T EC E 
ARMY RATION. 
HOW TO DIMINISH ITS WEIGHT AND BULK, SECURE ECONOMY IN 
ITS ADMINISTRATION, AVOID WASTE, AND INCREASE THE 
COMFORT, EFFICIENCY, iND MOBILITY OP TROOPS. 
BY 
E. N. HORSFORD, 
LATH RUMPORD PROFESSOR IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 
PUBLISHED BY 
I). VAN NOSTRAND 
192 Broadway, New Yore. 
1864. At the request of officers connected with the administration of the Med- 
cal and Subsistence Departments of the Army, and of field officers'long in 
the service, I have been induced to investigate the problem of the Army 
Kation. As the result of my researches, the details of which are presented 
in the following pages, it appears that with great saving to the country and 
increased comfort to the soldier, the present marching ration, weighing 32 
or 40 ounces, and occupying about 100 cubic inches, may be reduced in 
weight'to 13 or 16 ounces, and in bulk to 35 cubic inches, without any dimin- 
ution of mutritive value ; and this not by means of concentrated extracts of 
food, but simply by removing the inedible portions and the water, and by 
compression. 
E. N. HOESFORD. 
Entered according to act of Congress by E. N Hereford, in the District Court of the District 
of Massachusetts, in the year 1864. THE ARMY RATION 
The imperfect adaptation of the army ration at the close of the 
war of 1812 has been recognized by Congress. Repeated Acts, 
and more than one since the outbreak of the rebellion, have been 
passed, modifying its substance and quantity. The old ration of the 
British army, upon which our earlier ration, including the allow- 
ance of spirits, was doubtless based, differs somewhat from ours 
as now constituted, but much more from the rations of the French 
and other continental armies. All are undergoing greater or lesser 
changes with the experiences of each new campaign; but, aside 
from this consideration, there ahe various other reasons why we 
cannot rely for guidance in the subsistence department upon the 
usages of the armies of the Old World. 
Throughout Europe, independent of the railways, there are 
high roads connecting all the more important points, uniformly 
broad, hard, of easy grade, with stone bridges, and so thoroughly 
made as not to be affected by rains, along which men and supplies 
may be moved with facility. Villages are frequent. Public 
bakeries are to be found ready for use at short intervals. Sutlers 
can keep pace with the armies. Scarcely any extensive district 
can be found from which most of the staple commissary supplies 
may not be derived. The peasantry—from which class the rank 
and file of the armies are drawn—are accustomed to the black rye 
bread which is the chief article of diet in the European soldier’s 
fare. 
Here, the case is different. Our theatre of war is one of vast 
distances; of relatively sparse population, and indifferent wagon- 
roads. During a full third of the year, the roads of the South are 
rendered quite impassable to artillery and wagon-trains by a single 
heavy rain. They are without solid bed, narrow, and rapidly 
cut up by heavily pressed wheels. On the march, the army 
wagons containing the cooking utensils, and the sutlers’ wagons, are 4 
usually at long distances in the rear. They are of course, liable 
to be cut off by the enemy’s cavalry. For these and other reasons 
connected cjiiefly with the difficulties of transportation, the rations 
are not unfrequently reduced greatly in quantity and quality at 
most critical moments. Town bakeries are unknown in our south-, 
ern villages. Even small collections of houses, scarcely rising to 
the rank of villages, are widely separated from each other. Our 
supplies are of necessity sometimes drawn from points thousands 
of miles from the field of army operations. Our soldiers have 
not been aflpustomed at home to the simple and coarse fare of the 
peasantry of Europe, and not until they have been a year or more 
in the service do they become wholly suited to the plain, though 
in the main, nutritious fare of the active soldier. 
These considerations, and the every day increasing importance 
of economy in our resources for the suppression of the rebellion, 
naturally suggest the examination of the whole subject of the 
ration from a scientific point of view. 
WHAT DOES THE SOLDIER REQUIRE? 
The experience of civilized life has shown that the human 
organism requires, to maintain it in health, both organic and 
inorganic food. Of the organic, it needs nitrogenous food for 
the support of the vital tissues, for work; and saccharine or 
oleaginous food for warmth. Of the inorganic, it needs phosphates 
for the bones, brain, muscles, and blood; and salt for its influence 
on the circulation and secretions, and for various purposes where 
soda is required as a base, and doubtless both phosphate and salt 
for many offices as yet imperfectly understood. “ A man may be 
starved by depriving him of phosphates and salt, just as effect- 
ively, as by depriving him of albumen or oil.” (Dalton’s 
Physiology.) The salts of potassa, magnesia, and iron, of man- 
ganese, silica, and fluorine, are always present, and perform 
services of greater or less obvious moment in the animal economy. 
These organic and inorganic substances are essential, but they 
are not all that are needed. Man, especially when compelled to 
exhausting labor, requires beverages and condiments. He wants 
coffee, or tea, or cocoa, or in the absence of these he may feel a 
craving for wine or spirits. He ■wants salt, pepper, and vinegar. 5 
To preserve a sound mind in a sound body, then, there are re- 
quired organic and inorganic food, beverages, and condiments. 
WHAT IS THE ARMY RATION? 
The present ration consists, substantially, of— 
Bread, 
Meat, 
Coffee, and 
Sugar. 
The bread may be issued as flour yto be resolved at the soldiers’ 
option into loaf bread baked in camp, biscuit, fritters, &c., as 
convenience or inclination may dictate ; or as 
Loaf Bread, baked at some of the bakeries of the Government 
or neighborhood, and transported as such to be distributed in 
camp; or as 
Hard bread, which, baked without salt, in the form of crackers 
and kiln dried, is quite imperishable if kept from moisture. 
The meat is heeff fresh or salt, and salt 'pork. 
Coffee, without milk, is furnished roasted and ground. 
Sugar is provided to be used with coffee, or as a condiment with 
other articles of diet. * 
Salt, pepper and vinegar are supplied in the needed quantities, 
and vegetables are furnished to the men in camp. 
organic and inorganic food are supplied in both the meat and 
bread.' The nitrogenous and the respiratory food are present in 
the animal and vegetable fibrine and albumen, and in the oil, 
sugar, and starch of the meat and bread. The beverage of coffee 
is there; the salt, pepper and vinegar, as condiments or stimulants, 
are there; the sugar, more especially fulfilling the want of a sac- 
charine or oleaginous constituent, is there. The ration has an 
apparent scientific as well as experimental foundation. It cor- 
responds very nearly with , the quantities and kinds established as 
At first glance, the ration seems to fulfil every requisite. The 
essential by observation and experiment: 
The supply found necessary to a man in full 
health consists of; 
The army ration consists, substantially, of: 
Meat 1& oz. 
Bread 19 oz. 
Butter or fat 3| oz. 
Water 52 oz. 
Meat 16 oz. 
Bread 22 oz. 
Coffee and 1 
Sugar, j - 4oz- 6 
The extra bread and the sugar replace the butter or fat; and 
the coffee, besides affording an agreeable drink, exerts an antisep- 
tic influence over the living tissues, retarding their decay. 
The principal, armies of the world differ in the composition of 
their rations, but in the main show a general approximation to the 
theoretical requirement. The following table exhibits the rations 
of the more important armies in active' service: 
American. 
Aus- 
trian. 
Bava- 
rian .* 
British 
in Cri- 
mea. 
British 
iu India. 
French. 
Prus- 
sian. 
Russian 
in Cri- 
mea. 
1.65 oz. 
2.30 oz. 
16 oz. ... 
16 oz. ... 
22.83 oz. and 1 or 
3.52 oz. ; 26.43 oz. 
! 6 oz or 
32 oz. ... 
8 oz. or 
32 oz. .. 
17.16 m. 
16 oz. 
16 oz. or 
16 oz. or 
16 oz. 
1 oz.f.... 
3.10 oz... 
Salt Pork 
16" oz. 
10 oz. 
4 oz. ... 
f 16 oz. 3 times weekly. 
1 1.6 oz 
2.66 or 
4 oz. or 
8 oz. or 
8 oz. or 
5.33 oz. 
i I:;::;;;::::::;:::;;::;:.:;:;: 
vegeta- 
or 1 oz. 2 times weekly. 
2 oz. 
Cabbage or Sauerkraut... 
3.5 gills. 
1 07 
0.9 oz. 
Coffee, roasted & ground. 
1 OZ. .... 
.43 oz. 
ft 5 gill 
■2 gills. 
1-5 gill. 
t >- - fnll 
Beer 
1.1 qt. 
2 8z. 
0.32 gill 
1 75 "-ill 
1 OZ. 
quantity 
unkno’n. 
Horseradish 
Pepper 
Salt 
0.10 oz. 
0.62 oz. 
Supply. 
0.75 oz. 
j-to 100 rations. 
Wood 
48 oz. 
» 
. 
* Rumford’s Essays, 1795. 
•f Hard bread generally used on the march. An allowance of from 5 to 10 cents each day is 
made to each soldier, with which to buy meat (generally 4 ounces) and vegetables for soup. 
—McClellan's Report. 7 
The Prussian ration, with the exception of the bread, which is 
issued once in four days, is purchased with a small allowance of 
money, by a commission consisting of one colonel, one captain, 
one lieutenant, and four sergeants. The principal form of food 
with the Prussian, French, Austrian, and Bavarian soldier, is 
soup. In the French ration, coffee is extra. The other parts of 
the ration are varied according to circumstances. The Russian 
Government furnishes bread, brandy, half the meat, and the rest 
is furnished by the soldier. 
Our ration is eminently flexible. The pork and beef may 
replace each other. When volunteers come first to the field, 
fresh from the variety of home and markets of comparatively 
easy access, they demand, of salt meats, beef rather than pork. 
But veterans prefer pork. The reason is obvious. The fat of the 
pork, cooked or uncooked, takes the place of butter, and fulfils 
the want of an oleaginous constituent in the food. It also 
enables the soldiers to cook mutton or poultry that fall in their 
way on the march or on foraging expeditions. There is another 
reason why they prefer pork ; its fat retards the penetration of the 
gastric juice, and it continues longer the sense of fullness in the 
stomach. 
