army Medical Department
The U.S. Army Ration
- Camp life
Marching
Our living is not very rich: Camp diet
- Training camp
Campaign season
Winter quarters
Thanksgiving and Christmas
This food will kill me in a week: Culinary and food quality problems
Forgive us our shortcomings: Supply and distribution problems
We are suffering many privations now: Marching and campaign diet
Send me a box as rations are scarce and inferior: Boxes to soldiers
The whole class was regarded with contempt: Sutlers
Pig sticking, chicken taking: Foraging
- Shenandoah Valley
Enemy supplies
West
CHAPTER 3: It Has Been Sickly Times: Outcomes
- My bowels are not co-operating: Diarrhea and dysentery
Black-mouthed, loose-toothed fellows: Scurvy
My eyes would not last long: Night blindness
Sickness, starvation, and death: Immune suppression
The silent killer: Calcium deficiency
It don’t give me strength enough for our severe exercise: Carbohydrates
The success of a campaign: Nutrition’s impact on battles
Hideous sights: Nutrition’s impact on corpse appearance
CONCLUSION
