Confederate Fare

[Campjacksonboy]

Well Confederates, unlike our Federal counterparts we will be eating like men. Our fare will be nothing like what the federals will be enjoying in their country club setting with buffet lines. However, as with all good logistical matters you will always know where your next meal is coming from.
You will be issued rations that were actually issued to Marmaduke's Army. Thanks to Silvana finding his order book, we know exactly what was being issued and how much.
Come prepared to make hoe cakes having something to fry stuff in (such as a canteen half) will be worth its weight in gold.
Frank Aufmuth

[moarkcav]

Re: Confederate Fare

I am looking forward to finding out what is in the burlap bags.

Chris Talburt

[Old Cremona]

Re: Confederate Fare

Thanks for the heads up; I gotta fashion me a wooden handle for my canteen half like Dave West has, them things make fryin' bacon a cinch.

[IowaYank]

Re: Confederate Fare

Chris, not if the Horse Hair Mess finds those bags first!!! :):)

[moarkcav]

Re: Confederate Fare

Dan

If I were the Horse Hair Mess I would be worried about getting caught by the ...... (insert name of choosing as we do not have a name mess) while looking for little brown bags. I hope there is some jam in there. Looking forward to meeting you boys.

Chris Talburt

[Charles Heath]

Re: Confederate Fare

Well Confederates, unlike our Federal counterparts we will be eating like men. Our fare will be nothing like what the federals will be enjoying in their country club setting with buffet lines.

Frank,

When you hear the breaking of the starch in our linen tablecloths, and the tinkling of our silver service, Hell will be upon you! :p

Buried in the modest library here at The Bunker, is a slim book by Stephen B. Oates entitled Confederate Cavalry West of the River. Looks to have been printed in 1961, and reprinted at least once. He probably used a manual typewriter, and included footnotes in the old style, which are easier to use than end notes or encapsulated notes. Anyway, his food references, while not specifically pertinent to Marmaduke's Raid, do shed some light on rations circa 1861-1862:

"At rendezvous and training camps cavalry outfits were fed by contributions from citizen committees or from private sources. Company A of the First Arkansas Cavalry, encamped at Van Buren in May, 1861, and Captain J. B. McCown's company of Sibley's Brigade, bivouacked at Bellville, Texas, during September, 1861, subsisted for weeks upon gifts of beef, ham, bacon, flour, salt, coffee, tea, peas, and other vegetables." - Van Buren (Arkansas) Press, May 22, 1861; Bellville (Texas) Countryman, September 11, 1861. (Page 52, Oates.)

"While stationed on the northern Texas frontier, the Lane Rangers lived largely upon turkey, deer, antelope, and even prairie dog." - William W. Heartsill, Fourteen Hundred and Ninety One Days in the Confederate Army: or, Camp Life, Day by Day, of he W.P. Lane Rangers from April 19, 1861 to May 20, 1865, pp. 37, 38, 39. (Page 53, Oates.)

"...the Thirty-Second Texas Cavalry roped and butchered beeves from roving herds, giving vouchers for them...." - H. A. Graves, Andrew Jackson Potter: The Fighting Parson of the Texas Frontier...., pp. 137-138. (Page 53, Oates)

"In western areas of the region, meat was preserved by "jerking" it, that is, by cutting it into long, thin slices which were strung by ropes to dry in the sun. No salt was needed." - Heartsill, pp. 26-27 (Page 53, Oates)

"In Louisiana and in the eastern areas of Arkansas the horseman's meat diet consisted largely of salted meat or blue beef, and to a lesser extent mutton and pork" - John Q. Anderson, A Texas Surgeon in the C.S.A., pp. 26-27. General Orders, No. 40, June 9, 1864, Confederate States Army, Trans-Mississippi Department, from March 6, 1863, to January 1, 1865, pp. 32.33. (Page 53, Oates)

A little bit of familiar how-to information is good. The rebs know precisely what they were issued, and here is another ideas as to how it was prepared:

"When flour was available to the horseman, usually short of proper cooking utensils, was likely to manufacture biscuits by mixing dough, rolling it out to " about the size and shape of a snake," coiling it around a small stick or ramrod, and then roasting it over an open fire." - Samuel R. Barron, The Lone Star Defenders: A Chronicle of the Third Texas Cavalry, Ross' Brigade, p. 36. (Page 53, Oates)

This should be real familiar:

"Another method was to roll the dough up in a "wet shuck" for deposit in the hot embers of the fire. The product was called "hot doger." - Heartsill, p. 229 (Page 54, Oates)

For further information, this time tested article is worth re-reading:

Baking Cornmeal in Shucks

"You will receive by Mr. Matlock, a Bedstead, Table, some chairs, a sack of coffee, some soap, candles, pepper, rice, and Desicated [sic] Mixed Vegetables. This latter article is intended to season soup with though I believe the article itself will make a very good soup as the Boys say they find it composed of hindlegs of bullfrogs, Snails, Screwworms, etc." - Thomas F. Anderson to Mrs. Watie, October 27, 1863. (Page 54, Oates)

Although scattered about, and mostly prior to the April 1863 period of Marmaduke's Cape G. raid, I hope some of this in will be useful. Oates book is a good read, and he gets into a variety of subjects relating to the brand of minutiae we find interesting.

[Brian Baird]

Re: Confederate Fare

I sure hope the Quartermaster has a good salt issue to add to that corn meal!
Brian Baird

[BorderRuffian]

Re: Confederate Fare

Okay,

One question,what is a screw worm?I had to ask.




Forrest

[Michael Comer]

Re: Confederate Fare

Forrest,

You had to ask. Enjoy your meal!:)

Cochliomyia hominivorax, the New World screw-worm fly, or screw-worm for short, is a species of parasitic fly that is well known for the way in which its larvae (maggots) eat the living tissue of warm-blooded animals. It is present in the New World tropics.