Civil War Tin Foil

[zrpittard]

"Next morning at Farmville some packages of French soup material, done up in tin foil, were issued, the only rations I received during the seven days retreat."

Henry T. Bahnson, Co. B, 1st NC Battalion Sharpshooter, April 7, 1865

My question is: does anyone have any leads or source recommendations as to the type of tin foil wrapper he is referring to? Are there any surviving examples, say from the Arabia? A cohort made mention that perhaps it is in reference to desiccated vegetables packaged in tin cans. However, I feel like if Bahnson is specific enough to mention foil he would have said a can if it had been a can.

[LibertyHallVols]

Re: Civil War Tin Foil

The only foil items I recall from the Arabia are the lead foil used to seal bottles, like stomach bitters, etc.

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: Civil War Tin Foil

Aluminum was a rare and expensive metal in the 1860s... There was no quick way to get it out of rock after it was isolated in any great quantity in the 1820s. Aluminum exists compounded with other materials in rock, therefore it was too costly to use commonly until the 1880s when electric extraction methods made it cheaper to use more commonly. We still use the term "tin foil" for aluminum foil today, though erroneously.

A way to replicate this at events is to use dental foil (although pricey)... modern aluminum foil is too thin for our period use. Heavier gauge dental foil can be used on period bottles like in the Arabia collection and it simulates the feel of period 'tinned foil'. There is a reason why champagne and wine bottles have foil on them in supermarkets today and it is heavier than aluminum foil... it comes from the tradition of using tin foil to seal them versus wax.

"Tin foil" he refers to, in the 1860s, was really made of malleable tin sheets. Again, we can replicate this feel with heavier gauge dental foil.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/elements/features/2010/blogging_the_periodic_table/aluminum_it_used_to_be_more_precious_than_gold.html

https://www.chemheritage.org/distillations/magazine/aluminum-common-metal-uncommon-past

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Civil War Tin Foil

A few years ago I used the advanced search function on Google Books for the years 1855-1865 and turned up any number of hits for "tinfoil" and "tin foil." In most cases this was actually lead foil lightly coated in tin, with occasionally unhappy results.

For example: "Snuff and tobacco, chocolate, and other substances in ordinary use, are frequently wrapped in spurious tin-foil. If the articles are kept in a damp place, they may thus become impregnated with carbonate of lead." ("Medical Jurisprudence" 1861) http://books.google.com/books?id=4qZ...colate&f=false

Similarly, from vol. 56 of "The Living Age" (1858) we have, "In the same organ of Italian medical literature there is also narrated another singular case of lead-poisoning, for the occurrence of-which the writer vouches. Chocolate, as every body knows, is frequently put up, both here and in Italy, in tin-foil. In Italy, it would seem, there is a practice (though forbidden under stringent penalties) of contaminating tin-foil with lead. A man employed in one of the departments of Italian chocolate manufacture acquired the habit of chewing a pellet of such mixed foil. Symptoms of poisoning came on in time, going from worse to worse, until they ended in lead-colic, from the effects of which the patient died." https://books.google.com/books?id=PG...oil%22&f=false

It also shows up lining tobacco pouches and in wrappings for candy, dried fruit, and bricks of condensed milk, among other products.

Another example, also from 1858, comes from "The American Journal of Science and Arts" in an article on possible uses of glycerine: "A more important application, however, of a similar kind, would be in the preparation of articles of confectionery composed of sugar, preserved fruits, chocolate, etc., which are frequently met with enveloped in tin foil to prevent their desiccation. The same object might be accomplished more effectually, and probably more economically, by admixture in the process of manufacture with a certain proportion of pure glycerine.

"Another article of luxury, of still more extensive consumption, the consumers of which demand that it should be preserved for them in a moist state, is that known as "chewing tobacco;" and a vast consumption of tin foil arises from this requirement of the tobacco chewers. I have repeatedly prepared small quantities of chewing tobacco (the variety called "fine cut") for persons addicted to its use, by admixture with a little glycerine, and always very much to their satisfaction."

https://books.google.com/books?id=e16dAAAAMAAJ&dq=tobacco%20%22tin%20foil%22&pg=PA195#v=onepage&q=tobacco%20%22tin%20foil%22&f=false

Here's an 1859 US patent for an improved method of making tin foil: https://www.google.com/patents/US230...6VAyEQ6AEIKTAB

For better or worse, while pure tin foil was used in science and medicine back then even the dental foil of today would probably not be any more like the commercial "tin" foil of the time than aluminum foil is, at least for wrapping chocolate and tobacco.

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: Civil War Tin Foil

For better or worse, while pure tin foil was used in science and medicine back then even the dental foil of today would probably not be any more like the commercial "tin" foil of the time than aluminum foil is, at least for wrapping chocolate and tobacco.

Better and safer than using the leaded stuff, though, for event purposes. :)

[john duffer]

Re: Civil War Tin Foil

Better and safer than using the leaded stuff, though, for event purposes. :)

Sorry Mr.Lloyd, but I have to disagree, lead poisoning is way under represented in the hobby.

[bean_counter]

Re: Civil War Tin Foil

Lead foil, um, no thanks. Thicker aluminum foil is available from various industrial supply houses. I briefly looked it up for tobacco packaging a while back but did not pursue it.

Oddly enough twenty some years ago I worked at a factory with an aluminum rolling mill. I could have had my fill just from floor scraps.

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: Civil War Tin Foil

Sorry Mr.Lloyd, but I have to disagree, lead poisoning is way under represented in the hobby.

And so are dysentery... and syphilis. Well, for some they aren't... LOL ;)

[zrpittard]

Re: Civil War Tin Foil

Thank you all for the information.