American history

Colonial Travel with Pack Horses

/ sandramervillehart

Magnificent forests lined the hillsides and valleys in Colonial America. Their beauty didn’t make them easier to navigate. Pioneers blazed trails to the west by foot and then by horseback.

Settlers heading westward during this time traveled before roads had been cut. Skinny paths left no room for wagons. They hauled their worldly possessions on pack horses.

By tying each horse to the tail of the one immediately in front, one driver led a line of pack horses. Drivers controlled up to a dozen horses in one line.

Each animal could carry up to two hundred pounds on primitive pack saddles. Pioneers created their own saddles using sturdy, forked limbs, trimmed to fit a particular load. Some frontiersmen made a living by selling their pack saddles in the back woods.

Once these courageous souls settled in Western Pennsylvania or the Ohio country, they made yearly trips back east to sell their produce and replenish supplies. Traveling in caravans, they took ginseng, rye, bear’s grease, snakeroot, and hides back east. They returned with such goods as gunpowder, salt, nails, and iron.

Early U.S. military operations utilized pack horse trains in traveling to confront Native Americans. Captain Robert Benham served as Conductor General of pack horses in the late 1700s, taking part in expeditions with Wayne, Harmar, St. Clair, and Wilkinson.

While at Fort Harmar (near present-day Marietta, Ohio) in June of 1787, Colonel Harmar wrote that the cheapest cost of hiring pack horses was fifty cents a day.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

“Fort Harmar,” Ohio History Central, 2017/04/22  http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Fort_Harmar.

Schneider, Norris F. The National Road: Main Street of America, The Ohio Historical Society, 1975.

Venable, W.H., LL. D. Westward by Hoof, Wheel, and Keel. Extracted from Footprints of the Pioneers in the Ohio Valley, originally published in 1888.

 

Macadamized Roads

/ sandramervillehart / 2 Comments

John Loudoun McAdam, a Scottish inventor, traveled almost 19,000 miles from 1798—1814 to form a method of making roads less susceptible to water.

Stagecoaches and wagons got stuck on muddy roads, adding to the difficulty of traveling. As surveyor general, McAdam devised a way to greatly improve roads and wrote of it in his Remarks on the Present System of Road-Making (1816).

To aid in water drainage, McAdam first recommended that roads be higher than the ground beside it. A layer of large broken stones then covered the road. Smaller stones were then laid over them. A fine layer of gravel was the last component.

This design reduced wear and tear on the road. Water drained to ditches on the side.

His recommendation was a great improvement over traveling on muddy roads. His idea spread to the United States.

Construction started in 1811 on the National Road, which began in Cumberland, Maryland, and wound through Pennsylvania and Virginia into Ohio. McAdam’s principles weren’t yet known.

His methods grew in popularity so that road makers used it on a new section of the National Road between Canton and Zanesville, Ohio, in 1825-1830. They broke stones small enough “to pass through a two-inch ring.”

At a width of twenty feet, the road contained the three layers of stone suggested by McAdam. Each layer was compacted with a cast-iron roller. This created the Macadamized road, making travel easier and safer for the pioneers settling in Ohio and farther west.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Bellis, Mary. “John Loudon McAdam – The History of Roads and Asphalt,” About.com, 2017/04/20 http://theinventors.org/library/inventors/blJohnMcAdam.htm.

Edited by Raitz, Karl. A Guide to The National Road, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

“John Loudon McAdam”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2017. Web. 20 Apr. 2017.

“McAdam, John Loudoun.” The Oxford Companion to British History. . Encyclopedia.com. 19 Apr. 2017<http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

“Macadam”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2017. Web. 20 Apr. 2017.

 

Conestoga Wagons

/ sandramervillehart / 4 Comments

The first major highway built by the United States federal government was the National Road. Construction began in 1811 on the road also known as the Cumberland Road because it began in Cumberland, Maryland. By August 1, 1818, the road reached to Wheeling at the Ohio River. (Wheeling was then in Virginia but is now part of West Virginia.)

