The Kemper herald. (Scooba, Miss.) 1875-1908, 1903-08-06
Our Knsr'o'n 3oId'sr
and H. food.
BY J. E. jerks.

BY J. {. Jerks.

1881 eFS, us ne may 90 unuer
M M recent legislation, he will
find provided for him a
system of subsistence intricate in us
variety and bounty to meet all the con-
ditions of military service. He need
no longer depend upon the uncertain
ties of the forage, rs did so often his
predecessor of the Civil War, and he
will be so much better fed than his fell
low of the foreign armies that he can
appreciate why the officers of the Eu-
ropean commands of the allied forces
In China on that memorable march to
Pekin were anxious to buy the Amer
lean army ration of our subsistence
officers and satisfy the cravings of
~soldierly hunger.
The militiaman, along with the regu-
lar, will go into the field when the call
for action comes unhampered by any
burden of food, save that bountiful
repast of indigestibles with which he
is certain to be laden when he leaves
home. He may, If he choose, save from
his camp meals or from the contribu-
lions of sympathetic citizens such food
as he wishes to carry on his person,
but or the ordinary march and in camp
his havergack, the successor of the
cumbersome knapsack, need contain no
food, for his ration on the road will
be transported by one Of the numerous
means OF transportation. Difficulties
of travel, however, such as were en-
countered by our soldiers in Cuba,
should be taken into account.
The soldier Of the Civil War usually
had a hard time of it. He was fire.
quently forced to carry his W food,
and was lucky when he did not find
himself on a ten-day march with only
a four-day supply. In those days and
ever since the trooper found fat bacon
and the succulent baked bean his staple
articles when there was the opportun-
ity of cooking them. If any article of
food Is a national characteristic Of our
army 1t is the bean, which is so popu-
lar that no military meal in the field
or In camp-is considered wholly COM
plete without 1t. The soldier Of to-day
need not regard his ~gastronomic situa-
tion as perilous. He will not find his
officers offering $40 for a pitiful
cracker, as was sometimes the case in
the South in the sixties, and he will
not be so hard pressed for food as to
be grateful for young alligator tails, as
were our soldiers in Florida during the
war with the Seminole Indians. An
ntln~ fo~1 ~ %h. 4.nn. -v.- -
species of cabbage which grew at the
top Of the palmetto-tree. This pre-
served the men from starvation, which
is not likely to confront the soldier who
goes into action nowadays, for he will
fnd the railroad or the wagon train
penetrating into the Businesses close
upon his heels.
The service on the Western plains
has been made comparatively COM
forta BILE, now that the troops do not
have to depend upon the bull teams,
capable of making no more than ten
miles a day. Time was when the men
sailed forth with the prospect Of 60
ing without, oftaner than getting, their
dinners. and they were happy with a
piece of fat bacon, a hard biscuit, and
a tin dish Of blacklist coffee. They had
on those occasions flour fresh from the
bag, and were glad OF the resultant
'fapjack" when they could find
enough wood or other fuel on the arid
prairie to make a fire. II their bacon
gave out, as it sometimes did in the
Nny1thnrn cv-an1nc fhar- OTTO anaIy1I
horse, and 1t is on record that General
Harney's trusty animal served that
beneficent office.
The soldier of to-day goes forth with
the assurance that he will get his
three meals a day served for him, and
that he will not be obliged to carry his
food except upon the rare occasions
of emergency, when he may be re-
CURED to take not more than five days
rations. AT such times he would find
awaiting him an emergency ration
consisting of sixteen ounces Of hard
bread, ten ounces Of bacon, four
ounces Of pea-meal, two ounces OF
coffee. roasted and ground, with four
grains of saccharin Tor one-half ounce
of tea with four grains Of saccharin),
a little salt and pepper, and a half
ounce of tobacco, or a little more than
thirty-three ounces in all. In the ra-
ton package he would find the com
ponents separately wrapped, the bacon
in tough parafin paper, the hard bread
In g~rease-proof coverings, and the pea
meal in cylindrical packages, and the
other articles in small waterproof pack
cts.
When the militiaman joins the regu-
lar in garrison he may find himself in
the company mess, which is the most
| popular of the forms Of army sub
~sistence under peaceful conditions, or
he may live in the consolidated mess,
where all the troops of the biggest
garrison eat in the common mess-hall.
where the liquids are measured by gal
ions and the solids by bushels. The