Salt Meats.—Let us look a little further. Salt meats have this 
great advantage, when properly cured—that they do not decay, in 
the ordinary sense of the term, and become offensive to taste and 
smell; but they experience another kind of deterioration. Dr. 
Thompson, of Glasgow, observed many years ago that the brine of 
salt meats had parted with its saltpetre and become charged with 
phosphates and sulphates. The latter constituents had been with- 
drawn from the tissues in the very process of curing. This 
change takes place inevitably with the salt meats shipped with 
our navy and merchant marine, and supplied to our soldiers; and 
the effect of the protracted use of salt meats in the production 
of scurvy has long been, observed. This effect, though more 
generally remarked as incident to long voyages, has appeared 
repeatedly in our armies, where for considerable periods the men 
have lived on • salt pork and hard bread, as at Fair Oaks, 
Cumberland Gap, Lookout Valley, and before Charleston. 
Fresh he.ef\ as ordinarily served front the butcher’s stall, is rec- 8 
ognized as one of tlio most acceptable and healthful of all the 
forms of meat; but slaughtered and then immediately served up, 
as it uniformly is in camp, rarely, except in winter, having time 
to cool, it is proverbially less healthful than if slaughtered and 
kept till it has had experienced a sort of spontaneous curing. 
Butchers usually keep their dressed meats for days, and some- 
times for weeks, before supplying them to customers. 
This evil is, however, much less than that of the effects of 
transportation by railroad or on shipboard, where a condition of 
fright, and in the latter case of sea-sickness in addition, is main- 
tained for days together. Cattle weighing 1,500 pounds on the 
hoof in Chicago are estimated to lose 200 pounds of dressed meat 
in transportation in the cars to Boston. They lose but little less 
in being brought to New York or Washington. The fine cattle 
sent by the subsistence department from New York to supply the 
troops at Hilton Head, also lost, on an average 200 pounds a 
head. It is not alone the loss in weight, but the great deteriora- 
tion in quality, that is to be considered. It is shown by Medical 
Inspector Hamlin, in his notes on the u Alimentation of Armies,” 
that “the flesh of mammalia undergoes a great change in its nutri- 
tive qualities by reason of fasting, disturbance of sleep, and long 
continued sufiering, resulting in its becoming not only worthless 
but deleterious.” This is also shown by the experiments of Claude 
Bernard, and is substantiated by history and every day life. 
Bull-baiting was once authorized by law to make the meat tender, 
and cattle and buffalo are run down for the same object. The 
meat of moose and deer, shot in the tracks, is known to be health- 
ful ; while if the animals are run down the meat rapidly perishes, 
and if eaten frequently produces sickness. 
liaised bread, made from sound flour, with yeast before acetic or 
lactic fermentation has set in, carefully baked and served without 
long transportation or loss of its moisture, is beyond question one of 
the most agreeable preparations of farinaceous food. It is porous, 
and admits the saliva and juices of the stomach for ready diges- 
tion. But as it is bulky, and contains from thirty to fifty per 
cent, of water, its transportation any considerable distance, 
especially in the absence of railroads or where wagon-roads are 
bad, is attended with great expense and frequently with much 9 
difficulty and irregularity. A wagon tliat will carry fifteen bar- 
rels of flour will carry but one seventh of this quantity in the form 
of freshly baked bread. If heaped in wagons as it comes from 
the oven, it packs and becomes heavy, sodden, and unpalatable. 
Issued once in four days, it becomes dry and hard before it is all 
consumed. 
Hard bread, or “ hard tack,” has' the advantage, when kept 
dry, of not being liable to decay, and may therefore be trusted to 
stay hunger where more perishable food would fail. But it is 
exceedingly bulky. A barrel that will contain 196 pounds of 
flour will hold but 75 pounds of hard bread. The daily ration 
is a formidable pile of more than 60 cubic inches. If wet, it 
rapidly becomes unfit for food, and frequently becomes mouldy 
wdien kept in moist places. When made from some kinds of flour, 
in which the starch or gluten, or both, assume a gelatinous char- 
acter, and show, when baked and kiln-dried, a glassy fracture, it 
is quite impenetrable to the fluids of the mouth and stomach and 
exceedingly difficult to masticate. Soldiers whose back teeth are 
defective have difficulty in reducing the hard bread to proper con- 
dition for digestion; and to the soldier benumbed by cold or 
fatigue, imperfect nutrition is not unfrequently followed by pro- 
tracted and dangerous diarrhoea. 
THE MARCHING RATION. 
Whatever weight may be attached to these considerations, there 
is one duty of the Commissary Department for which the existing 
arrangements are altogether inadequate. This is the duty of 
supplying marching rations for movements independent of base, 
such as forced marches, reconnoisances, raids, &c. Pending such 
movements, the chief in command orders the preparation of three, 
five, or eight days’ rations. These are given out, cooked, packed 
in the haversack and knapsack, and laid aside to await expectet 
orders to march. Meanwhile the daily rations are issued, cooke*: 
and eaten. A few days pass ; the necessity, real or fancied, fo 
the movement, has gone by, and the marching rations are found tr> 
be spoiled, and are thrown away. Or, if the m|rch is undertaken 10 
with the haversack and pack stuffed to unwieldy size and weight, 
the soldier soon feels obliged to abandon a part of his load; if he 
stops to rest, and leans back on his pack, his hard bread is crushed > 
if it rains, and the pack does not wholly shelter the rations, the 
powdered crackers, sugar, coffee, and meat become, together, an 
offensive mass and a total loss. Sometimes the salt beef and 
pork, though issued, are not taken by the men, and constitute 
a part of the aggregate loss. These losses in the army of 
the Potomac have been estimated by competent authority on the 
spot, from the organization of the army, to be little less than one 
third of the total cost of the commissary supplies. 
SUPPLEMENTARY ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE COMFORT OF THE 
SOLDIER. 
Certain provisions exist which enable the soldier to add to the 
variety of the ration, and otherwise promote his comfort. The 
company fund, which, if carefully managed, may amount to a very 
considerable sum in the course of a year, is chiefly derived from 
the excess of the army ration above what is consumed, and being in 
the nature of a present from the Government, is designed to 
enable the soldier to supply himself, under certain regulations, 
with particular articles he may need. From his pay he obtains 
of the sutler preserved milk, fresh pork, cheese, smoked beef, 
eggs, butter, sausages, tobacco, &c. In particular districts, the 
Government furnishes canned meats. They are largely supplied 
to the Navy, and replace salt meats and fresh beef in certain 
situations in the Army. \ 
The desiccated vegetables furnished by the Government are 
serviceable in arresting tendencies to scorbutic disease, and in 
promoting and preserving the general health. 
The bulk of these articles in the ordinary merchantable condi- 
tion, and their liability to spontaneous decay with changes of 
atmospheric conditions, render their transportation as raw mate- 
rial to any considerable distance, quite out of the question. The percentage of water is large. My determinations (Liebig’s 
Annalen, 1846,) gave the following results : 
Percentage 
of water. 
White Potatoes *74.95 
Blue Potatoes 68.94 
Red Beets *. 81.61 
Rutabaga 82.25 
Yellow French Beet 83.28 
Oarrotsv 86.10 
Turnips 87.78 
Onions -.93.78 
As desiccated vegetables, the water is in large part removed, 
the bulk correspondingly reduced, and the liability to injury from 
variations of heat and atmospheric moisture overcome. Potatoes, 
cabbages, turnips, carrots, parsnips, beets, tomatoes, onions, peas, 
beans, lentils, celery, &c., are thoroughly cleaned, sliced, dried 
in a current of heated air, weighed, seasoned, and pressed with 
the aid of a hydraulic press into compact forms, sealed in tin 
cases, and enclosed in wooden boxes. In this condition they are 
sent to the field. An ounce is a ration. A block one foot square 
and two inches thick weighs seven pounds, and contains vegetables 
for a single ration for 112 men. It requires only to be soaked in 
cold water, and then sufficiently boiled, with a piece of meat, to 
make a savory and every way delicious soup. If the meat be 
wanting, the vegetables may be served as soup without other in- 
This ration is furnished in lieu of potatoes, rice, and 
peas or beans. 
The proper officers may, within certain limits, vary the ingre- 
dients of the ration according to the tastes of the men and the 
facilities for procuring supplies. 
POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENT. 
In this view of the supplies of food for the Army, as now fur- 
nished, does science suggest any change looking to increased ser- 
viceability or increased economy 1 
At first sight the chances seem to he against success in the 
attempt. The present ration has been shaded by a thousand exi- 
gencies, necessities, and suggestions; is, in the main, a long-tried 12 
ration, entitled to the respect due to a system thoroughly organized 
and worked out, and for these reasons it should not lightly be tri- 
fled with; but when we consider that the preservation of food, 
cooking, digestion, and starving are chemical processes, and that 
chemistry in its relations to life, even in the laboratories of scien- 
tific men, is of comparatively recent growth, and of still more recent 
application to practical affairs, there is an obvious possibility of 
success. 
CAN THE BREAD BE IMPROVED I 
The experience of the world has shown that unbolted meal is a 
healthier source of food than the superfine flour from which bran 
ami groats have been separated in the process of bolting. The 
dark pumpernickel of Westphalia is eminently nutritious. It is 
made from unbolted rye meal. Black bread, which is the main 
item in the ration of the Prussian, Austrian, Bavarian, and Rus- 
sian armies, is of similar origin. Crushed wheat has long stood 
in high repute as a material of food upon which men may be sus- 
tained under favorable circumstances indefinitely long. The Arab, 
in his protracted wanderings, with his hard, unleavened cake of 
wheaten, unbolted meal, illustrates the durability and servicea- 
bility of this form of farinaceous food. The Graham wafer is’ a 
type of the same article of diet. The southern soldier has its 
equivalent in his cake made of mixed wheat and corn^hieal; and 
the voyageur and trapper in their pounded parched corn. 
