Rabu, 20 Oktober 2010

Civil War Foodways Series: The Commissary Department and Food Deliveries

Sweet Potato and Peanut Stew, recipe below

The majority of the south went into the civil war with the view that they would quickly whip the union forces; results on the battle field during the first year of the war seemed to prove them correct. However by 1863 Ulysses Grant and his army began to engage and defeat confederates forces. His continued success on the battle field led President Abraham Lincoln to promote him and eventually but Grant in charge of the entire Union army. Grant began penetrating deeper into confederate territory and disturbing enemy supply lines. Samuel H. Sprott served in the Fortieth Alabama Regiment of the confederate army. He had this to say about food supplies lines during the war: “There is no reason why there should not have been an abundance of meal, sweet potatoes, dried fruit, fresh pork, fat cattle” and other food items delivered to soldiers in camp, “brought in either by water or rail,” he says. “But the Commissary Department, one of the most important branches of the government, was badly managed throughout the entire war.” As result as the war continued confederate soldiers had increasingly depend on their foraging skills. Here is a recipe related to one of the confederate rations which Sprott mentions, sweet potatoes. The recipe originated in Africa but became popular in the south; sweet potatoes are indigenous to the Americas and peanuts are come from Africa. Slave traders introduced the plants to Africa and America during the Atlantic slave trade that lasted approximately from 1532 to 1830.

Sweet Potato and Peanut Stew recipe: http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/recipes/5074


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