The Art of Army Cooking

The Art of Cooking was a skill that many learned, but few mastered. Leander Stillwell provides us with a glimpse of Civil War delicacies.

Words: Leander Stillwell, 61st Illinois Infantry

From: The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861 - 1865 (1920)

I retain a vivid recollection of the kind of army cooking we had for the first few months in Tennessee. At Camp Carrollton and Benton Barracks we had company cooks who prepared the food for the entire company. They were merely enlisted men, detailed for that purpose, and while their cooking was nothing to brag about, it was vastly superior to what now ensued. We divided up into messes, of four, eight, or twelve men, or thereabouts, to the mess, and generally would take turns in the culinary line. Very few of us knew anything whatever about cooking, and our exploits in that regard would have been comical if the effects had not been so pernicious. Flour was issued to us after our arrival at Pittsburg Landing, but we had no utensils in which we could cook biscuits, or loaves. So we would make a batter out of flour, water, grease, and salt, and cook it in a mess pan, the product being the army “flapjack.” It invariably was tough as a mule’s ear, about as heavy as lead, and very indigestible. Later we learned to construct ovens of wood, daubed with mud, or of stone, and in them, in the course of time, we acquired the knack of baking good bread. But with us in the west the hardtack was generally our standard bread diet, and nothing could beat it. 

And for some time our cooking of “Yankee beans,” as we called them, was simply atrocious. As you know, beans should be cooked until they are thoroughly done; otherwise they are decidedly harmful. Well, we would not cook them much more than half enough, the result being a sloppy, slimy mess, its looks alone being well-nigh sufficient to extinguish one’s appetite. And as for the rice — the horrible messes we would make of that defy description. I know that one consequence with me was I contracted such an aversion to rice that for many years afterwards, while in civil life, I just couldn’t eat it in any form, no matter how temptingly it was prepared. 

A photograph of soldiers of the Army of the Potomac cooking dinner in camp. (Library of Congress)

Owing to improperly cooked food, change of climate and of water, and neglect of proper sanitation measures in the camps, camp diarrhea became epidemic at Pittsburg Landing, especially among the “green” regiments like ours. And for about six weeks everybody suffered, more or less, the difference being only in degree. The fact is, the condition of the troops in that quarter during the prevalence of that disorder was simply so bad and repulsive that any detailed description thereof will be passed over. I never saw the like before, and never have seen it since. I always thought that one thing which aggravated this trouble was the in ordinate quantity of sugar some of the men would consume. They would not only use it to excess in their coffee and rice, but would frequently eat it raw, by handfuls. I happen to think, right now, of an incident that illustrates the unnatural appetite of some of the men for sugar. It occurred in camp one rainy day during the siege of Corinth. Jake Hill, of my company, had covered the top of a big army hardtack with sugar in a cone-like form, piling it on as long as the tack would hold a grain. Then he seated himself on his knapsack and proceeded to gnaw away at his feast, by a system of “regular approaches.” He was even then suffering from the epidemic before mentioned, and so weak he could hardly walk. Some one said to him, “Jake, that sugar ain’t good for you in your condition.” He looked up with an aggrieved air and responded in a tone of cruelly injured innocence, “Haven’t I the right to eat my r-a-a-tion?” Strange to say, Jake got well, and served throughout the war. He was a good soldier, too. 

For my part, I quit using sugar in any form, early in my army service, (except a little, occasionally, with stewed fruit, or berries,) and didn’t resume its general use until some years after my discharge from the army. 

In consequence of the conditions at Pittsburg Landing that have been alluded to, men died by the score like rotten sheep. And a great many more were discharged for disability and thereby were lost to the service. It is true that some of these discharged men, especially the younger ones, subsequently re-enlisted, and made good soldiers. But this loss to the Union armies in Tennessee in the spring of ‘62 by disease would undoubtedly surpass the casual ties of a great battle, but, unlike a battle, there was no resulting compensation whatever.

Stereograph showing the 5th New York Infantry Regiment (Duryee’s Zouaves) next to a cooking pit with four steaming pots hanging from the frame. (Library of Congress)

During the [Vicksburg] siege we lived high on some comestibles not included in the regular army rations. Corn was in the roasting ear state, and there were plenty of big fields of it beyond and near the picket lines, and we helped ourselves liberally. Our favorite method of cooking the corn was to roast it in the “shuck.” We would “snap” the ears from the stalk, leaving the shuck intact, daub over the outside a thin plaster of mud (or sometimes just saturate the ears in water), then cover them with hot ashes and live coals. By the time the fire had consumed the shuck down to the last or inner layer, the corn was done, and it made most delicious eating. We had no butter to spread on it, but it was good enough without. And then the blackberries! I have never seen them so numerous and so large as they were there on those ridges in the rear of Vicksburg. I liked them best raw, taken right from the vine, but sometimes, for a change, would stew them in my coffee can, adding a little sugar, and prepared in this manner they were fine. But, like the darkey’s rabbit, — they were good any way. The only serious drawback that we had on our part of the line was the unusual amount of fatal sickness that prevailed among the men. The principal types of disease were caimp diarrhea and malarial fevers, resulting, in all probability, largely from the impure water we drank. At first we procured water from shallow and improvised wells that we dug in the hollows and ravines. Wild cane grew luxuriantly in this locality, attaining a height of fifteen or twenty feet, and all other wild vegetation was rank in proportion. The annual growth of all this plant life had been dying and rotting on the ground for ages, and the water would filter through this de composing mass, and become well-nigh poisonous. An order was soon issued that we should get all water for drinking and cooking purposes from the Yazoo river, and boil it before using, but it was impossible to compel complete obedience to such an order. When men got thirsty, they would drink whatever was handy, — orders to the contrary notwithstanding. And the water of the river was about as bad as the swamp water. I have read somewhere that “Yazoo” is an Indian word, signifying “The River of Death,” and if so, it surely was correctly named. It is just my opinion, as a common soldier, that the epidemic of camp diarrhea could have been substantially prevented if all the men had eaten freely of blackberries. I didn’t have a touch of that disorder during all the time we were in that locality, and I attribute my immunity to the fact that I ate liberally of blackberries about every day. But camp diarrhea is something that gets in its work quick, and after the men got down with it, they possibly had no chance to get the berries. And all the time we were at Snyder, nearly every hour of the day, could be heard the doleful, mournful notes of the “Dead March,” played by the military bands, as some poor fellow was being taken to his long home. It seemed to me at the time, and seems so yet, that they should have left out that piece of music. It did no good, and its effect was very depressing, especially on the sick. Under such circumstances, it would seem that common sense, if exercised, would have dictated the keeping dumb of such saddening funeral strains.