Why should not the bread for the soldier be made exclusively 
from this unbolted meal ? 
The reason is plain. Unbolted wheaten meal will not keep. 
It rapidly becomes sour at common temperatures. 
So long as the integument (the bran proper) of the wheat is 
unbroken, the interior, at ordinary temperatures and in a dry 
atmosphere, is kept from decay. The oxygen of the air is excluded. 
When, however, this pellicle is broken and the interior exposed to 
the air, decay commences. Oxygen is absorbed, fermentation insti- 
tuted, and products offensive to the taste and smell result. The 
gluten, which is the primary agent in the fermentation, is disposed 
in a continuous envelope, constituting a sort of shell immediately 13 
-within the bran proper. Within this shell of gluten, the nitro- 
genous body of the wheat,—the reservoir of vegetable fibrine and 
albumen, and of the phosphates,—is a vast body of starch extend- 
ing to the centre of the body and constituting from seventy to eighty 
per cent, of the whole grain. The following diagrams exhibit the 
relations of the different parts :* 
Fig. 1 exhibits the wheat grain or kernel of the natural size, 
presenting the grooved side and reverse and cross section; also, a 
cross section magnified to eighteen diameters, and displaying the 
bran coats, gluten coat, and starch cells. ! 
Fig. 2 presents a portion of a transverse section of white wheat 
magnified to one hundred and fifty diameters. 1, 1 are the coats 
*1 am indebted to Mr. Thomas J. Hand, of New York, for these original 
drawings. 14 
of outer true bran; 2 is the inner coat of true bran; 3 is a thin 
filmy coat, covering the gluten cells; 4, cellulose containing gluten; 
5, sacks of gluten; 6, starch cells. 
The composition of wheat varies greatly with seasons and with 
manures. Barral, a French chemist, who has recently investigated 
this subject, finds the nutritive powers of equal weights of wheat 
differently grown to vary as widely as two to one. 
The composition of wheat flour varies accordingly. 
Gluten, including phosphates, ranges from 10 20 per cent. 
Starch TO 80 “ 
Sugar 3 8 “ 
Gum 2—3 “ 
Water 10 15 “ 
The starch is exceedingly hygroscopic. It absorbs moisture 
from the air with avidity. This moisture facilitates the changes 
which follow the absorption of oxygen. The consequence is a sort 
of fermentation, resulting in the breaking down of the gluten, by 
which its capacity for making and keeping bread light is impaired, 
or in consequence of which bread made from such flour is uni- 
formly sour, heavy, unpalatable, and unsuited to digestion. In 
grinding, much of this gluten and the accompanying phosphates 
adhere to the bran proper and are separated with it; so that, 
according to Meyer, [Ann. d. chem. u Pharm. c i Bd. 2, p. 146,] 
a given weight of merchantable bran which he analyzed contained 
fourteen times as much of the phosphates as an equal weight of 
superfine flour separated from it by bolting. So large an amount 
of gluten being withdrawn, and the flour put up dry, it resists the 
influence of the atmosphere and may be preserved for long periods. 
But it is wanting in the gluten and phosphates.* Can this defi- 
ciency be supplied without interfering with the otherwise good 
qualities of the flour 1 
*Megb Mourihs (Compt. rendu, XLVIII, p. 4'31,) found the gluten coat to 
contain ten per cent, of nitrogen, [the index of the nutritive value,] while the 
average of the whole berry is from two to three per cent. Barral (Compt. 
rendu, I, 136, p. 834,) found the loss of nutritious material in the ordinary 
grinding and bolting nearly one half. 15 
SELF RAISING FLOUR. 
The supply of gluten may be regarded as sufficiently provided 
in the equivalent fibrine and albumen of the beef ration. The 
restoration of the phosphates has been accomplished in the method 
devised by me for making quick bread. The most important office 
of yeast is to furnish a source of carbonic acid in the interior of 
the loaf of dough. The introduction of ferment or sour dough, 
the setting of sponge, and the repeated kneadings have for their 
chief object the thorough incorporation of a source of carbonic 
acid within the mass of moistened flour. The yeast itself is a 
body in progress of decomposition, evolving carbonic acid. To the 
distension produced by the carbonic acid the lightness o? the bread 
is due. 
Now the evolution of carbonic acid maybe effected by intimately 
incorporating bicarbonate of soda and pulverulent acid phosphate 
of lime with flour, and then mixing with water to a dough. The 
phosphoric acid combining with the soda releases the carbonic acid 
and so puffs up the mass. The phosphates in the form of neutral 
phosphate of lime and phosphate of soda lost with the bran are 
restored to the flour, and by the same act the bread made light and 
palatable.* 
The prepared flour having substantial phosphoric acid, and its 
equivalent bicarbonate of soda, dry and finely pulverized, mixed 
with it, and to this mixture a quantity of salt added to suit the 
taste, is a self-raising flour, which, on the addition of water, may 
be stirred to a sticky dough and baked immediately. The halves 
of an old canteen constitute both bake-pan and oven; one half, con- 
taining the loaf of dough, is imbedded in. ho|; ashes, and the other 
is inverted over it and covered with hot ashes. Such dough may 
even be wrapped in wet paper or leaves, and baked in the ashes. 
This flour is but slightly injured when the barrels o» bags con- 
taining it are rained on, since the water acts only on the surface 
of compact flour. With such flour, transportation of the bread 
* See my pamphlet on The Theory and Art of Breadmaking, a new process, 
without ferment, published by Wplch, Bigelow & Co., Printers to the Univer- 
sity of Cambridge, 1861. 16 
ration could be reduced to a minimum, botli in bulk and weight. 
It does away with dependence on expensive ovens, does away with 
yeast, and makes possible and practicable fresh bread from the 
flour in half an hour. The various forms of biscuits, pan- 
cakes, fritters, dulf, &c., may all be readily prepared from this 
flour where the cooking utensils are at hand. This flour may be 
carried in boxes, like hard bread, or in bags on the backs of mules, 
or in smaller parcels in the pack, and will serve for the bread of 
the marching ration in all cases wherejires m&y he permitted. 
IMPORTANCE OF FRESH LIGHT BREAD TO THE RAW RECRUIT 
The advantages of fresh, light bread to the health of raw re- 
cruits are well known. The medical officers of the Army of the 
Potomac remarked, on the Peninsular campaign, that the hard 
bread in many instances passed from the bowels without change. 
This was coincident with the frightful illness on the Chickahominy. 
The men immediately improved on the supply of fresh bread at 
Harrison’s Landing. 
The men who survive in health the exposure, irregularity, and 
to the majority, the frequently distasteful fare of the early cam- 
paigns, are the comparatively few who have a happy capacity of 
adaptation to varying external circumstances, and whose digestion 
is perfect at the outset. The rest are the men of more sensitive 
or less flexible organization, most of whom, once carried through 
the period of inuring, would in action display, in larger degree than 
their companions of ruder health, the elan so much valued in the 
French soldier. A regular supply, or a more frequent supply, of 
fresh bread in the first campaign would unquestionably save many 
to become veterans, who without it would be lost in the Invalid 
Corps, or to the country altogether. • • 
Where fires, for any reason, may not be safely or conveniently 
made, as on special picket service, or on cavalry expeditions, or 
rapid movements generally, how shall the supply of bread, con- 
taining the whole nutrition of the wheat in the least bulk, be se- 
cured 1 The hard bread is deficient in gluten, in phosphates, in 
salt, ft is scarcely baked; it is dried only. Is there any other 
resource 1. BREAD FOR THE MARCHING RATION WITHOUT FIRE. 
In the ordinary loaf, the crust, if thin and properly baked, is 
the part most relished. It differs from the interior in’having 
been exposed to radiant heat, which has converted its starch into 
dextrine and roasted its gluten. These changes, carried only to 
the verge of destructive distillation, leave the gluten substantially 
unimpaired, and the taste improved by the production of a trace 
of essential oil. The crust contains none of the thirty-five to fifty 
per cent, of water which belongs to the baker’s loaf. Indeed, it 
contains some twelve to fifteen per cent, less than the flour; so 
that weight-for-weight, good, not hitter, crust is about twice as 
nutritious as the crumb of bread. Barral found it, in some 
samples, two and a half times as nutritious. 
Now, is it possible and practicable to apply this hint to the 
improvement of the bread ration I It is wholly practicable, and 
has already been done. 
The mountaineer ot Lmli, when prepared an extended jour- 
ney, takes, as his sole reliance for food, roasted and ground 
wheat. When he fOels hungry, he stirs some of this powdered 
grain into cold water and drinks it. If opportunity offers, he 
varies his diet with such articles of food as may present them- 
selves; but he is independent of them; and travels for weeks to- 
gether, depending upon this single source of nutrition. 
The Texan Ranger, for long expeditions, uses what is called 
cold flour, consisting of roasted or parched corn, ground, and 
mixed with sugar. The voyageurs of Lake Superior, and the 
trappers going out from that region, take roasted -and ground 
corn, incorporated with melted fat. 
This roasted wheat has all the gluten and phosphates normal to 
the grain. The addition of a trifle of salt renders it palatable, 
and gives to the organism its needed quantity of this condiment. 
This form of farinaceous food is of early use. Count Rumford 
recognized the excellent effect of roasting grains or the bread mad 
from them. It makes the food more palatable and more soluble 18 
The Athenians used roasted barley. The ancient Scots, in their 
forays into England, carried oatmeal as their only article of food, 
which they mixed with water and baked on iron plates, making 
a sort of hoe-cake. In the East, a sort of thin roasted cake, of 
unbolted meal, has been used from time immemorial. The armies 
relied upon roasted farinaceous food.* Parched corn was a dish 
which Ruth shared at the table of her future husband. 
