The Delaware farmer., 1883-08-31
SOLDIERS HARD-TACK.
Something About the Crackers the Soldier
Boys Filled their Haversaeks with.

As L write, there lies before me on nv
table an innocent-looking cracker, which
l have faithfully preserved for years. 1t
is about the size and has the appearance
of an ordinary soda biscuit If you take
it in your hand you will find it somewhat
heavier than an ordinary biscuit, and if
you bite it-but, no; will not let you
bite it, for I wish to see how long I can
keep it. But if you were to reduce it to
a fine powder, you would find that it
would absorb a greater quantity of water
than an equal quantity Of ordinary flour.
You would also observe that it is very
hard. This you may, perhaps, think is
to be attributed to its great age. But if
you imagine that its age is to be meas
ured only by the years which have
elapsed since the war, you are greatly
mistaken; for there was a common belief
among the boys that our hard-tack had
been baked long before the commence
ment Of the Christian era This opinion
was based upon the fact that the letters
b. @. were stamped on many, if not, in
deed, all of the cracker boxes. To be
sure, there were some sleptics who shook
their heads, and maintained that these
mysterious letters We're the initials of the
name Of some army contractor or in
5pector of supplies, but the belief was
and deep-seated that they
were certainly intended to set forth the
era in which our bread had been baked. I
For our hard-tack were very hard. 1t !
vas difficult to break them with the
eeth. Some of them you could not {
racture with your fist. Still, there was
n immense amount of nourishment in 7
hem-when once you had learned how n
0 getat it. Itrequired some experience o
nd no little hunger to enable one to ap- h
reciate hard-tack Alright, and it de- V
handed no small amount of inventive II
over to understand how to cook hard q,
lcl as they ought to be cooked. If oi
correctly, in our section of the II
cmy we had not less than fifteen differ q,
ut ways of preparing them. In other W
arts. 1 understand, they had discovered of
le or two more ways; but with us, fif- e,
en- was the limit of the culinary art of
hen hard-tack was on board. Or
On the march they were usually not Al,
oked at all, but eaten in raw state. 10
order, however, to make them some 70
nat more palatable, you simply cut to
WI a slice Of nice fat pork, laid the bo
rk on your cracker, put a spoonful Of on
own sugar on top of the pork, and you eff
d a dish fit for a-soldier. Of course, vi
g pork had Just come out of the pickle a.
d was consequently raw. When we s+,.
tied for coffee, we sometimes had fric-
eed hard-tack--prepared by toasting NJ,
I'M before hot Goals. When, as was ,rb
lerally the case on a march. our hard H.,
k had been broken into small pieces aI,i
our haversacks, we soaked these in aro
ter and fried them in pork fat, stirring onc
], and seasoning with salt and SUIT the
S pepper, thus making what was COM He
My known as ''hishy-hashy," or a and
)t-hred stew" ora
hus you see what vast and unsus- e.,
ted possibilities reside in this inno- =
three-and-a-half inch square hard s.1t C.
( lying here on my table bofore me. 49,. 49,
ee like this specimen made meal, r., Fs
nine were a ration; and this is what ".9s 49,
5ht the battles for the Union.-.H. w. 49,
holas for Septen16er. - -