Settlers moving westward quickly utilized the road through Pennsylvania and Virginia to the new state of Ohio. Their wagons toted all their worldly goods to a new land.

Conestoga wagons were first built by Mennonite Germans near the Conestoga River area of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in the early to mid-eighteenth century. Skilled craftsman created a unique curved bed, designed to prevent freight from shifting while climbing steep hills. Chains held the back gate in place while traveling.

Early wagon covers were hempen homespun. Canvas was used later. They soaked the canvas in linseed oil to waterproof the fabric. This covering was stretched over several wooden hoops.

The builders took great pride in their work. They painted the wagons blue, trimmed with red.

Built with broad wheels, four to six horses pulled five-ton loads over dangerous Pennsylvania roads. Conestoga wagons hauled products from the eastern states to settlers in Western Pennsylvania and the Ohio Valley and returned with frontier goods like flour, tobacco, coal, and whiskey.

Strong Conestoga horses bred in the Conestoga area of Pennsylvania could pull these loads about twelve miles per day.

Wagoners made their living by hauling freight from the east to the western frontier and back again. These colorful characters made a journey of 250 miles in about three weeks.

Drivers of Conestoga wagons didn’t sit on a bench and hold the horses’ reins. Wagoners rode the left rear horse or walked alongside the horses. When the wagoner tired of walking, he pulled out a lazy board—a wooden board attached to the side of the wagon—and sat on it.

Railroads had slowed the heavy traffic on the National Road by the 1850s. Conestoga wagons were no longer in demand. Wagoners found new ways to make a living.

But what stories they had to tell to their children and grandchildren.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

“Conestoga Wagon,” History.com, 2017/04/19 http://www.history.com/topics/conestoga-wagon.

“Conestoga Wagon,” Smithsonian National Museum of American History, 2017/04/19 http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_842999.

“Conestoga wagon.” The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. . Encyclopedia.com. (April 18, 2017). http://www.encyclopedia.com/reference/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/conestoga-wagon.

Edited by Raitz, Karl. A Guide to The National Road, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

“National Road,” Wikipedia, 2017/04/20 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Road.

White, Roger B. “Covered Wagons and the American Frontier,” Smithsonian National Museum of American History, 2017/04/19 http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/2012/10/conestoga-wagons-and-the-american-frontier.html.

Civil War Bugle Calls

/ sandramervillehart / 2 Comments

Commands were often given musically during the Civil War. That is to say, by bugle or drum. A general’s voice only carried so far—especially over the din of battle. Soldiers soon learned specific bugle tunes signified that it was time to get up in the morning, for example.

John D. Billings, Union soldier, wrote about a typical day in camp in Hardtack & Coffee.

The first bugle call of the day was “Assembly of Buglers.” It came around 5 am in the summer and 6 am in the winter. Men knew it was time to roll out of their blankets. This unwelcome song always brought grumbling.

“Assembly” came fifteen minutes later. Unless ill or on guard duty, every enlisted man had to be present for his company’s roll call.

When everyone finally stood in line, the bugler played “Reveille.” Soldiers made up words to this song:

       I can’t get ’em up, I can’t get ’em up,

       I can’t get ’em up this morning;

       I can’t get ’em up, I can’t get ’em up,

       I can’t get ’em up today.

After this, “Stable Call” was played. Company drivers went to the picket ropes where they fed and groomed their horses.

“Breakfast Call” came next. Soldiers prepared and ate their breakfast or ate rations provided at the company cookhouse.

“Sick Call” sounded at 8 am. Men who were sick and required medicine proceeded to the surgeon’s tent. Quinine was given for many ailments including headache, stomachache, toothache, coughing, lameness, fever, and ague.

Next came the “Watering Call,” where cavalry and drivers watered their horses and mules. To learn more about the difficulties of watering thousands of animals, click here.