This preparation of roasted and ground wheat meets the want 
of the marching ration, where it is desired to move rapidly and 
dispense with impediments to the last degree. Few articles re- 
quire less preparation. The soldier may roast it himself. Noth- 
ing is more certain than its quality of preservation. No food is 
more concentrated, oy requires less for transportation. It may be 
found in almost every agricultural district, in quantity sufficient 
for immediate wants. Freshly prepared, it fulfils in good degree 
the office of a beverage, at the same time that it meets the de- 
mand for bread.f Roasted rye, though less agreeable, might be 
substituted for wheat where the former is abundant and the latter 
wanting. Roasted barley and parched corn have already been 
mentioned. Peas have been ground to fine meal, cooked by steam, 
kiln-dried, and used as an article of diet. Experience would 
doubtless show that, in some situations, other grains might be 
profitably roasted and employed as food. 
The quantities of different grains and articles of food, in dried 
condition, which are the equivalent in nutritive value of 100 parts 
* In some recent articles in the “National Intelligencer” upon the subsist- 
ence of ancient armies, the editor, in presenting the fruits of no small measure of 
research, has enabled us to comprehend how Xerxes maintained his vast army. 
He caused immense accumulations of corn to be made, extending through 
several years, and when his troops moved he provided bakers to accompany 
them. The supply of meat was relatively small. The chief article of diet 
must have been roasted cakes made from the unbolted meal of cereals. 
-j- The essential oil of roasted wheat, like the essential oil of roasted coffee or 
parched corn, exerts an important influence in retarding the metamorphosis 
of tissues—preserving the muscular fibre, and so reducing the quantity of food 
required for health. This substance which is the basis of the agreeable flavor, 
and the sweetness also acquired by roasting, may enable the roasted wheat 
in emergencies to supply the place of both the coffee and sugar. 19 
of wheat, are, according to my nitrogen determinations, as fol- 
lows :* 
Lentils 55.5 
Peas 58.8 
Beans 59.0 
Oats without hulls VB.O 
Eye 98.8 
Wheat 100.0 
Barley 104.0 
Corn... 115.0 
Buckwheat.... 110.0 
Kice 220.0 
MEAT FOR THE MARCHING RATION. 
We have already seen the great loss arising from the attempt to 
provide meat for the marching ration, from the existing stores of 
the Commissary Department. The fresh meat, especially in warm 
weather, however well cooked, in the course of a day or two 
becomes unpalatable and worthless. Salt beef, as well as fresh, 
is bulky and heavy from the large percentage of water and inedible 
substance entering into its composition. It occasions great thirst. 
Salt pork, though for some reasons greatly to be preferred to 
salt beef, greases everything with which it comes in contact, and 
sustains a loss of some three fourths when broiled on a stick, as 
it usually is on the march. 
Fresh beef as a source of the marching ration has some advan- 
tages. It carries itself. The cattle can be driven; but this 
advantage is limited. Of what use are live cattle on such an 
expedition as AverilPs, to cut the Virginia and Tennessee 
Railroad; or Kilpatrick’s, in the rear of Lee’s army, threaten- 
ing Richmond! In a forced march the herd of cattle must 
be some distance in the rear, and the supply of fresh beef 
irregular. The best of cattle in Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois, 
after transportation in cars, with little water, food, or sleep,' 
during several days and nights of continuous travel, and after being 
driven about, for two or three weeks, with scanty forage, or none 
at all, furnish as a whole, meagre and inferior beef. To preserve 
the beef the cattle are slaughtered, in summer, early in the 
morning, and the meat immediately boiled, if conveniences will 
permit, to prevent its becoming fly-blown. The juices extracted 
in this boiling are uniformly and necessarily lost. The edible 
* Liebig’s Ana. der Chem. uad Phar., 1846. 20 
meat is much of it lost in the difficulty and haste of detaching 
it from the bones. It has no provision against spontaneous decay. 
It is not always at command -when most needed; it is bulky, and 
yet the actual edible meat, which the soldier derives from an ox 
slaughtered on the march, is much less than is ordinarily sup- 
posed. The advantage of providing it on the hoof is correspond- 
ingly small. 
In slaughtering, the weight is diminished by loss of blood, the 
removal of the tongue, heart, and liver, the viscera and offal, and 
legs to the knee. This reduction, called shrinkage, in good cattle 
fresh from the pasture, amounts to at least one third. An ox in 
fair condition weighing 1,500 pounds on the hoof, would lose by 
shrinkage 500 pounds.* The intestinal tallow would weigh 100 
pounds more, the head and hide 100 pounds more, and the kidney 
tallow and lump fat 50 pounds more. Altogether, the dressed 
quarters without the kidney tallow and lump fat, weigh but half 
the ox on foot. But the bones, gristle, tendon, connective tissue, 
and loss of meat in the sinuosities of the back bone and along the 
ribs, reduce the edible portion to the consumer to three fifths of the 
weight of the dressed quarters, or three tenths of the weight of 
the whole ox. Of this three tenths, seventy-five per cent, is 
water, f 
So that an ox weighing 1,500 pounds yields to the consumer, as 
ordinarily served up, but about 450 pounds of edible meat with 
its water, or but one quarter of this, or three fortieths of the 
whole, of dry nutritious matter, or 1121 pounds, or 6.8 per. cent, 
of the whole weight of the live ox. 
*Lawes and Gilbert found (Phil. Trans., 859,) the average shrinkage of 16 
fat cattle, consisting of 2 heifers and 14 bullocks, and ranging from 816 lbs. 
to 1,652 lbs., on the hoof, to be 40J per cent. 
follows: 
f The percentage of water in fresh meats, compared with milk, are as 
Milk 87.0 
Fish 80.0 
Muscle of Pork 77.0 
Beef 75.0 
Veal 75.0 
Mutton 74.0 
Chckens 71.0 
Tendon 30.0 
Lawes and Gilbert found the flesh and fat together of a half fat ox to yield 
4.82 per cent, of dry meat, while that of a fat\ ox gave only 18.71 per cent. 21 
In a practical experiment, which came to my knowledge as 
having recently been made in New York, with an ox weighing 
1,200 pounds dressed, and of course some 1,800 pounds on foot, 
there were found 400 pounds of edible meat, which yielded when 
dried to fibre some 112 pounds, a quantity amounting to 6.22 per 
cent, of the live ox. Small as this seems, the cattle in the train of 
an army on the march, yield a much less return. The army rule 
in regard to heef-cattle is, that when the cattle weigh over 
1,300 pounds on the hoof, 45 per cent, shall he deducted fqr shrink- 
age ; when below 1,300 pounds, 50 per cent. The fat, it would 
seem, is assumed to have totally disappeared. But much more 
has, in reality, disappeared. From the statement of commissary 
officers having charge of the commissary supplies of some of the 
regiments of the Potomac army from its commencement, it appears 
that it requires about one ox and a half to furnish the fresh beef 
ration to a regiment of 225 men—or about six oxen to 1,000 men. 
This meat was issued as dressed quarters, which were weighed. 
So that twenty-four quarters of heef-cattle in the condition in 
■which they are slaughtered in that arnrp, weigh on an average 
20,000 ounces, or 1,250 pounds. Assuming the hone, ten- 
don, and gristle to be three fourths of the whole dressed quarters, 
which is not far from the fact, there would remain 312| pounds 
of edible meat, or 52 pounds to an ox ; of which one quarter only 
is dry nutriment, or 13 pounds to an ox. And this is an average 
specimen estimated by the commissary officers from whom I 
have received the information, to have weighed when purchased 
by the Government, 1,300 pounds, on the hoof. Six of these 
must have weighed 7,800 pounds and would cost now, delivered at 
eight cents a pound, $624 ! Sevenly-eight poitnds out of seventy- 
eight hundred I ' One per cent, only ! ■ 
Neither hide, hones, or tallow of any kind, as a general rule, is 
saved on the march. In a word the dry edible fresh beef derived 
from cattle on the hoof according to this estimate, costs the Govern- 
ment $8 a pound, or with the three pounds of water $2 a pound, 
or with the bone, tendon, and gristle 50 cents a pound. But 
a reduction so great cannot be presumed to be uniform in 
the Army of the Potomac, though it is known that during the last 
two winters the cattle got little or no forage from the time they 22 
■were sent down by boat and the cars to Falmouth, and by cars to 
Brandy Station, till they were slaughtered. At Hilton Head the 
loss in flesh was less. At Chattanooga it was greater. Col. Eaton, 
in charge of the subsistence department at the post of New York, 
has informed me that the army ration of fresh beef at Hilton Head 
cost the Government 80 cents, at a time when canned meats of 
perfect quality, cost, delivered, but 16 cents a pound. Eight 
ounces of good canned meat may be assumed to be a full equiva-, 
lent for the fresh beef ration with its bone, tendon, and gristle, 
as supplied to the individual soldier at Hilton Head. At the 
present prices of canned meats, of say 24 cents a pound, de-. 
livered, the ration of fresh beef at Hilton Head must cost the 
Government 45 cents. A pound must /cost 36 cents, bone, ten- 
don, and gristle included. The edible meat would therefore cost 
some three to four times as much, say $1 25 per pound, and with 
its water eliminated, $5 per pound. 
A medical officer, whose duties called him to Chattanooga, during 
the months preceding the battle of Lookout Mountain, has in- 
formed me that the cattle furnished to that post were so sick and 
exhausted from the effects of the transportation from Louisville, 
and so reduced and emaciated from having had absolutely nothing 
to eat on the railroad and after their arrival, for weeks in succes- 
sion, that some of them reeled in walking, and falling or lying down 
were unable to rise. It is true that the bullocks that thus fell 
were not eaten, but they indicate the condition of those which had 
been subjected to the same suffering and deprivations and were 
actually used as food. What these cattle on the hoof cost the 
Government I know not, but probably not less than the cattle sup- 
plied to the Army of the Potomac, while their value for food must 
have been less and the cost of the ration of fresh beef corresponds- 
ingly greater. 
