Rations

[Charles Heath]

Re: To Heck With Your Overplush

This was called the “over-plus,” or in camp dialect, the ”overplush.”

The word "overplush" turns up in 18th and 19th century wills with a similar meaning in terms of surplus, too.

When we were cutting up meat while making a salt pork ration, Nic Ellis was laughing as I'd hold up pieces of meat with mostly fat or a big percentage of bone, and making remarks like "the fellow who gets this piece is going to say words about the butcher, for sure." Makes a fellow realize what living high on the hog really meant.

Good times.

[ephraim_zook]

Re: To Heck With Your Overplush

Somewhere in the ration chapter of Kautz's Customs, he says, regarding adding salt to a recipe "a deficiency is more easily remedied than an overplus".

Ron Myzie

[ContinentalMorganGuard]

Re: Proper Container for Essence of Coffee

I have a 4oz tin can from the period, marked Parrish Bros. MANFR OF Essence of Coffee Baltimore, Md on the recloseable lid. I haven't done any research on the company, but it seems plausable that soldiers could have had individual cans of essence.

[billwatson]

Re: Proper Container for Essence of Coffee

"I don't know how much a quart of essence weighs (5 lbs.?), but it looks like Mark Mason has a good point. Individuals may not have been issued small containers of essence for personal use."

Interesting observation. This stuff is concentrated, it takes very little to make a cup of coffee. So how did they deal with the gap between what's almost a bulk-issue container and the reality that a tablespoon or two gets you your cup of coffee? What kind of container bridges the gap down to one man's ration for three days or whatever?

[Charles Heath]

Re: Proper Container for Essence of Coffee

Funny how a post over three years old can still be timely.

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/...ead.php?t=8187

Imbedded in the thread linked above is a photo of a can of Hummel's Essence of Coffee from the Bertrand, so that dates it to April 1865, if not shortly before. That label is similar to the one Jarnagin sells. Yes, I know Jarny is not an approved vendor, and their price for a label and a modern tin is d-----d high.

That being said, the general size and shape of the repop tin compares favorably with the old blue or yellow label originals that could be bought at relic shows for a couple of bucks not that long ago. That size being 2 inches in diameter, and 2 15/16th inches in height with the lid and end on. Unlike the originals, the repop is not dipped tin, the ends are press on with rolled edges instead of one being soldered on, and the other being sans-rolled edge. The label is not quite tall enough to form the seal over the lid as seen in the image. Someone out there probably makes a good tin, and different labels, but they aren't well advertised. Thus is life.

One of these small containers will make a darn fine issue kettle of coffee. Play Goldilocks to see if you like it strong (small kettle), weak (large kettle) or if the middle nesting kettle is "just right." Black, hot, slightly bitter, pretty much sums up coffee to me, so you are on your own there.

A couple of thoughts about sources of supply for the tins is to take some time to hit the usual commercial container sources where the tins are priced around or under a buck. Second, having that safety edge on the lid is wrong, but it sure makes getting the darn lid off easier than the real thing. If anyone is actually interested, I can post a few links. Poor Ed Watson of the 33rd NCT is going through this tar making and containerizing process as we speak.

Additionally, Bob Sullivan may have labels on his CDs or separately. I haven't dealt with Bob in a long time, although he was happily enjoying the Rev War Yorktown a few months ago, so I can say we had a "Bob Spotting" as late as October 2006.

[BobSullivanPress]

Re: Proper Container for Essence of Coffee

Hello,

The tin that Jarnagin sells is quoted on his website like this:
----------------------------------------------
Similar to the Goldmark Cap Box above, but slightly larger, this coffee tin was developed in a cooperation with the Minnesota Historical Society from their originals furnished with label not affixed as the box is a common condiments box of the period.

2"diameter x 2 3/4" tall.
----------------------------------------------

The Minnesota Historical Society label is blue. Marc Benedict, with whom I have traded over the years, has a green label in his collection (and that's the one I reproduce), and the Bertrand has a yellow label. Now, before we all begin making assumptions about Type I labels, Type II labels and so forth (regular vs. decaf perhaps) we can simply infer that evidently George Hummel wasn't all that hung up on the paper color of his labels for this particular product.

I know Mr. Jarnagin is not an approved vendor on this site, but information is information, and then again, neither am I. :)

[Charles Heath]

Re: Proper Container for Essence of Coffee

Bob,

This counts as another Bob spotting. ;)

Who made the tin you are using for the Essence of Coffee container in the photographs on your website? The ends on that tin appear to be much better than the current alternative.

Mark was still using an original tin complete with label as recently as the 2005 Burkittsville event. That was a nice touch.

[edwardwatson]

Re: Proper Container for Essence of Coffee

Mr. Sullivan:

Are all the labels you've seen the same size or did they vary? Were the tins different sizes? Also, other than Jarnagin, can you suggest a tin can maker for the essence of coffee use? As always, I am greatly appreciative for any information to help improve my impression.

[BobSullivanPress]

Re: Proper Container for Essence of Coffee

Bob,

This counts as another Bob spotting. ;)

Who made the tin you are using for the Essence of Coffee container in the photographs on your website? The ends on that tin appear to be much better than the current alternative.

