Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1897-07-24
TURNED BOTTOM UP.

utIlnS lnSlGe Une Otner 10 save space In
transportation. One of these boilers
was for soup or meat or potatoes, the
other for tea or coffee. Then we had
some pans to fry meat in. The boilers
and the pans and the stovepipe could all
be put inside the stove. When we moved
we used to pack them that way for
transportation. 1t made a convenient
package to slide in and out of a wagon,
and it didn't take up overmuch room.
Theoretically it was good army cook
ing outfit, and so it was practically as
long as we could use it; and it would
have beenalways if war could always be
carried on methodically; if we could al
ways have wagons to move things with
and could always be where we could get
new stoves when the old ones wore out.
AS it was, the outfit was a comfort and
convenience as long as it lasted, which
] think was about three or four months.
"We had already begun to use camp
kettles, and there came time when we
gave up the stove for good. 1t had come
to be pretty we'll battered up-sides
caved in, big dents in the top, stovepipe
ragged and frayed on the ends, the
whole outfit pretty well bunged up and
played out-and finally one time, when
we broke camp and marched, we left
the old stove behind. Thereafter we
carried camp kettles. When we moved,
If we had wagon, we put the kettles in
that; if we didn't, then we nested them
together and put a stick through the
handle of the biggest kettle, and the
cook took one end and some other man
the other, and away they went, with the
camp kettles suspended from the sticks
and banging now and then against the
nubS in the road. If the road was too
rough, or sometimes just for a change,
the men would hoist the stick up and
carry it on their shoulders. When we
went into camp again, or halted, a man
would cut a couple of crotched sticks
and drive them into the ground We
would rest the ends of the stick holding
the camp kettles in these crotches and
build a fire under the kettles, and there
you were.
The loss of the soup was one of the
last incidents that attended the use of
the stove. For n week or more at that
time wehad had nothing to eat but pork
and hard bread, and then by an ex-
traordinarily fortunate combination of
circumstances the commissary hadfresh
meat, potatoes and onions to issue all
on the same day. 1t was sort of
spontaneous sense of our company,
crystallized in the openly expressed
opinions of two or three of the men, and
by them communicated to the cook,
that our rations ought to be made into
soup. The sutler had that day received,
too, lot of cabbages. Some of the men
in our company bought half dozen
cabbages, which they turned into the
common stock; the cook cut them up
and put them intothe soup, made in the
biggest wash boiler.
81 remember the day well. 1t was in
November and the sky was overcast.
There was high wind which blew
square across the camp, from the rear
toward the color line. 1t swept past the
stove and down through our company
street, laden with the odors of our soup.
Men could smell it in their tents, but
some men came out and loungedaround
outside, so as to sniff up the air in the
street. When it came pretty near time
for the dinner call the mem all gathered
around the stove with their plates and
spoons and waited, and looked at the
stove, and the boiler, and the cook, and
thought of the soup. The soup was
done, and the cook was going TO take it
off. 1t was about time for the call to
sound, and the men began to fall in.
The cook took hold of the boiler by the
handle at one end and slowed ii around,
and began pulling it off the stove, at the
same time calling to man on the other
Eide of the stove to come around and
take the other handle.
"Three-quarters of the company
stood looking on, thinking how near
they were to the soup. The cook con-
inued to pull the boiler off, so as to
make it easier to lift off finally, and
he had it all Off over the ground but one
end. Their he Slowed the boiler around