It appeared in evidence before the Crimean Sanitary Commission 
that the cattle supplied to the English army were so reduced by 
the hardships of the voyage and little or no forage, after landing, as 
in many cases to be scarcely more than skin and bone. Much of 
the meat was so tough, that although called beef, it could not be 
eaten and was rejected by the men. 23 
Now, this enormous expense—enormous if we reduce the esti- 
mate by a whole quarter, or even a third—is incurred hy 
Government, and this fearful sacrifice of cattle made by the coun- 
try, to provide indifferent and frequently deleterious fresh meat, 
in scanty quantity at the best, for the soldier in active service. 
DOES SCIENCE SUGGEST ANY ALLEVIATION'? 
The Government wishes a light marching ration of fresh meat. 
It wants it cooked, seasoned, made thoroughly palatable to the 
soldier, and capable of preservation indefinitely long. Where it 
is made light by being relieved of its surplus water, bone, tendon, 
gristle, lump fat, &c., is of no moment. Hoio it is endowed 
with antiseptic qualities is not material, provided they are health- 
ful. It is not necessary that this ration be prepared in camp. It 
may be prepared wherever it is convenient to collect numbers of 
fat cattle. 
To facilitate the transportation of the marching ration, it is 
desirable that the bulk and weight be reduced to the lowest prac- 
ticable limit, and the food made imperishable. The great enemy 
to preservation is water. It facilitates the molecular interchange 
upon which decay depends. The water beyond the limits of ready 
preservation must be expelled. The dried buffalo meat of the 
Indians on the Western prairies, common jerked beef and veniso.n 
pemmican, Appert’s dried meats, and the desiccated meats now pre- 
pared for long voyages, are illustrations of the protection against 
decomposition which the removal of the water secures. But the 
drying should not be carried beyond the point which permits the 
ready restoration of the juices of the meat in savory condition. 
This may be done at temperatures from 110° to 125° Fah. To 
insure its preservation, if not dried, the oxygen of the air should 
be excluded from it. Cans are, on many accounts suited to this 
purpose. Perhaps the only objection to them is that they are 
liable to injury in long or hurried transportation, and the puncture 
of a can, however slight, especially where the water has not been 
materially diminished, is quite sure to be followed with deteriora- 
tion of the meat. 24 
What expedient is there which fulfils all these requisitions 1 
They are all fulfilled by putting the meat in the form of 
SAUSAGE. 
The German has reduced this manufacture to its simplest ele- 
ments. He makes sausage from every edible part of the animal, 
including the liver and even the blood. The cleaned intestine is 
his costless .but perfect can. Smoke, heat, dry air, salt, and fra- 
grant herbs and spices are his antiseptics. 
The healthfulness of the sausage, its quality as a relish, the 
variety of forms in which it may be served, and its antiseptic qual- 
ities, combine to commend it for the soldier’s marching ration of 
meat. It is well known that when the soldier gets his pay, he 
repairs at once, if in. camp, to the sutler to purchase sausages, 
and continues to enrich his fare from this source so long as his 
money lasts. In some regiments, no pork has been drawn for a 
month after pay-day. 
Can the sausage system be carried so far as to include the 
dressed carcass of the whole ox I 
Let us suppose a supply of live cattle in their individual best 
condition—in Illinois, for example—and an establishment on an 
adequate scale, for economizing the nutritive value of the animals 
to be slaughtered. There should be mincing contrivances, facili- 
ties for boiling by steam, baking or roasting, digesters, evaporating 
pans, drying apartments, hot air, smoke, pyroligneous acid, gela- 
tine, bisulphite of lime, &c. 
The mincing apparatus’ would reduce the meat to fineness; the 
steam or baking apparatus would boil, or bake, or roast it; cur- 
rents of heated air would dry it; evaporating pans might perform 
the same office, at temperatures so low as to preserve in palatable 
form all the juices of the meat ; and Papin’s digesters would re- 
solve a large part of what is now utterly lost on the march—soft 
bone, gristle, tendon and connective tissue, into most nutritious 
food, to be incorporated with the minced meat or used as stock 
for soup. The different kinds of meat, and the tongue, heart, 
brain, and concentrated soup stock might, for particular purposes, 
if desirable, be disposed in different sausages. But for army use, 
the whole might be resolved into homogeneous sausaged meat. The deficiency in sausage-cases might be supplied by sewing cot- 
ton or linen into tubes, overlapping the seams, or weaving or knit- 
ting tubes, like hose, dipping them in gelatine, and if necessary 
afterward, in tannin, to make a leathern sheath. Or the dried 
sausage material, cooked by steam, or less dried and roasted, 
might be compressed into cakes, and varnished with gelatine 
derived from scraps of the hides. 
The efficiency of dry air in removing the water, of the kreosote, 
of smoke and pyroligneous acid in coagulating the albumen and 
forming an impermeable and quite insoluble envelope, of a varnish 
of gelatine and solution of tannin, in making leather, are well 
known. The bisulphite of lime would also coagulate the albu- 
men, and besides arrest the oxygen of the air that would otherwise 
produce decomposition. I have preserved beef perfectty fresh for 
a period of seven years by sprinkling it with dry powdered sul- 
phite of lime, packing it in glass vessels, and covering with a 
stopper of plaster of paris. At the end of this period, the beef 
was as fresh and bright as when it was laid down. The intestine 
should be saturated with a solution of the bisulphite, and then 
thoroughly rinsed, before using. 
The drying of the sausage material could be carried, after 
cooking, to the limit which would allow the juices readily to dis- 
solve on the addition of water, then seasoned, and then stuffed into 
the prepared intestine, or cotton or linen-leather case, or pressed 
into forms and varnished as stated above. 
Such sausage might be fried or made to contribute to a stew, 
the great resort in camp, or hash with bread-crumbs or roasted 
wheat and water, or a soup with vegetables, when these may bs 
procured. The only cooking utensil absolutely needed would be 
the half of an old regulation canteen, or even a drinking-cup. A 
simple device suited to this want will be described further on. 
In the absence of fires, the sausages already cooked may be eaten 
plain. 
The establishment which prepares sausages for the field might 
also prepare Liebig’s juice of beef, for hospital use. Professor 
Gibbs, of Harvard University, and connected with tlie Sanitary 
Commission, from its organization has proposed, as the result of 26 
practical research, to concentrate this extract in vacuo and pre- 
serve it, and also concentrated preparations of soup stock, for 
hospital use, with the aid of sulphite of soda. It may be practi- 
cable to secure lard, or stearine, or tried fat o£ beef, or even but- 
ter, in intestinal leather. This would meet the demand for butter 
or oil, so great in camp, but hitherto regarded as a hopeless im- 
possibility to satisfy. The opening of such establishments in 
cattle-growing districts, under scientific direction and governmen- 
tal supervision, could not fail to lead to many applications of the 
principles here laid down. Mr. Borden’s long-continued labors 
in this field, crowned with distinguished success, are proof of the 
practicability of the general plan. 
THE MARCHING RATION. 
Assuming these suggestions to be carried out, the marching 
ration might consist of roasted ivheat and sausaged heef. Of these, 
each corps or division might have a stock on hand, to be drawn 
from whenever the order to march came. Of this marching ration 
there -would be nothing to spoil, nothing to injure by the rough 
handling of the pack, nothing to waste. To the last morsel, the 
roasted wheat and sausage may be eaten. There would be no 
longer the preparation every few days of the ration of boiled beef, 
or raw pork and hard bread, only to become unpalatable and then 
thrown away. There would be no wTaste of strength in transpor- 
tation, since the weight and bulk of the ration would have been 
reduced to a minimum, and the articles of diet admit of being 
packed with the least waste of space. Of this ration, a soldier 
might carry enough to sustain him in fighting condition for twelve 
days. In an emergency with the chances of occasional foraging, 
the time might be extended to twenty clays. 
If instead of roosted wheat the soldier took self-raising flour, it 
would occupy but three eighths of the space of hard bread, and the 
weight need not be more than 8 Ounces of roasted wheat, or 11 
ounces of self-raising flour. Of the dry sausaged beef, a daily ration 
need not weigh more than 8 ounces. The whole ration, taking a 
part of self-raising flour and a part of roasted wheat, with the 
sausage, and a large coffee ration, need not exceed one pound, in 27 
place of the present ration of two pounds or two and a half 
pounds, a reduction in weight of from one halftd three fifths.* 
The soldier now, in emergency, carries three days’ rations 
in his haversack and five in his knapsack. If full rations, 
they weigh 16 or 20 pounds. But great as the weight is, the 
bulk is still more objectionable. Eight days’ rations of hard bread 
packed without crushing, occupy a space of more than 500 cubic 
inches. Thefresh or salt beef would occupy 300 cubic inches, or the 
salt pork 180; the coffee and sugar about 30 ; altogether the eight 
days’ rations would fill 830 or 786 cubic inches. This great vol- 
ume makes the haversack and pack unwieldly, and it is not to be 
wondered that so much of the food is thrown away, or that the total 
actual loss in the marching rations is so enormous. But the pro- 
posed ration weighing but about three eighths or with the coffee 
ration only one half, is in bulk less than one third. The self-raising 
flour at three eighths of the hard bread, or 188 cubic inches ; the 
sausaged beef at, say 4 cubic inches for each ration, or 32 cubic 
inches in all, and the coffee and sugar at 30 cubic inches, amount to 
250 cubic inches. With the sausage rolled in the blanket, the coffee 
and sugar in one bag, and the self-raising flour or roasted wheat in 
another, the ration suffers no injury from pressure of the pack, or 
from the rain ; avoids the chances of loss, and provides palatable 
food to the end of the expedition. With the aid of mules carrying 
self-raising flour or roasted wheat and sausaged beef in bulk, it is 
not difficult to see that an army of one hundred thousand men 
might swing around from one base of supplies to another, with an 
interval of thirty or even forty days between. 
THE STATED RATION. 
