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- Feb 5, 2017
Civil War Cooking: Theodore Dodge’s Boiled Beans with Curry
The winter of 1862-1863 for the Union’s Army of the Potomac has been compared to the Valley Forge hardships of the Revolutionary War decades earlier. For the Civil War soldiers, morale plummeted af…
emergingcivilwar.com
Theodore A. Dodge, a young officer in the XI Corps, felt mired and heavily discouraged by the military defeats. His physical discomforts added his mental frustrations. On December 20, 1862, he wrote in his diary:
Theodore A. Dodge (FindAGrave)
Slept colder last night than the night before even, and the night itself was colder. However as soon as one gets breakfast, one is warmed up again. We have got our mess in order again; for breakfast this morning we had stewed kidneys, hash, and beefsteak. Now this sounds well for camp, don't it? For dinner, curry, boiled pork and beans; good too. For tea we shall have cold beef; good again. The only things is, it is all beef. No other meat can be procured, except salt pork, and between the two you can well understand how a man can get tired. But this better than most soldiers have. I have been desiring to change my underclothing, but it is so cold that I never get to it. My hands too get so badly chapped that they give me much inconvenience.
We have just heard that 39 of our teams have captured, and there is a rumor that the Rebels are at Brentsville, between here and Washington. I am inclined to credit it, for, as I tell you I have no faith in our leaders, We shall probably move tomorrow. I am glad to see that [the] Government has begun to dismiss officers who fail in their duty. We have so much trash in the way of officers from our mode of recruiting that many need to be dismissed. [Page 121, emphasis added]