Feeding the Confederate Army during the American Civil War
In the early days of the American Civil War the troops of the Confederate states were well provided with food. This was the result of the Southern agrarian economy, which produced large numbers of hogs, fruit, and grains, particularly rice in many of the coastal areas. Hams and bacon were a large part of the Southern troop’s diet, supplemented with vegetables including okra and beans, and grains such as corn and barley. Like their Northern counterparts, the Southern troops ate in messes, usually a soldier’s squad was also his mess when in camp. On the march each fended for himself.
Southern bakeries also produced hardtack for the troops, until the lack of flour in the Confederacy forced them to produce other forms of bread. One such effort was fried or baked cakes of water and cornmeal, heavily laden with salt, which the troops would dissolve in water or a coffee substitute made largely of chicory before consuming. As the war went on the pressures of the Union blockade and the disruption of the Confederate railroads made it more difficult to deliver food to the troops. The invasion of Pennsylvania in 1863 was in part to obtain supplies which Northern Virginia could no longer provide to Lee’s army.
Confederate troops foraged freely in Pennsylvania, as did Northern Armies as they moved through Confederate territory, both sides justifying what was essentially pillaging as weakening the ability to make war on the part of the other. Looting was officially against the regulations of both sides, except for the seizure of military goods, and both sides used exceedingly broad parameters to determine what was considered to be beneficial to the military. After 1863 Northern farmers were unbothered by raids and the Army was well supplied both from the farms of the north and the foraging raids in the south.
Southern troops’ rations were steadily reduced as the war went on, and shortages of all foodstuffs in the South affected both the military and the civilian communities. Large self-sufficient plantations began to be threatened by looters deserting from the Southern armies as well as the approaching southern troops. The Union launched two scorched earth campaigns to further reduce the South’s ability to feed its Army and people, in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and across Georgia from Atlanta to Savannah. In addition to confiscating or destroying crops, the means to move supplies were disrupted.
By the time of Lee’s surrender meat rations in the Southern Armies were all but unheard of, and many troops were surviving on parched corn, peanuts, and a handful or two of rice. When Lee withdrew towards Richmond he was headed toward the Confederate supply depot of Appomattox in an attempt to acquire some supplies for the remnants of his dwindling Army but Union cavalry got there first. Lee’s army was so bereft of supplies that one of the first things he asked Grant for during his surrender was rations for his men, a request which Grant agreed to, providing the surrendering Confederates the same rations given to his own men.