The Eleventh Iowa is at home now in wedge tents, with four
men to a tent, and we are experiencing more changes in living. Irish potatoes
have been dropped from our rations and we have no tables now at which to eat
our meals. When the orderly sergeant draws the rations, the company cook calls
out for every man to come and get his portion — of hardtack, bacon, sugar,
salt, pepper, soap and candles. The cook makes the coffee, boils the beans and
salt beef (fresh beef twice a week), and at noon calls each man to get his
day's rations of bean soup and meat. The coffee he makes three times a day,
each man having his own tin cup for his coffee. Each one prepares his own bacon
to suit his taste, many eating it raw between two pieces of hard-tack. Every
one has his own plate, knife and fork.
Our regiment received marching orders with ten days’
rations, and so we have to leave just as we were getting settled in our tent
camp.
Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B.,
Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 23
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