Soldiers cleaned camp, gathered wood and water, built stables, buried horses, and washed gun carriages for “Fatigue Call.”

Next, drum or bugle brought the “Drill Call” where men practiced artillery and other skills. This was practiced much more earlier in the war.

Cannoneers and drivers responded to “Boots and Saddles” as a battery drill.

“Dinner Call” sounded at noon.

Buglers played “Water Call” around 4 pm.

“Stable Call” was blown as a reminder to return horses to the stable.

“Attention” was blown at 5:45 pm, followed by “Assembly” where the soldiers fell in for “Retreat” roll call.

“Assembly of Guard” called soldiers to guard duty. A brass band or fife-and-drum-corps usually followed.

The bugler played “Attention” at 8:30 pm and then “Assembly.” Companies formed lines for the day’s final roll call, “Tattoo.”

Men then had thirty minutes to get ready for bed at 9 pm when “Taps” was played. A drummer then played to end the day.

Follow this link if you’d like to listen to a few of these.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Billings, John D. Hardtack & Coffee, University of Nebraska Press, 1993.

Villanueva, Jari. “Civil War Bugles Calls,” www/tapsbuglar.com, 2017/03/15 https://archive.org/details/CivilWarBugleCalls/20+Dan+Butterfield.mp3.

Villanueva, Jari. “Twenty Bugles Calls,” United States Air Force Band, 2017/03/14   http://www.usafband.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-150220-028.pdf.

 

Civil War: Confederate Remedy for Chills

/ sandramervillehart / 2 Comments

As a writer of historical novels, I love to run across remedies used in past centuries. A wonderful book, Confederate Receipt Book, contains a few cures from the Civil War era.

A common cure for chills was horehound, spelled hoarhound in the book. The soldiers believed that horehound, boiled in water and drunk as tea, was a “certain cure.”

People are usually running a fever when chilling. This leads me to believe that Confederate soldiers used the tea to reduce fever.

Is the herb still used medicinally today? Did the soldiers boil the leaves to make tea? The roots? The recipe does not say so I began researching.

Horehound is a bitter herb from the mint family. According to Mountain Rose Herbs, the part of the plant that is above the ground is dried and cut for use in teas and tinctures.

An article from Drugs.com supports this. Home remedies use the flower tops and leaves in bitter tonics to relieve the common cold.

The FDA ruled in 1989 that it didn’t find horehound, among others, to be useful in cough and cold medicines so products containing these ingredients had to be removed from the market.

Ricola, a cough suppressant made outside the United States, contains the herb and is sold in the US.

In modern times, horehound may be found in candies, liqueurs, and cough drops.

The articles I read suggest that more research is required to evaluate the safety of horehound and is not recommended for pregnant and nursing women. Physicians should be consulted before using this medicinally.

I love to find these old cures so that I can use them in my writing. Those who volunteer as Civil War reenactors may also enjoy this information. I have not tried this tea as a cure for cold or fever and I’m not recommending it. This is merely meant to be fun and educational.

-Sandra Merville Hart

 

Sources

A Compilation of Over One Hundred Receipts, Adapted to the Times. Confederate Receipt Book, Applewood Books, 1863.

“Horehound,” Drugs.com, 2017/03/11 https://www.drugs.com/npc/horehound.html.

“Horehound,” Mountain Rose Herbs, 2017/03/11 https://www.mountainroseherbs.com/products/horehound/profile.

“Horehound Herb,” Naturalremedies.org, 2017/03/11 http://www.naturalremedies.org/horehound/.

 

 

 

Sagamite – Confederate Soldier Recipe

/ sandramervillehart

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Recipes used to be called ‘receipts.’ Confederate soldiers published a fun book of recipes in 1863 called Confederate Receipt Book. I tried their recipe for Sagamite.

Actually, the recipe is called Indian Sagamite because it uses Indian meal. I was unable to find that type of meal at the grocery store.

blog-132Thinking that self-rising meals weren’t something the soldiers had on hand, I chose whole grain corn meal. This meal is a little coarse and grainy—possibly closer to what the Confederates used.

