What did soldiers eat in the United States Civil War?

In addition to hardtack, there were other foods. Confederate soldiers were often issued cornmeal instead of hardtack. The cornmeal could be cooked into a porridge or pancake. read more

The Civil War required complex logistics in order to feed the massive numbers of soldiers in the Union and Confederate armies. The task could fall to the respective national governments or on the individual states that recruited, raised, and equipped the regiments and batteries. read more

For a male army soldier, cooking was a completely foreign concept. Thrust into the bleak reality of war, soldiers were forced to adjust to a new way of life—and eating—on the battlefield. In the early stages of the war, the Union soldiers of the North benefited from supervision by the United States Sanitary Commission. read more