For the stated ration at the base of supplies or where there is 
direct and safe communication with it, the self-raising flour offers 
the comfort of warm fresh bread, perfectly healthful though warm, 
and more healthful than the hard bread or average stale yeast 
bread, of ordinary camp supplies, and with the warm bread, a great 
variety of forms of farinaceous diet. The sausaged beef affords an 
agreeable variety, whether served plain or as a fry or stew. The 
* Captain Sir Edward Parry estimates the food necessary for men in the 
Arctic regions to be : flour, 10 ounces ; edible meat, 9 ounces ; cocoa, 1 ounce. 28 
liquified bone and tendon, with or without the desiccated vegetables 
constitute a stock for soup. For hospital purposes beside the 
bouillon or juice of the beef and the soup just named, delicate bits 
of tender meat from the line of the back bone, not accessible to 
the knife, but easily detached after steaming, may be especially 
prepared for convalescents. 
COFFEE. 
The coffee as now supplied to the army, burned and ground, 
is treated, in a large way, with boiling water and served by the 
pailful. The individual soldier prepares it, if necessary, in his cup. 
There is little exception to be taken to the supply of this constituent 
of the ration. It might be lessened in bulk and weight by making 
an extract and concentrating it at low temperature in vacuo with 
milk and sugar, the whole being reduced to a paste and put up in 
the cotton-leather tubes already mentioned. Such a preparation 
would possess within itself, antiseptic qualities of a high order. A 
teaspoonful of the paste stirred with hot water would make ex- 
cellent coffee. If used as a constituent of the marching r&tion it 
might be served with cold water. This preparation would add 
the cost of milk and some labor to the present expense of the 
coffee ration, but it is possible, nevertheless, that its convenience 
for the marching ration and its economy in transportation would 
more than counterbalance the increased expense. 
Cocoa is used in the British service with eminent satisfaction 
to the men and medical officers. In the absence of coffee, an ac- 
ceptable drink may be prepared by infusing freshly roasted 
ripe corn, or barley, or peas, or wheat. , 
TOBACCO. 
% 
The experience of camp life has shown conclusively that there 
is an article contributing greatly to the comfort of the soldier, of 
which no note is taken in the Government ration. This article is 
tobacco. It is the universal testimony of officers, chaplains, and 
especially of the rank and file, that the cheerfulness, good 
spirits and even general health of the men are greatly promoted 
by the temperate indulgence of the taste for tobacco. Soldiers 29 
caring little for the cigar at home, on furlough, find it indispensable 
on their return to camp. Some among them say that a five min- 
and smoke, when on the march, u puts them in wind 
while the five minutes rest without the smoke leaves them fagged 
and without renewed elasticity. Others, that it renders them 
oblivious of discomforts ; others, that they are less thirsty on the 
march ; others, that it gives them u pluck.” It unquestionably 
exerts, in some degree, antiseptic effects through the action of the 
carbo-hydrogen essential oils, produced by destructive distilla- 
tion in smoking, as the essential oil of coffee does. Whether 
the use of the pipe, or cigar* or chewing tobacco after a meal, by 
awakening the salivary glands and with them the general secretory 
apparatus of the alimentary canal, so promotes digestion, or 
whether the effect be more immediately upon the nervous system,- 
or whatever its strictly physiological effects may be, i.t cannot be 
doubted, that as a matter of fact and Government concern, some, 
mode of rendering tobacco more easily accessible, would be a great 
boon to the soldier. In 1853 the French Emperor decreed a daily 
ration to each soldier of one third of an ounce of smoking tobacco. 
THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE ARMY RATION. 
The problem of improving the ration of the soldier is, primarily, 
one of humanity, and secondarily, one of dollars and cents, and 
practically resolves itself into— 
How to lessen the present expenditure in the subsistence de- 
department while maintaining or increasing the health, comfort, 
and efficiency of the soldier. 
THE BREAD RATION. 
That the economy of the present mode of supplying the bread 
ration, and the excellence of the ration itself admit of improve- 
ment, may be easily shown. 
Let us assume, for the convenience of an estimate, that the dis- 
tance from the point of delivery of supplies to an army of one 
hundred thousand men is such that the cost of transportation by 
wagon, everything included, of a barrel of flour is one dollar. 30 
Taking the observations made at the Capitol bakery, Washington, 
that one wagon would carry as much flour as would load seven 
wagons with fresh light yeast bread, there would obviously be an 
enormous gain in transporting flour rather than bread. But when 
the Government sends loaf bread, it consumes scarcely two thirds, 
say 14 ounces, of the flour to which the soldier is entitled, the 
remainder being water.* 
The Government sends daily, to feed the army of 100,000 men, 
1,400,000 ounces of flour in the form of bread, weighing, in round 
numbers, 2,200,000 ounces. The soldiers are entitled to.rebelve 
ounces of flour, or 800,000 ounces more than is sent 
them in the loaf. The army therefore loses 800,000 ounces, 
or 223.4 barrels of flour daily, or 81,395 barrels annually, 
amounting, at $8 per barrel, to $661,160. The transportation 
of 1,400,000 ounces, or 442.4 barrels of flour daily, would cost 
for the year, $162,790. The transportation of the bread, on the 
other hand, made from this flour, would cost seven times as much, 
or $1,139,430. Deduct the cost of carrying the flour, $162,790, 
and we have $976,640 as the extra cost of transportation. 
But, this is not the whole loss. Where the ration of bread in the 
loaf is issued once in four days, as it has been to the army of the 
Potomac at Brandy Station during the past winter, sent from the 
Government bakeries at Alexandria—a distance of 56 miles by 
rail, and several miles further by wagons—it becomes so dry and 
hard, lying in the tent, that the new ration finds one quarter of 
the previous issue unconsumed. Here is a quarter of the 14 
ounces of flour to each soldier lost, in addition to the previous 8 
ounces, but which might have been saved if the bread had been 
eaten when freshly baked. Applying this fact to our supposed 
case of 100,000 men, wre have a loss of 3.5 ounces daily to each 
soldier, or 350,000 ounces or 97.7 barrels daily' to the whole 
army, or 35,610 barrels annually, which, at a cost of $8 per bar- 
rel, amounts to $284,880. The transportation in the form of 
bread, at seven times the cost of transportation as flour, amounts 
to $259,270. 
* Barral found the water to vary in thirty-six samples from 31.10 to 46.9 
per cent., an average of 39.04 per cent. Dr. J. F. Watson (Lawes and Gilbert, 
Trans., 1850,) found the average of forty-three loaves to be 36.37 per 
cent. 31 
The several sums, consisting of the 
Loss in flour . $651,160 
Do . 284,880 
Loss in transportation 976,640 
Do. do. 259,270 
Amount to $2,171,950 
If we assume the self-raising ingredients to cost a dollar and 
a quarter for each barrel of flour, and the flour required, to be in 
accordance with the foregoing facts, but 11 ounces to each man 
daily, or 111.908 barrels for the whole year to the army of 
100,000 men, the total cost of self-raising ingredients will be 
$139,997, winch, deducted from the above estimated loss, gives 
a net loss of $2,031,953. 
ROASTED "WHEAT. 
Let us estimate the saving in the use of roasted wheat, as com- 
pared with the use of flour, hard bread, soft bread, and self- 
raising flour. A barrel of flour, weighing 196 pounds and costing 
$B, requires for its production about 4| bushels of wheat, weigh- 
ing 2TO pounds. Roasted, it weighs about 20 per cent, less, or 
216 pounds, or 8,456 ounces. At 8 ounces to a ration of roasted 
wheat, we should have, from the wheat which will produce one 
barrel of flour— 
142.5 rations of flour, at.. 22 ounces each. 
176 do. hard bread, at 17.5* do. 
224 do. soft bread, at 14 do. 
285 do. self-raised bread, at 11 do. 
432 do. roasted wheat, at 7.2 do. 
An army of 100,000 men would consume, in a year, of the 
ration 
Of 22 oz., 256,058 bbls. flour, costing, at $8 perbbl., $2,048,464 
17.5 do. 197,863 do. do. do. 1,582,904 
14 do. 162,946 do. do. do. 1,303,568 
11 do. 128,029 do. do. do. 1,024,232 
7.2 do. 83,800' do. do. do. 670,400 
water. 
* The flour, in being resolved into hard bread, loses about 10 percent, of its 32 
The saving, by using the roasted wheat, over the hard bread 
and flour ration, leaving out of account the cost of the preparation 
of the hard bread and roasted wheat, is— 
In cost to the Gov’t. 
Over hard bread ration $912,504, 
Flour do. .. .1,318,064, 
If we add a dollar a barrel for transportation from the base of 
supplies, for extra transportation of flour and hard bread, (the 
barrel of which weighs but 75 pounds,) we shall have— 
For saving in transportation over hard bread $412,156’ 
do. do. > flour 112,258 
Adding this to the loss above we shall have— 
* For total saving of roasted wheat over hard bread,.... $1,384,660 
do, do. flour 1,550,322 
Taking the average saving of these three modifications of the 
bread ration we have $1,655,645. 
THE MEAT RATION. 
I do not propose to consider the question of a possible sub- 
stitute for salt pork and salt beef. The supply of these arti- 
cles to the army must continue, for the reason that they possess 
certain important qualities suiting them to the practical require- 
ments of the Government. They will keep in bulk, and may be pur- 
chased, like flour, in quantity, at rates but little fluctuating, in 
all parts of the country. Moreover, the greater proportion of 
the rank and file of our armies are accustomed to them as articles 
of diet. Let us look at the considerations in favor of the sup- 
ply of fresh beef in the form of sausaged meat.* 
* The increasing relish for salt pork over salt beef in our armies has already 
been alluded to. The experience of the French soldier shows the large rela- 
tive demand for fresh beef. The total consumption of meats by the French 
army in the Crimea was about in the following proportions, taking 8 ounces 
of canned meat to be the edible equivalent of 20 ounces of fresh beef, includ- 
ing bone, tendon, gristle, &c., such as is usually supplied to marching troops : 
Salt beef. Salt pork. Fresh beef. 
I : 10 : 20 33 
For convenience in forming an estimate, let it be required to 
provide an army of 100,000 men, situated as the Army of the 
Potomac may be expected to be during the coming campaign, with 
fresh beef on alternate days. Let us further assume that the 
cattle are drawn from the State of Illinois, or Ohio, or Indiana, 
and that the cattle on the hoof, in their native pastures, weigh 
1,200 to 1,800 pounds, or on an average 1,600 pounds each. 