Combine 1 ½ cups of meal and ½ cup of brown sugar.

Those were the only ingredients listed. Since the recipe called for browning it over the fire, I knew something else had to be added to make this into a cake. (Or perhaps they ate it as crumbs, but that seems unlikely.)

I considered adding milk, water, or butter to the mixture. I decided on water because soldiers didn’t often have milk or butter.

I added ½ cup of water. This made it a bit runny, so next time I will add ¼ cup of water to make thicker cakes.

blog-139Add about a tablespoon of shortening to a skillet. Can use more if needed. When shortening melts, fry the cakes for 2 to 3 minutes on both sides over medium heat.

I enjoyed the flavor. It tastes like sweet, fried cornbread.

Soldiers ate small quantities of this while scouting—and probably on long marches. It didn’t require much to appease hunger and had the added benefit of satisfying thirst. I ate half of one of these cakes for lunch and noticed that it satisfied both my hunger and thirst. I ate a few bites of soup only because it was already cooked and didn’t need anything else. I was amazed that such a small amount of food made a meal.

If you try this, I’d love to hear if you had the same experience.

I imagined these cornbread cakes were handy on days of battle and added a scene with Sagamite in my upcoming Civil War novel, A Rebel in My House, that releases in July.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

A Compilation of Over One Hundred Receipts, Adapted to the Times. Confederate Receipt Book, Applewood Books, 1863.

Soldier’s Letter – Civil War

/ sandramervillehart

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Civil War soldiers loved to receive letters from home. Wives, mothers, and sweethearts also sent care packages to their soldiers. Even if a pie didn’t survive postal delivery intact, men still devoured every edible crumb with a thankful heart.

Soldiers purchased envelopes to send their replies back home. One of the fun traditions of the time was that these envelopes were decorated by those who manufactured them.

Flags, patriotic scenes, portraits of Union generals, and army camp scenes were printed on the envelopes, or “covers” as they were also called.

John D. Billings, Union soldier and author of Hardtack and Coffee, wrote of a young man who collected over 7,000 decorated envelopes from the war—each with a unique design.

Some featured specific regiments, listing battles where they fought.

Billings kept a few envelopes from his days in the war. One contained a 34-star border, a star for every state in the Union at the time. An eagle held a shield and a streamer which read, “Love one another.”

Another from his collection showed a drawing of the earth with “United States” printed on it and an American eagle above it. The inscription was “What God has joined, let no man put asunder.”

A third was a sketch of a man with moneybags riding horseback at breakneck speed. The inscription: “Floyd off for the South. All the Seceding States ask is to be let alone.”

One showed President Washington’s portrait with the inscription of “A Southern Man with Union Principles.”

images-1194186_960_720Billings wrote that the designs expressed the feelings of Northerners.

Union soldiers received envelopes from the U.S. Christian Commission with their organization’s stamp and the words “Soldier’s Letter.”

The Postmaster General allowed soldiers to send letters without stamps, representing prepayment, beginning in 1864. They had to write “Soldier’s Letter” on the envelope.

One soldier wrote the following verse for the Postmaster General:

“Soldier’s letter, nary red,

       Hardtack and no soft bread,

       Postmaster, please put it through,

       I’ve nary cent, but six months due.”

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

“American Civil War Soldier Letters Home,” Americancivilwar.com, 2017/02/08 http://americancivilwar.com/kids_zone/soldiers_letters_civil_war.html.

Billings, John D. Hardtack & Coffee, University of Nebraska Press, 1993.

 

Civil War: Union Army Rations

/ sandramervillehart

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John D. Billings was a Union Army soldier. Billings served as a private in the Tenth Massachusetts Battery for three years. He wrote Hardtack & Coffee, a wonderful book originally published in 1887.