That tin is a Jarnagin tin that I bought about 25 years ago as part of his nested set. Pretty soon it will also be classified as a relic.

[BobSullivanPress]

Re: Proper Container for Essence of Coffee

Are all the labels you've seen the same size or did they vary?
Sadly, I didn't measure the things so I can't say for sure. They appear to be about the same size.

Were the tins different sizes?
Again, I can't say but all examples that I am familiar with appear to be similar in size. But don't get hung up on sizes and so forth. I'm working on an article on patriotic stationery for Civil War Historian magazine right now, and I could show you 10 original envelopes that on the surface would appear to be the same. Yet each one is slightly different in size, pattern, and flap style so when examined side-by-side, they are all different.

Also, other than Jarnagin, can you suggest a tin can maker for the essence of coffee use?

No. I keep looking for tin cans with removable lids for reenacting purposes, but can't seem to find them. Doesn't mean they aren't out there someplace, just that I can't find them.

[Utley]

Re: Proper Container for Essence of Coffee

I currently offer several different slip cover tins (real tins, not aluminum). I can do ANY size that a customer wishes, i.e. to fit a certain label. I do also have access to the labels that were from the Bertrand. Anyone interested, feel free to look at my current offerings on my website and / or contact me about custom tins.

Chris Utley
Carter & Jasper Merc.

https://www.carterandjasper.com

[Mrs. Buttrick]

Pickled Potatoes

For the last two seasons, the West Side Soldiers Aid Society has been using a recipe provided by the Milwaukee Sentinel for pickled potatoes, February 10, 1864.

Fill a barrel with well-washed sliced potatoes, and cover with spiced vinegar which has been previously scalded, mark “Potatoes in Vinegar”. These in addition to all the pickled cabbage and onions mixed, and horse radish, that can be possibly furnished, must be had at once.

We were under the assumption that these were needed and relished by the troops. Another Sentinel report of March 30, 1864:

LETTER FROM NASHVILLE
US Sanitary Commission
Nashville Tenn. March 23, 1864

Mrs. Colt—Dear Madam:

One consignment of your pickled potatoes reached here today. We had a barrel opened in the presence of a number of good judges who pronounced the experiment a great success. The potatoes were in a fine state of preservation, and the spiced vinegar gives them a fine relish. We regard it here as the most valuable kind of vegetable diet ever furnished to an army, and such, I doubt not, will be the verdict of all the surgeons and soldiers in the army when it shall be tested by their experience.

Your Society deserve the thanks of the whole country for the excellent manner in which these potatoes were put up, and for furnishing a new and very palatable article of vegetable food which will do more than anything else to preserve the lives and health of our brave soldiers in the field.

One barrel of these potatoes will be worth more than ten eaten in the ordinary way—and then the vinegar will have the same curative effect as the potatoes pickled in it, and will be of great value. Your achievement is a simple one; but it will be splendid in its results. It will prevent disease and restore health to the sick. The blessing of those ready to perish will rest upon your society and this will be a rich reward. I am glad my own beloved Wisconsin has taken the lead in so noble an enterprise.

We are receiving letters every day from the front, urging us in the most earnest manner to send forward vegetables, to save the lives of the soldiers. We do all we can, and go to bed every night with hearts aching over sufferings we cannot relieve. I am rejoiced to hear that the friends of the soldiers are doing so much in Wisconsin for their relief. We beseech them to keep on doing and to do more. Now is the crisis of the war. Let no man or woman at home be faint-hearted or inactive. The rebellion is in its last throes. Its expiring struggle will be desperate but the friends of the union should not relax their exertions or slacken their hands till it is dead and buried.

In a day or two I will copy and send to you some letters from regiments numerously signed, addressed to the Soldiers’ Aid Society and to the ladies of the Northern States. The soldiers are thankful, and their thanks you shall read in their own language.

Very respectfully, your friend,
E. Root.

Imagine my surprise, then, to read Fanny Burling Buttrick's account of her visit to the Memphis Sanitary Commission in her letter of July 15, 1864, from the Camp of the 39th Regiment in Memphis. Among other duties thatconsumed her days, she had been placed in charge of requisitioning supplies. Her correspondence with Lydia Ely Hewitt, President of the Milwaukee Soldiers' Home, is full of little barbs thrown at the USSC.

I asked them if there was great demand for pickled potatoes. They laughed and said that they were rolling them off and dumping them into the river every day! What a shameful waste of time and material. Who on earth started that humbug? Our boys are human if they are soldiers, and they can no more eat raw potatoes with the skins on than their parents can at home.

[MissElizabethBrandt]

Re: Pickled Potatoes

All those potatoes I peeled this summer went into the river?!

I am aghast!

We'll have to find a new project....or we can keep on pickling potatoes.

[AZReenactor]

Re: Pickled Potatoes

Can you share the recipe here? I'd like to try making some up so I can get a soldiers perspective on the matter.

[MissElizabethBrandt]

Re: Pickled Potatoes

If I remember correctly, we just peeled potatoes and put them in a crock of vinager.

Mrs. Lynch will have the actual recipe.

I can't quite recall what actually happened to them after we were done.