The problem may be thus stated: How can the nutriment ex- 
isting in an ox weighing 1,500 pounds in Illinois, be best supplied 
to the Army of the Potomac ? 
Good cattle vary much in the relative proportions of flesh, 
bone, gristle, tallow, and volume of viscera, as well as in size, and 
more still in the hardships and deprivation of food to which the 
exigencies of the service may subject them; but from inquiries 
of drovers, butchers, persons engaged in preserving, curing, 
packing, and selling meats, and of commissary officers in active 
service, the following statements may be regarded as trustworthy. 
The ox may be sent by rail to Washington, incurring the 
hazard of the closely packed car, with little rest, or water, or 
food, or sleep, for the entire trip of several days and nights, and, 
on his. arrival at Washington or soon after, driven about in the train 
of the army, with but scanty forage—at the best a starving, sick ox, 
till consigned to the butcher; or, the ox may be brought to New 
York or Boston, consuming six or eight days efnd nights from the 
pastures in Illinois-, feeding.at Niagara Falls and at Albany, and 
losing, say only 100 pounds* of the dressed carcass, and the edible 
portion put up at its normal weight, without drying, as cooked 
meat in cans, with one tenth of fat added. 
Or the ox may be slaughtered fresh from the pastures in Illinois 
without any of the deterioration or hazards of long transportation, 
the total edible meat cooked, reduced to one third of its weight 
by removing the water at low temperature and so retaining its 
juices in concentrated form, and put up in condition to be pre- 
served ; the soft bones, tendon, and gristle, being reduced to an 
emulsion by steam under pressure and dried to the condition ne- 
cessary for admixture with the sausaged beef proper. • 
* Estimates uniformly place the loss at 200 pounds. 34 
By the first method, the cattle are so reduced by deprivations 
and hardships that the intestinal tallow disappears, and with it 
most of the kidney tallow and lump fat, the muscles shrink, the 
tendon and gristle relatively augment, and there is such general 
deterioration that, applying the observation by commissary officers 
in some of the brigades of the Army of the Potomac made upon 
cattle estimated to weigh, in good condition, 1,300 pounds on the 
hoof, as already shown, to cattle weighing 1,500 pounds, the four 
dressed quarters would weigh but 240 pounds ; of this, 60 pounds 
only, are actually consumed by the soldier. If this be below the 
average for the Army of the Potomac, it is certainly above the 
the average for the Army at Chattanooga, and if there be some- 
thing in favor of the greater weight, because larger cattle are 
frequently better cattle, it is probably much more than balanced 
by the losses by sickness, casualties of transportation, and other 
deteriorating causes, not especially referred to in this estimate. 
The tallow, as already remarked, is wanting ; the hide is lost on 
the march ; no use is made of the bones, marrow, tendon, or gristle, 
the juice of meat that is boiled is lost; and altogether it may be 
safely assumed that if, in individual cases, the yield is sometimes 
larger, the actual meat eaten by the soldier is not under estimated. 
By the second method, as a consequence of the exhaustion of 
the long ride and fasting, the ox loses say only 100 pounds of 
the body and juices of the meat, reducing by so much the weight 
of the dressed quarters. Of the dressed quarters, two thirds, in- 
cluding one tenth fat, might- be canned. Giving 33 per cent, to 
shrinkage, 100 pounds to head and hide, 100 pounds to in- 
testinal tallow, and 50 pounds to kidney tallow and lump fat, 
there would remain 684 pounds. Of this, two thirds are 456 
pounds. 
By the third method, without transportation, and the loss of 
the substance and juices of the meat which it occasions ; without the 
losses by sickness or accident by railway, the dressed quarters, 
without the kidney tallow, would weigh 784 pounds ; and as it 
would be safe to assume at the least, 16 pounds less shrinkage 
than in the case of transportation in the cars, on the hoof, to 
Boston, this would give a round 800 pounds for the weight of 
the dressed quarters. 35 
Of these 800 pounds, two thirds may be claimed as edible, 
including the heart, tongue, and brain, together with the inter- 
muscular but not lump fat. Besides these 533 pounds of strictly 
edible meat, the remainder of 26T pounds of bone, gristle, tendon, 
and connective tissue—with a primary digestion in water at 212°, 
and a secondary treatment of the soft bones, tendon, and gristle, with 
wrater at higher temperature, preparatory to incorporation with 
the great body of the meat—may be assumed to have a nutritive 
value of, at the least, 167 pounds, making TOO pounds in all. 
These TOO pounds may be cooked, reduced to one third of their 
weight, or 233|- pounds, and put up, seasoned and compressed 
in sausage form, or as cylinders, or cakes varnished with gelatine, 
for convenient transportation and ready use. It may be desirable 
to reduce the weight of some of the forms of cooked meat, as the 
roasted for example, somewhat less.* 
By the first method, the ox on the hoof at 8 cents a pound, anq 
weighing at Washington 1,400 pounds, costs $112.00, and yields 
60 pounds of edible meat at $1.86.6 per pound. 
By the second method, there are 450 pounds of canned meats, 
put up at Boston, at 23 cents a pound and costing, $103.50 ; for 
transportation to the army, say $4.50. Total, $lOB.OO ; making 
450 pounds at 24 cents a pound. 
By the third method, the live ox of 1,500 pounds weight, at 6 
cents a pound in Illinois would cost $90.00 ; assume the cost of 
dressing, cooking, curing, and packing at $14.00. Total, $104.00 ; 
to be reduced by the value of the hide and tallow, say $16.00. 
For transportation of the sausaged meat of the entire ox an equiv- 
alent of 700 pounds of edible meat reduped in weight to one third, 
say $8.00; a net cost of $91.00 ; making 700 pounds-at 13 
cents a pound. 
Placing these results side by side, the Illinois ox of 1,500 pounds 
weight on foot, would yield by the first method 60 pounds at 
$1.86.6 a pound; total, $112.00. By the.second method, 450 
* The pemmican put up for Sir John Richardson’s boat voyage through 
Rupert’s Land, was made from rounds of lean beef, dried to one fourth of its 
weight, ground and mixed with an equal weight of beef suet or lard. A pro- 
portion of it was mixed with Zante currants and another proportion with sugar. 36 
pounds at 24 cents a pound; total, $lOB.OO. By the third method, 
TOO pounds at 13 cents a pound ; total, $91.00. 
One hundred dollars would deliver— 
By the first method 53J pounds. 
“ second “ 416J 
“ third “ 769 
To supply 100,000 men with alternate daily rations of 5 ounces 
of edible meat* for a year, (the Potomac Army are supplied with 
fresh beef 4 days in the week,) would cost— 
By the first method. $11,136,32? 
“ second “ 1,425,1781 
“ third “ 741,406 
The saving to the Government by the adoption of the Second 
method would be $9,710,547 ; of the third method would be 
$10,394,922. 
For a smaller number of men, or for a less time, or for points 
of easier access, the loss would be correspondingly less. Upon the 
basis of the cost of the fresh beef ration at Hilton Head, the loss 
would be $6,496,826. But for an army less favorably situated, 
if the edible meat of the ration be increased to eight or ten ounces 
instead of five, the expense would be greater. Admitting the data 
to be in the main correct, and the future will probably show that 
they cannot vary far from the truth, there seems no way of escap- 
ing the conviction of an appalling loss in prospect by the present 
system of supplying the fresh beef ration. 
LOSS OF THE MARCHING RATION. 
Assuming the present daily .ration to cost but 24 cents, the loss 
of one third as already mentioned, amounts for 100,000 men at 8 
cents daily to $B,OOO ; for 365 days, to $2,920,000. But the 
ration will cost much more. There were times before the war 
when it was as low as 8 cents. During the first year of the war 
it was some 16 cents. Last year it was about 22 cents for some 
of the aripies. For the coming year it will not probably be less 
than.36 cents. 
* This is the estimated quantity which the 20 ounces of poor meat with its 
bone, tendon, gristle, &c., actually yields to the soldier. 37 
This would increase the amount to $4,380,000. 
But this is independent of many of the expenses of transporta- 
tion. Taking into account the building of roads, the repairs of 
railroads, the renewing of bridges, purchase of locomotives and 
trains, steamboats and fuel, losses of steamboats, losses by 
accident, capture, deterioration, &c., included in the cost of 
transportation, it would probably be within the limits of safety 
to say that, for this estimate half the price of the raw material 
would be saved in transportation if the tosses of the marching 
ration could be saved. This would be $2,190,000 ; and the total 
loss of material and by extra transportation, 6,570,000. 
Upon the basis of these estimates, the cost to the Government 
above what it need be, applied to an army of 600,000 men, 
■would be for a single year 
On the fresh beef ration, according to the extreme estimate in the 
army of the Potomac $62,334,632 
Or accordfng to the basis of the cost at Hilton Head 38,980,957 
On the marching ration 39,420,000 
On the average bread ration. 9,933,870 
The estimate of the marching ration may, to a small extent, 
overlap the other two. I have assumed also that the whole 
bread should be fresh, whereas it is, on the march more espe- 
cially, almost exclusively hard. Without access to the details 
of the subsistence and quartermaster’s departments, it is impos- 
sible to form an accurate estimate of how large the losses are, or 
how great the saving that might be effected. The armies of the 
Gulf and of Tennessee have derived their beef in great degree 
from the enemy’s country, and where this mgy take place here- 
after, it would in so far reduce the cost of supplies to the Govern- 
ment. It may be necessary to deduct something from, or add 
something to the estimated loss in transportation, and what is 
true of the points where observation has been conducted may not 
be equally true in other parts of the field of war. The estimates 
by which I have been guided are some of them possibly too high; 
others, I am confident, are too tow, in view of the present prices 
of subsistence. In the light of the foregoing figures and state- 
ments, however, it is obvious that for the total army the prospect- 
ive losses to the Government, the soldier, and the country, in 38 
the subsistence department and the quartermaster’s department, 
connected with the purchase and movement of commissary sup- 
plies, and in the exigencies of the service, the losses which the 
present system inevitably entails, and which it is practicable to 
avoid, are of the most stupendous magnitude. 