These are the normal rations he received as a private:

Salt pork, fresh beef, salt beef

Ham or bacon were rarely issued

Hard bread, soft bread, flour

Potatoes, occasionally an onion

Beans, rice, split pease (peas)

Dried apples, dried peaches

Desiccated vegetables

Sugar, molasses

Coffee, tea

Vinegar

Salt, pepper

Candles, soap

Soldiers didn’t receive all these rations at the same time. Only one meat was issued at a time and that was usually pork. Soldiers received either hard bread, soft bread, or flour. They drew beans or rice or peas.

Soldiers were entitled to the following as a single day’s rations:

12 oz. pork (or bacon) or 20 oz. salt beef or fresh beef;

22 oz. soft bread (or flour) or 16 oz. hard bread or 20 oz. corn meal

For every hundred rations (soldiers received a share of these):

One peck of pease (peas) or beans;

10 pounds of rice or hominy;

10 pounds of green coffee or 8 pounds of roasted ground coffee or 1 ½ pounds of tea

15 pounds of sugar

20 oz. of candles

4 pounds of soap

2 quarts of salt

4 quarts of vinegar

4 oz. of pepper

Half bushel of potatoes when practicable

1 quart of molasses

In addition, desicatted vegetables were also issued. These were large round cakes of compressed vegetables, about two inches thick. They had to be soaked to be edible and even then, there was some doubt about the wisdom of eating it. Soldiers dubbed them “desecrated vegetables.”

According to Abner Small, 16th Maine, none of his comrades could figure out what was in it. Charles E. Davis, 13th Massachusetts, thought it tasted, when cooked, like herb tea.

Pickled cabbage, dried fruits, vegetables, and pickles were sometimes included in rations to prevent scurvy.

According to Billings, these were the rations given to the rank and file soldiers, as privates were sometimes called.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Billings, John D. Hardtack & Coffee, University of Nebraska Press, 1993.

“Hungry? How about worm castles and desecrated vegetables?” CivilWar.org, 2017/02/08 http://www.civilwar.org/education/pdfs/civil-war-curriculum-food.pdf.

 

Civil War: Hardtack and Salt Horse

/ sandramervillehart

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John D. Billings, a Union Army soldier, served as a private in the Tenth Massachusetts Battery for three years. He taught school after the war. He also wrote Hardtack & Coffee, a book originally published in 1887.

Billings talks about food rations. As a soldier in the Army of the Potomac, he did not remember being without rations more than a day or so. Wagon trains were often several hours behind when on the march or in battle. Soldiers generally had advance notice of a delay in receiving their rations and ate sparingly of food they still had in their haversack.

The quality of the food left something to be desired. Armies served quantities of stale beef or salted beef (soldiers referred to salted meat as “salt horse”) or unwholesome pork.

Hardtack, a plain flour-and-water biscuit, was often so hard that soldiers couldn’t bite it. A strong fist blow could break them. According to Billings, soaking hardtack didn’t soften it. Instead the soaked cracker eventually turned elastic like gutta-percha, a tough plastic material resembling rubber. Yuck!

Another problem with hardtack is that they were sometimes moldy and wet when privates received them. Billings believed the crackers had been packaged too soon, perhaps still warm from the oven. Hardtack also got damp in wet weather when stacked at railroad depots awaiting trains to take them to army camps. Billings blamed inspectors’ negligence for food, ruined by rain or sleet, reaching the army camps.

It gets worse. You may want to skip the next paragraph.

Hardtack sometimes became infested with weevils and maggots in storage. This problem wasn’t usually enough to keep them from being distributed. Soldiers still drew the infested crackers as rations.

Nine pieces of hardtack were a single ration for some regiments while ten pieces were given in others. It was usually not a problem either way; there was enough for those who wanted a larger number because some soldiers refused to accept them at all.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Billings, John D. Hardtack & Coffee, University of Nebraska Press, 1993.

“Gutta-Percha,” Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 2017/02/08 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gutta%E2%80%93percha.

“Salt Horse,” Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 2017/02/08 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/salt%20horse.