A little corn bread?

John Hartwell

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Reading the personal reminiscences of private soldiers during the Civil war can reveal some delightful little vignettes of daily life. This one is an inconsequential little incident on Nov. 6, 1862, just after the Army of the Potomac had crossed the river in 'persuit' of the Confederates following Antietam.

“After sitting around (camp) a little while I started out to see id I could find a house and get something to eat a little out of the ordinary, for to be constantly eating hardtack and salt horse became a little monotinous after being indulged in month after month.

“I passed along through a series of fields on high ground, then bearing to the right passed through a strip of wood from the farther side of which a ridge appeared a few rods out in the field. When I reached the top of the ridge the looked-for house appeared in sight a few rods down the other slope, and down to it I went. When I got within 5 or 6 rods of the house, a Johnnie came out and walked off down towards some wood on the farther side of the field. This opened my eyes, and when I saw for the first time that the wood down there was alive with Johnnies – not an ordinary picket post but a regiment, or a brigade was there. There were tents and camp-fires in large numbers. I must have been 5 or 6 rods from the house, and the woods where the Johnnies were some 8 or 10 rods beyond when I made this discovery, but this was no time to hesitate.

“I walked down to the house and asked the woman if she had any corn-bread to sell. She said, 'No, I have just sold the last I have to one of our men.' That 'our men' showed me at once that she knew who I was. I stepped out into the yard, took a look around and sauntered back up over the hill again. When I got out of sight of the house I quickened my steps until I was a good distance from that camp.”

The lady didn't raise an alarm. She knew which side she was on, but clearly felt no particular hatred or hostility for one polite young Yankee soldier, who was just offering to pay for a bite to eat.

This little bit of humanity in wartime is from J.M. Stone (21st Mass. Vols.), Personal Recollections of the Civil War, (1918).

Cheers,

jno
 
Nice story. I just love this kinda stuff. Now if he had walked into their camp un-armed with his hands up and said he was just hoping to get some cornbread those Confederates might just have been so agast at his audacity that they would have fed him and then sent him packing if no officers saw him. Maybe. Just maybe. Stuff like that did happen.
 
There was an incident of the CSA Missouri meeting the Union Missouri at Vicksburg. The Federals were under the rebels' guns - couldn't shoot at them very well! - and they jawed a little, the rebs telling their brethren they were on the wrong side. After a bit one of the Union Missourians called, "Say, brother, have you got something to eat? We ain't had nothin' all day!" There was a longish pause then a loaf of cornbread came flying down the hillside!
 
There was an incident of the CSA Missouri meeting the Union Missouri at Vicksburg. The Federals were under the rebels' guns - couldn't shoot at them very well! - and they jawed a little, the rebs telling their brethren they were on the wrong side. After a bit one of the Union Missourians called, "Say, brother, have you got something to eat? We ain't had nothin' all day!" There was a longish pause then a loaf of cornbread came flying down the hillside!
What is a loaf of cornbread?.. I have only seen it made in a skillet..
 
Lol! That's what I'd like to know, too. And it must have been one stout piece of bread - most I've seen would fall apart! I got that story from a book Richard Wheeler wrote about stories of the Vicksburg siege.
 
I guess you could bake the cornbread in a bread-loaf pan, so it's about the size of a loaf of bread. But I agree, I don't see how it wouldn't fall apart, unless you made it like my mother-in-law did.

The first time I brought my future wife home to meet my mother, my mother happily announced that she was making cornbread muffins for dinner, and fried okra. My wife politely smiled, but later pulled me aside and asked what she should do - she hated both cornbread and okra, and didn't think she could hold it down! I was puzzled, and I just asked her to take a few bites, and if she didn't like it she could explain that she had a big lunch and wan't that hungry.

But when she tried it, she ended up eating four cornbread muffins and seconds of the fried okra. It turns out her mother, who was a Samoan/Scott raised in Hawaii and southern Califorinia, was great at cooking asian foods but had no idea how to cook U.S. southern dishes. The cornbread was cooked on the stove-top in a huge skillet, and came out like concrete with a burned bottom crust, and she stewed the okra and served it up guey and without seasoning. It turns out that a little shortening, lots of butter, salt and pepper (and cutting up and frying the okra) was all that was needed to make the dishes enjoyable.

But I have to say I enjoy the variation in food cultures. My wife is great at making everything from sushi, stir-fry dishes, and Mexican staples like homemade tortillas, wonderful tacos, enchiladas, etc. I make the barbegue, southern, and italian dishes, as well as a spattering of other European dishes. Our biggest problems is we eat too much of the food, it's hard to stop.
 
This is a great little book I just finished it last week If you have a Kindle or IPad I think its free or 99cents and about 130 pages I got it on Amazon.com
 
One other note on the initial story: a former Confederate, in writing about camp life during the war, said that Confederates preferred to camp in the trees, in a rather disorganized fashion. Union camps were said to mostly laid out on open ground, with tents in neat rows. So it's not too surprising for a lone Union soldier to stumble upon a Confederate regiment camped in the woods - although it says a little something about that particular unit's lax picketing.

The same confederate writer claimed that his regiment could sleep soundly even though adjoining regiments were engaged in a brisk exchange of fire with the enemy. But they would quickly be awake the first time their own pickets fired a shot - somehow they could distinguish their own picket's shots from all the others around them, even in their sleep.
 
This is a great little book I just finished it last week If you have a Kindle or IPad I think its free or 99cents and about 130 pages I got it on Amazon.com

Anyone who doesn't have a Kindle, by the way, can download "Kindle for PC" for free at Amazon.com, and read any Kindle file on your own computer -- less mobile, perhaps, but useful. Of course, there are literally millions of free books (this one included) to be downloaded (usually as pdf files), and read just the same way. There are huge numbers of civil war memoirs, regimental histories, etc available in the public domain. Internet Archive is probably the biggest such source, though there are many others.

Cheers!

jno

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"The farther back you look, the farther ahead you see." W. Churchill
 
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