Ann wrote: >Rations in the army during the Revolution were not quite up to home style eating. We agree here--- but then soldiers' food has never been known as 'homestyle'. >The daily rations, when available, consisted of bread, half pound of beef > and half pound of pork, or salt fish: milk, rice, peas or beans, butter, > and half a pint of vinegar. Methinks that would be 'homestyle' to a foot-soldier. Pork & salt fish would be extravagant-- also butter. Bread is a euphemism either for biscuits or flour. And I think the 'vinegar' was more often beer or brandy. The qualifier 'when available' gets Mr. White off the hook, though. What I've seen for what the quartermaster allowed per trooper is; l6 oz; beef ; 6.8 oz.peas; 18 oz. flour ; 1.4 oz. rice; 16 oz. milk; 1 qt. spruce beer; .1830 oz. Soap; .0686 oz. candle [note that this was a daily *allowance*-- not that it was always available through the Army-- but we foraged in the Rev-War, just as soldiers have foraged in every war. An apple tree in season, or an unwatched chicken is a welcome site to a soldier.] Washington wrote in 1777; "Our Soldiers, the greatest part of the last campaign, and the whole of this have scarcely tasted any kind of Vegetables, had but little Salt, and Vinegar, which would have been [a] tolerable Substitute for Vegetables, they have been in a great measures strangers to. Neither have they been provided with proper drink. Beer or Cyder seldom comes within the verge of the Camp, and Rum in much too small quantities." > at times biscuits captured 15 years before from the French, were served > after being softened by dropping cannon balls on them. He doesn't give any source for this tidbit, does he. Sounds to me like someone swallowed a 'war story'. There were few shortages of flour in the Colonies, so why would the army hold on to biscuits for 15 years? If for no other reason than to give 'my brother in law the merchant' some business, any food taken in that war would have been disposed of long ago. [though after the age of preservatives and tin, we were treated to WWII C-rations in Vietnam-- and they were just as good as the usual late 1950's vintages which we usually ate] >It is ironic that throughout the Revolution there was never a shortage of > food and clothing in the colonies. Is this direct quote from that book? If it is-- then toss the book.<g> There were shortages of all kinds in the colonies-- made worse by an inflation of over 2000%. In 1780, in relatively safe Braintree, MA, these were some prices of goods which Abigail Adams mentioned in a letter to John; "Corn is now thirty pounds, rye twenty-seven, per bushel. Flour from a hundred and forty to a hundred and thirty per hundred. Beef, eight dollars per pound; mutton, nine; lamb, six, seven, and eight. Butter, twelve dollars per pound; cheese, ten. Sheep's wool, thirty dollars per pound; flax, twenty. West India articles: sugar, from a hundred and seventy to two hundred pounds per hundred; molasses, forty-eight dollars per gallon; tea, ninety; coffee, twelve; cotton-wool, thirty per pound." Folks rioted in Philadelphia during Howe's occupation, and in Richmond. Both were complaining about the lack of food. There were refugees from all the occupied and besieged areas- so the 'safe areas' became overburdened with people & supplies became short there beyond the normal wartime shortages. > Soldiers went ragged and hungry because the Continental Congress > couldn't get the goods to camp. Bad roads and lack of drivers and vehicles > often delayed or prevented delivery. The Congress had to buy the goods first, and set up a whole system of supply. That they were able to build all of that in the few short years it took is a marvel to me. > Even more tragic was the fact that many farmers preferred to sell > their wheat and flour to the British for soild gold or silver coins. I don't think many farmers had much of a choice. If their area was occupied by the British, they would either sell their crops to the British or have them confiscated. If occupied by the Continentals, the same choices, except that the Continental's $$'s were worth much less. Those in neutral territory had to be careful because 'neutral' one week could be Continental or British the next-- and no-one could be sure which. They would do best to barter with their neighbors, or deal quietly with one side or the other. >The Patriots' paper dollars were of such doutful value that Washington himself > once exclaimed he couldn't get a wagon load of food for a wagon load of money. He's right on that count. 'Not worth a continental' was referring to the Continental Dollar. It took the Congress a few years to discover you couldn't just 'print more money' and become wealthy. >War profiteers in general were condemned by General Washington as men > with "a dirty mercenary spirit" >..strong words for the leader who almost never lost his temper. Actually, I've seen that quote attributed to Washington as referring to the Militia soldiers who were going home in droves [because their time was up] in the winter of 1776. He was referring to them as having a 'mercenary spirit' because they weren't as committed as he was. > >From:"American Revolution , Notes Quotes and Anecdotes" >A Sedgewick Archives book with text by Lee M. White p44 I think if this is a representative sampling of that book, it might be one of those 'fun to read-- but not all that accurate' books. I haven't seen it though, so this might just be a bad first impression for me. Jim