The weekly herald. [volume] (Cleveland, Tenn.) 1876-1888, 1881-08-12
MULE MEAT As A DELICACY.
Expo dients OF the Confederate Soldiers al
the siege of Port Hudson.

the siege Of Port Hudson.
ID. P. Smith, in the Philadelphia
Times, says: The twenty-frst of May,
1862, found Port Hudson invested
by an army of thirty thousand men,
while Farragut's feet guarded the river /;
but the garrison of six thousand men
was provisioned for two months, so no
alarm was felt in regard to short rations,
as no one realized that the siege would
last more than few weeks. About the
tenth of June a shell-they had been
seeking it for three weeks-found the
commissary building, set it on fire, and,
with it, destroyed two thousand bushels
of corn and the grist-mill. Heavy were
the hearts of the corn bread loving
soldiery. Reduced rations of unground
corn and COW peas were issued for sew
eral days, till the commissary rugged
up portable grist-mill in the depot,
banded from the driving wheels of an
old locomotive blocked up. The COM
missary was getting SO low that the ex-
.pedient was tried of mixing it with peas,
but it was not a success, as the pea
meal would not cook in the bread, and
the peas were issued as a separate IA.
ton. On the nineteenth of June the
mill was in good order, and a pound of
meal was issued per day, with liberal
ration of peas and half pound of
bacon.
The supply of fresh beef was ex-
hausted early in the siege, but the bacon
lasted till about the twenty-ffth of
June A number of mules remained,
which, unworked, had grown fat roam
ing through the fields and woods.
Some of these were slaughtered and the
meat served out to all who would take
it. The flesh was rather coarse but
tender, with much of the flavor of veni-
son. 1t was very fat, and the Dutch
ovens in which it was baked would be
half-full of yellow oil. Many of the
soldiers could not eat the novel food,
and lived on a corn-meal- pea diet.
To suit these delicate stomachs the
commissary corned considerable
amount of choice portions Of the meat,
and, announcing that forty barrels of
corned beef had been discovered issued
it to all. The general verdict was that
it was an unusually good article. Though
reduced to very coarse fare, those of the
garrison who kept well did not suffer
for food, for when other rations failed
there were COW peas, and these well boiled
made very tolerable dinner. Beaten
in q mortar till the hull was loosenod
and then winnowed, they were not fan
inferior to English split peas. They
were slowed in bulk on the floor of an
old church, whose windows the concus-
sion of the bombardment, and, perhaps,
stray shell or two, had shattered into
fragments. In spite of care it was not
uncommon to get splinter of glass
in the mouth while eating dinner. The
soldiers were accustomed to pea fare at
home, but seasoned with bacon, and
they pronounced ii dry eating with
glass as a substitute for meat. As the
well men had to eat at the breastworks
day and night, the cooking was done by
negroes and details in sheltered spots in
the rear; but the cooks had no bomb.
proof positions, and minnie balls and
fragments of shell fell even in the fires
One of the most serious questions to be
solved by cooks and commissaries was
to provide food for the sick. BY the
latter part of June at least fifteen hun.
dred men were on the sick and wounded
lists. Boiled COW peas and mule steaks
were not dishes for invalids, but tbeil
we'll comrades devised wa to giveys
them some delicacies. Bullets were
cut up into shot and wandering bird
occasionally killed, but the lombard
ment was too heavy for many such tc
find their way into the lines. Rats
however, were plentiful, burrowing
even under the Notifications, and many
a one was served up in the hospitals as
squirrel On July eighth, with about Q
weeks rations for the twenty-five hun
dred men able to eat still on hand, Port
Hudson was surrendered.