- Joined
- Feb 20, 2005
- Location
- South of the North 40
Coffee was a gift from God for the soldier on campaign. It is only slightly less a gift to a man in civilian life. In the very early hours prior to the battle of Allatoona Pass my mess and I were tasked with leading our reinforcements to their place in the works. My Captain then placed us in support of the Napoleon in the works. Men of the 39th Iowa were nearby and while some laid down to catch some sleep before the coming storm others boiled coffee. One man, likely about my age, offered me some of that welcome coffee. It was good coffee and a welcome gesture.
A few hours later he would be wounded in the brutal hand to hand fight that happened there. He was able to retreat to the Star Fort and seek shelter there thus avoiding the hell of a POW camp. The butt of a rifle had shattered his collar bone and made it impossible for him to use his Springfield or even to lift anything with his right hand. Such a wound is a painful one and often a life threatening one. It is a wound that does not easily heal.
Over my years of campaign I have inflicted that wound upon numerous enemies. It is quick to take a man from the fight and remove him from the ranks for a good long time. Knowing now what pain and suffering this one man has suffered I almost feel guilty for so freely teaching my own men how to inflict this injury upon another. I almost feel guilty, for many men have survived such a blow and returned to life in spite of the pain. They have lives worth living and believe it worth living. Many fall prey to the addiction of laudanum or alcohol in their efforts to deal with the pain. Some fail to learn to live with the pain and end the suffering by walking into the snow.
I have faced the horrors of war upon three continents. I have suffered minor wounds from battle and abused my body endlessly on campaign. I suffer from severe rheumatism but find the pain bearable so long as I have a bottle to dull the ache. I know now it is not the physical suffering that has damaged me so but my own guilt. I have killed many men over the years, some deserving some not. I have seen many men fall beside me; men who were my friends. It is a pain that sits cold in my stomach to this day. Like many others who have faced similar I drink to forget it. Cognac, scotch or other spirits help ease the pain by imparting a numbness that dulls that eternal ache.
I once heard a man say that the past is a ghost that haunts you from the time it exists until the time you do not. He was right.
There is always a pot of coffee on in my tavern, sometimes more than one. I make a fresh pot every Monday morn whether I need to or not. Used up coffee beans get fried in a bit of bacon grease and eaten up. To a man who has been hungry nothing is wasted.
During the war one of the nicknames given the US soldier was "coffee boilers" as whenever there was a halt in the march dozens of small fires would spring up along the column and coffee would be brewed and drank as quick as a wink. Coffee became a constant with us during the war. No matter the weather or the day coffee was being made somewhere around the camp. A good mug of coffee was the start of a day and often the end of it as well.
I drank tea when I could get it but coffee was more readily available. Most of us put a handful of beans in a poke sack with some sugar and used our rifle butts to smash the beans. It worked as well as most coffee grinders. A poke sack like that was good for a half dozen cups of coffee… or more if coffee was in short supply.
The Captain always insisted a pot of coffee be on the fire in garrison available to any soldier who wished a cup. The Colonel gave a similar order for the Regimental headquarters. My mess acquired a good solid copper coffee pot early in the war from an abandoned plantation and it served us through the entire war, it sits now on the hearth of my friend Seth and is brought out for every GAR meeting to make another pot.
Coffee became a comfort for us in the ranks, it was something we had every day regardless of the weather or fortunes of war. We may have gone short of rations while on campaign a time or three but I can recall no time we ever were shorted of our coffee. Part of that was my insistence that every man have a poke sack of coffee and as much more as he could carry in his bedroll or knapsack.
Our haversacks would see salt pork, hard tack, rice, beans, desecrated vegetables and often fresh victuals scavenged or foraged from the nearby plantations and farms of the enemy. But our coffee was always there in one haversack or another ready for the boiling pot. Some men took to flavoring their coffee with a touch of vanilla, milk and some used a bit of hot sauce. I occasionally used a bit of butter and salt as was the habit of the Arabs and Turks I had encountered. No one but I ever seemed to have appreciated that particular flavor. I was most fond of simple black coffee; the stronger the better.
The wounded were always given fresh coffee and if they could not drink it without help a spoon was provided. We even used our coffee as currency bartering it for goods from the enemy. At Vicksburg we were cursed mightily by the enemy in the trenches opposite as they could smell our coffee but had none of their own. The rebels were often short of real coffee and would cut it with chicory or parched corn in an effort to make it go further. A poke sack of coffee was always a valid trade for a twist of tobacco. In short coffee was as a gift from god to us and we appreciated it as such.
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