Food

Life as a soldier is contingent upon the resources the army can provide. With the access of railways, the civil war was better at providing resources throughout its theaters, but still shortages did exist. One solder described rationing as “Our men get a vegetable diet by cooking up polk, potato tops, May pop vines, kurlip weed, lambs quarter, thistle and a hundred kind of weeds I always thought poison. I thought it trash…but the boys call it ‘long forage’…”[1] sometimes on the battle field men would have to forage in order to get food.

Overall, the life of a Union soldier is not entirely what it is made out to be. It was not consumed on the battle field in heroic scenes portrayed by Hollywood, although it did happen. It was also a depressing time. It was a time where men would literally have to get drunk in order to walk onto the battle field where they could lose their life. They did this not only out of patriotism, but for honor to self and family.