to purify river or muddy water
(from Confederate Receipt Book. A Compilation of over One Hundred Receipts, Adapted to the Times, 1863.)
Ingredients:
Instructions:
(from Confederate Receipt Book. A Compilation of over One Hundred Receipts, Adapted to the Times, 1863.)
Ingredients:
1/2 oz. alum
pint of warm water
a puncheon of water to be purified
Instructions:
Dissolve half an ounce of alum in a pint of warm water, and stirring it about in a puncheon of water from the river, all impurities will soon settle to the bottom, and in a day or two it will become quite clear.
In the "Confederate Receipt Book" from 1863, the cook book has receipt (recipe) about importance of clean drinking water.
Unfortunately, soldiers did not always drink clear water or try to clean it.
An example is the One Hundred and Fourth Regiment of Ohio Volunteer Infantry when they were camped at Snow's Pond in Northern Kentucky in Sept. 1862. They were camped near a sinkhole with water. They all drank this water.
"Close by our camp was one of those sinkholes peculiar to limestone regions; quite a large one, with plenty of water; stagnant and covered three inches thick with the pecular thin scum called frog spittle. Here we camped for three long, hot, dusty, weeks - men and horses and mules alike drinking of the fility stuff, till the water became so low as to show what lay hid in the bottom. Imagine our surprise and disgust at discovering carcasses of thirteen dead mules, thrown in there by the Rebels on their retreat. This was the famous camp at Snow's Pond."
Another report from "Reminiscences and Experiences", by the One Hundred and Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry discusses the same sinkhole and says " in a few days nearly half the men were sick from the effects of the same (meaning the water), and one poor boy of company A died at this camp."
These soldiers did not take heed of cleaning their water and became sick with one dying. Bad water or the effects of bad water was one of things that killed soldiers during the Civil War.
From: "Snow's Pond The Forgotten Civil War Skirmish in Boone County, Kentucky's Past" by Daniel D. Dixon, 1999.
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