There is still another consideration. The cattle of the country 
are disappearing. Our ability to furnish the army with fresh 
beef is diminishing in a fearful ratio. We shall, at no distant 
period, approximate the condition in which the South is now. 
With this loss of the larger-sized cattle first, and the smaller 
in their turn, there must be corresponding rise in the cost of 
working cattle, and of meats for domestic consumption, not ap- 
plying to the term of the war only, but to the years immediately 
following. 
THE PRESENT RATION EXCESSIVE. 
It may be questioned whether there is a sound reason for the 
present excessive ration. The Government would have the sol- 
dier feel that he is cared for. This is well. But if the soldier 
can be better fed, at reduced, cost, let him receive the extra 
allowance as an ultimate bounty, or in increased monthly pay; 
but not in perishable food, which it is not in human nature or the 
reasonable possibilities of things in active service to save, or con- 
sume, or convert info money in the absence of available transpor- 
tation or a market. The company fund, it is feared, is a practi- 
cal myth. In some divisions of the army it is wffiolly prohibited. 
It may be confidently asserted that it is better to increase the 
certainty and regularity cf an adequate ration, than provide an 
uncertain, irregular, and sometimes deficient, though ordinarily 
excessive ration. 
WHERE DOES THE FAULT LIE ? 
The fault I have endeavored to point out is not chargeable 
upon officers or men. It is inherent in the composition of the 
ration and the exigencies of the service. 39 
COOKING UTENSILS IN THE FIELD. 
To render practicable the proposed changes in the form of the 
meat and bread ration, cooking utensils and conveniences are 
required, of less number, weight and complication than those now 
in use. The necessary dietary equipment, assuming the bread 
to be supplied cither as loaf bread or as hard bread, is now, for 
the individual soldier, a tinned iron plate, a knife, fork, and 
spoon, a canteen for water and a cup for coffee ; for the company, 
baking-pans and frying-pans, and camp-kettles for soup, for boil- 
ing meats and vegetables, and for making coffee. The soldier carries 
his plate, fork, and spoon in his haversack, his canteen is slung over 
the shoulder with his haversack, and his cup is 'made fast to his 
knapsack or belt. The kettles, frying-pans and bake-pans are some- 
times carried by men detailed for the purpose, but more frequently 
in the regimental wagon, or on the backs of mules; and on the march 
are often a long distance in the rear. They are sometimes cap- 
tured or lost. After the fatigue of a long march or the sufferings 
of an engagement, they are, in the latter case more especially, 
almost certain as a matter of safety to be a long distance from 
the point where they can be of service. 
From the time the Army of the Potomac left Falmouth through 
all the march to Gettysburg and back to Brandy Station—a whole 
campaign—the camp-kettles in some regiments were not once 
brought into service. This statement from a brigade commissary 
is of itself sufficient to show how unsuited the devices in use are 
to long campaigns in such a country as ours. 
What is needed on the march is a set of utensils which shall 
meet the actual wants ; which shall make the soldier, if necessary, 
independent of his mess ; which shall enable him to bake, boil, 
stew, and fry by himself, and which set of utensils having nothing 
superfluous, shall occupy the least amount of space and he so at- 
tached to. his equipments as to be exposed to the fewest chances of 
being lost. Of all that the soldier carries he parts last with his can- 
teen. His haversack, pack, ammunition, and gun may be aban- 
doned in his fatigue, or on the retreat, but his canteen will be the 
last to be dropped. It contains the drink to refresh him in his 
weariness. The canteen then, should be the nucleus about which 40 
such articles connected with the preparation and serving of his 
food as are needed, should he arranged. 
To meet these wants, I have devised a u struck up,” tin or sheet 
iron case for the regulation canteen, consisting of two concave 
pans. They are held on to the canteen by a fork and spoon so 
locked as not to loosen, and the cord suspending the canteen is 
attached to one of the pans, so that the whole must be put to- 
gether in order that the canteen may bo carried. The other pan 
is provided with a staple into which the fork may be inserted, 
making a frying pan for stews, fries, and hashes, or a roaster for 
corn, wheat, peas, &c. One of the halves serves as a plate from 
which the soldier may eat, the other as a cup for boiling water and 
making coffee; the two together as a bake-pan and cover or oven 
in which, buried in the hot ashes, he may bake the dough from his 
self-raising flour. It supersedes the plate, spoon, and fork now 
carried in his haversack, makes the soldier independent of camp- 
kettles, bake pans, and frying pans, and withal, adds not more than 
a pound to the weight of the canteen. With a simple coifee mill, 
(one to a mess will occupy but a few cubic inches, and may be ar- 
ranged to be attached for use to the muzzle of the gun,) the soldier 
can grind his plain or roasted wheat or corn, and with the canteen 
case realize the maxim of Napoleon that each man should be 
able, with the supply of raw material, to cook his food thoroughly, 
by himself.* 
* Dr. Robert Jackson, Inspector General of the Hospitals of the English 
army, in his great work on the Formation, Discipline and Economy of Armies 
says of .cooking utensils—“ One quart canteen carried by the individual him- 
self, if it be approved, (and it is undoubtedly to be preferred, that the mess be 
cooked individually,) a tin pint porringer, an iron spoon, a small knife and 
fork, a flask or canteen for water, comprise the soldiers’ table and kitchen 
equipment for the field.” The above remark which fell under my observation 
after I had completed my device and and brought it to practical test, is the 
nearest approach to the solution of the problem I have met with in any writer. 
It remained to do little more than reduce the space required by the articles to 
a minimum, and render the liabilities to loss as little as possible. 
Col. Delafield of the Engineers, in his report on the “Art of War in 
Europe,” illustrates the equipment for cooking in mess in the Austria, English, 
French, Russian, and Sardinian armies. The utensils are kettles and pans, 
comfortly arranged for transportation in wagons, or alternately by the mem- 
bers of the mess. The English Sardinian Governments only have attempted 
to provide utensils for the individual soldier, enabling him to cook indepen- 41 
PORTABLE MESS OVEN. 
To meet the want of an oven for baking bread from the self- 
raising flour in camp, I have devised a simple contrivance for the 
mess, doing away with the necesity of an oven, and a separate 
fire. Plain sheet iron, T inches wide, is bent into a trough 4 
inches wide on the bottom, 4i inches on the top and inch 
deep. Two or more of them are placed end to end, slightly 
overlapping each other. Into this trough, imbedded in hot ashes, 
the stiff dough, from the self-raising flour, just thoroughly stirred 
up with water is deposited and covered by a similar set of pans 
inverted, and then covered with hot ashes. In such pans the 
bread may be baked at the ordinary camp fire in from 80 to 45 
minutes from the time the flour is taken from the barrel. In 
transportation, the component parts of the oven admit of being 
closely packed, and for each mess the weight will be trifling. 
IS THERE ANY DOUBT ABOUT THE ADVANTAGES OF THE PRO- 
POSED MODIFICATIONS OF THE ARMY RATION I 
Of the convenience, healthfulness, and economy of the concen- 
trated, boiled and roasted beef, in the form of sausage meat, on the 
march, there can be no doubt. Of its suitedness to cavalry ex- 
peditions there can be no question. Of the practicability of its 
preparation there is no doubt. The processes are, individually, 
all old. It can, of course, be carried in bulk as easily as pork, 
and an equivalent in nutritive value would weigh much less. 
Of the advantages of more or less fresh bread, in place of the 
continued use of hard bread, whether in winter quarters or on the 
march, and especially with raw recruits, there can be no doubt. Of 
the practicability of the transportation of self-raising flour in bulk, 
dent of his squad. They are substantially dwarf mess kettles, strapped to the 
knapsack. Of the French system, Col. Delafield remarks, “that it does 
not admit of the soldier carrying his day’s provisions, or of his having at 
command the means of cooking for himself, independent of the squad to which 
he belongs.” Of the Austrians, he says, “they are transported in baggage 
wagons. This may be considered its greatest disadvantage as they are not at 
band when the troops halt and most need it.” 42 
wherever hard bread can be carried, there is no doubt, siftce it 
would not injure by jolting or wetting, and occupies but about 
three eighths of the bulk of hard bread. It can be baked in mess 
without ovens; or by each soldier, on the march, wherever fires 
are permitted. 
Of the adaptation of roasted and groun|. wheat to cavalry ex- 
peditions, or to rapid movements of infantry and artillery, where 
the extreme of light marching condition is necessary, there can be 
no doubt. 
Nor is there any doubt that, with the aid of the devices already 
described, the soldier may cook his food, if necessary, from the 
raw material carried from his base of supplies, or obtained on the 
line of march. 
The sausaged beef for the marching ration might be in the form 
of cylinders, two inches in diameter, and of such length as to roll 
up with the blanket. The self-raising flour, or roasted and ground 
wheat, might be carried in a bag in the haversack. 
SUMMARY. 
’■ The proposed modifications in the ration would reduce the con- 
sumption of flour from <me half to two thirds, with increased com- 
fort and profit to the men, saving or transportation to the Govern- 
ment, and of raw material to the country. 
They would reduce enormously the consumption of cattle with 
advantage to the soldier, saving to the Government in money and 
of cattle to the country. 
They would, in great degree, prevent the loss of the one third 
of the total commissary supplies now sacrificed in the marching 
ration. 
The weight of the day’s marching ration might be reduced to 
from 13 to 16 ounces, in place of the present ration of from 32 to 
40 ounces; and in bulk, to 35 cubic inches, in place of the pres- 
ent 100 cubic inches, without any diminution of the nutritive 
value. Twenty days’ rations of the proposed supply may be more 
easily carried than the present eight days’ rations. 
Finally, the proposed ration would increase the mobility of the 
army, and save time.