Food logistics during the American Civil War

The food logistics during the American Civil War were complicated. During the American Civil War, the task of feeding the massive amounts of soldiers of the armies of the Union and Confederacy fell to the respective national governments, or to the individual states that has recruited, raised, and equipped the regiments and batteries.

The Commissary Department was the official army organization charged with feeding the soldiers during the war. Both the Union and Confederate army had their own Commissary Department. The departments oversaw the procurement, logistics, and distribution of millions of pounds of food supplies, often shipped and stored in wooden barrels of salted meats, coffee beans, dried peas or dried beans, sugar and hardtack, a stale biscuit that would have to be soaked in a liquid such as coffee to soften and able to eat.

Often, the soldiers while on field campaigns found themselves saving some portions of food in their haversacks, which were washable canvas bags that provided storage, but little in the way of food preservation. The soldiers' diets often simply consisted of mostly coffee, meat, sugar and hardtack, but they also had other food items such as salted pork, salted beef, salt, vinegar, dried fruits and vegetables. Rarely the soldiers could get their hands on fresh carrots, onions, turnips and potatoes.

The Union army was given food items such as bacon, cornmeal, tea, sugar, molasses, & fresh vegetables. :Skillygalee" was hardtack soaked in water and then eventually fried in fat. The Confederate army would fry bacon and add in water with cornmeal and called it "coosh." Coosh was prepared when the army would have little time to prepare meals during marches.