Extra Credit Questions

[L Verge]

The only time I've ever seen this term used, I think it had something to do with giving free railroad transportation passes to folks who had served during the Civil War. I think it also included nurses? The article I saw it in was related to a debate in Congress over the issue, but that's all I remember.

[LincolnMan]

Steve and Anita basically got it: the term refers to a coward.

[Anita]

No internet searching please.

Early into the Civil War a man named Sanderson made an important contributions to the well-being of soldiers. Who was he and what was his contribution?

[AussieMick]

Improved the boot-making process?

[RJNorton]

Passed out earplugs to help protect soldiers' ears from all the noise?

[Eva Elisabeth]

I think vitamin pills are an early 20th century invention, yet I have no other idea. Something to improve nutrition? (I'm thinking of seafarers - rickets, beriberi & scurvy, guess the soldiers had similar problems...)

[LincolnMan]

Something to deal with lice and bedbugs?

[Susan Higginbotham]

Coffee-related?

[Anita]

Sorry for the delay. Too much holiday socializing.

All good guesses. Eva's the closest with nutrition and Susan as it's food related.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Did he invent any special diet to boost the soldiers? (I remember Wild Bill once posted about a theory that the South might have lost the war due to nutrition, precisely die to corn meal instead of wheat, which would "feed" longer. Something in that direction?)

[AussieMick]

I'm thinking about the hard tack ... maybe something to make the hard tack more digestible?

[Anita]

Eva you are close enough! He is James M. Sanderson. Go to the website at the end of this post for details of his contribution and you can find one of his original recipes.

"For a male army soldier, cooking was a completely foreign concept. Thrust into the bleak reality of war, soldiers were forced to adjust to a new way of life—and eating—on the battlefield.
During the start of the Civil War the North The US Sanitary Commission made the soldiers health and nutrition a priority but that didn't guarantee a healthy meal in the field.
At the start of the war, James M. Sanderson, a member of the Sanitary, became concerned with reports of poor food quality and preparation. Sanderson, who was also a hotel operator in New York, believed that his experience would be of value to the Union. With the help of New York Governor Edwin D. Morgan, Sanderson set out to visit soldiers in the field, in hopes of teaching them a few simple cooking techniques. He started with the camps of the 12th New York, as they were deemed “most deficient in the proper culinary knowledge.” He reportedly saw a significant change in just three days.
On July 22, 1861, just after the Union’s loss in the First Battle of Bull Run, Sanderson approached the War Department with a proposal. He asked that a “respectable minority” in each company be expertly trained in the essential basics of cooking. For every 100-man company, the skilled cook would be appointed two privates; one position would be permanent and the other would rotate among the men of the company. The skilled cook would be given the rank of “Cook Major” and receive a monthly salary of $50. It would be the Cook Major’s responsibility to ration the food, prepare it, and delegate tasks to the company cooks. Sanderson had unknowingly proposed his idea at exactly the right time. Washington was faced with the likelihood of the war lasting years, rather than months. The government was actively looking for ways to increase soldier comfort. Sanderson’s proposal reached the Military Affairs Committee of the U.S. Senate. Though they did not follow his instructions specifically, Sanderson did receive a commission—he was named Captain in the Office of the Commissary General of Subsistence from the War Department.

Around this time, Sanderson wrote the first cookbook to be distributed to the military. The book was titled: Camp Fires and Camp Cooking; or Culinary Hints for the Soldier: Including Receipt for Making Bread in the “Portable Field Oven” Furnished by the Subsistence Department. Though his grammar was questionable, Sanderson did describe several techniques, such as suspending pots over a campfire, that made cooking slightly more convenient in the battlefield."

This is taken from " Civil War Cooking: What the Union Soldiers Ate
Tori Avey | September 21, 2012
http://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitc...diers-ate/

[AussieMick]

President Lincoln has been quoted as recalling a time when , as a boy in Indiana, he solved the problem of how to carry pumpkins while he was on horseback.

Who were the problem "pumpkins" that the President was referring to ?

[Eva Elisabeth]

Seward and Chase (and the Republican caucus issue).

[AussieMick]

Oh. Could you at least have paused for breath, Eva?
(Seriously, well done!!!)