Confederate Biscuits - Civil War Rations
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- Опубликовано: 9 янв 2024
- Soldiers in the Confederate army would receive flour as one of their staple rations. What options did they have to take something not edible as is and make it into something that would be? Andrew Bentley of the Manassas National Battlefield Park demonstrates one popular solution - turning that flour into delicious (hopefully!) biscuits!
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#history #dighist #digitalhistory #digitalhistorian #education #research #connection #civilwar #biscuits #baking #csa #confederate #reb #castiron #winterquarters #bullrun #manassas #nps #rations #cooking #survivalfood #simplefoods #cooking #bread #soda #sodabread #campfirecooking 
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Ain’t Grandma’s biscuits but will get flour in your belly.
Excellent way to say it!!
@@CivilWarDigitalDigestthey used dollar tree airhorns and goofy string/silly string for an emergency signal... and the autmobiles of the cugnots locpmotive ie 1769 onward era stea, tractors to... sneak up on eachother... with a tractor engine and hot air baloon like Jules Vernes 2012 movie Mystery island.. for air raids having the fuel valve as the steering wheel so that if wind had no mercy and changed directions.. then blew tuem the wrong way... nah jk about all of this.
@@CivilWarDigitalDigest Was it called a "spider" skillet because multiple skillets were used to cook next to each other?
I am South African, but I LOVE all history. My late grandfather Frederick Augustus Peach was an American from Texas.
The Confederate biscuits will rise again!
😂😂😂
I wish the confederacy would rise again, have you seen how pathetic things have become?
Yes! Oh, what a great pun. That brought joy to my day.
He he he
@@TheGhilliedGuerilly 🤣
I've also read that (at times) Confederate Soldiers received Corn Meal reather than Flour.
That’s was fantastic. Always neat to see how these men lived when not in battle.
Thanks!!!
I agree! Food connects all of us!
i have many letters a great great grandfather sent home to GA. one of the recipes he discussed was roasted peanut and chicory coffee...would love to see it made and critiqued
Sounds very interesting and we love primary sources! Our website has a contact form. Feel free to reach out to us because we’d love to see it.
Confederates had little access to real coffee so they resorted to making a brew out of whatever they had, which probably tasted pretty bad. Federals had little access to tobacco so men would often meet between the lines and swap one for the other.
This is great, you should do a confederate ration cooking like you did with the federal ration
little known fact here, Often these Biscuits were so hard they were used as cannon balls. They worked much better too.
I don't think so.
@@eb1684very disrespectful. My great great grandfather was killed by a rebel 12 pder loaded with biscuitshot. Don't minimize the suffering these men went through
How do you know? There is nothing disrespectful about common sense. You seem to be lacking and gullible. @@archiveacc3248
@@archiveacc3248 Don't tell lies, the Rebs didn't have 12 pdrs
This may be something that, if a fellow knows he won't have access to the cookware at the event, he could do at home for the assumed 3 days ration and put in his haversack for later?
I find it astounding that those boys/men could march and fight on the less than nutritional rations they had.
You boys forgot the bug's N' flees !
lol.
On the trail to the Klondike, back in 1898 or so, they cooked up something very similar in Dutch ovens called "bannock" made with flour, water, salt and baking powder. One big loaf though that filled the whole oven, not individual biscuits. Other ingredients could be added to make it tastier like sugar, powdered milk, bacon fat, etcetera... Maybe there were a few crusty Connies who went searching for gold in '98 and they brought that old rebel recipe with them???
Thanks for another great video!
A few questions:
1. Would cooking equipment and utensils normally be transported in company or regimental wagons? How many skillets/spiders would a company "usually" have?
2. Would salt have normally been available to Confederate soldiers for cooking? How about Union soldiers?
3. Are there sources that indicate Union soldiers also made similar biscuits?
Check out a book called hardtack and coffee if you have not already. You might like it considering the questions you asked.
@@rebel0058love the book. I was going to record it as an audiobook, but there’s already one out there!
You can reduce "hotspots" by rotating the spider a quarter turn every five minutes or so. Same with the lid.
Great suggestion!
Andrew Bentley is one hellofa awesome dude. As smart as they come too!
Yup!
As always, excellent content. Thank you Will and everyone else!
Glad you enjoy!
This was good, love anything about the old days field cooking
We have quite a few other programs you will enjoy on the channel then. Check out the playlist on rations. Cheers!!
CSA biscuits fed some mighty fine mem. Enjoyed the video may try on next camping trip
Wow! Another amazing video!!! Thanks to share with us such interesting things!!!😃😃
Did they not even, (at least sometimes,) have the luxury of adding a little bit of salt which would probably make it a lot more palatable?
Salt was a luxury for the Confederate forces. It was only mined in a couple of places in Virginia and Arkansas. They did try to make it from evaporating salt water along the coast but many times the US Navy & Marines would raid and destroy coastal salt works.
@@rwdyeriii Thanks, I appreciate the response, the civil war is such a fascinating topic... might have to do a deep dive into the availability of salt to the confederacy now lol.
Woohoo! Thanks CWDD!
I love these videos. Thank you so much for sharing.
No problem!
Fascinating video, many thanks.
The skill level of these two guys cooking was about the same as the person who attempted to make the log cabin behind them, quite crude. About the second time that you cook in the field, you figure it out. In the first year or so of the Civil War, several times Union Troops refused to go into battle due to always being given field beef, which had no fat at all on them. The troops couldn't even make these biscuits as there was no lard or oil to cook with. They were terribly undernourished. The troops demanded they be given pork so they could use the lard for cooking. Also many had bad or no teeth and the beef couldn't be chewed due to toughness. Corruption was so bad that Generals on down were buying beef from colluding dealers as far away as Mexico. Some of their beeves had been walked all the way up from Mexico, and sold at high prices to the Union quartermasters. Later on Lincoln, who had several shades in his background also, changed several Generals and corp leaders because Union Soldiers were more interested in eating than fighting. Lincoln himself previously had his cronies get him the position of Land Surveyor in Illinois. Corruption became so bad that he had to resign before the next Grand Jury convened or be charged for several irregularities. He professed and swore he was a land surveyor, which was not the case at all, even though he had done some work on a survey crew. His promotors then started referring to Lincoln as "Honest Abe" to take away the stench and for getting him into higher office later. When the railroads, including the intercontinental railroad were built, it was found that nearly all the river and stream crossing sites that were needed for the railroads were already owned by his friends. Some forty years ago I spent two days at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. reading all the old newspapers and information concerning this matter. Lincoln did become a great orator and leader. But for many decades after the Civil War, it was still referred to as "Lincoln's War". Thanks you guys for trying to keep our history alive, even though I don't think your wives should let you cook at home.
Somethings never change.
Please continue these videos.
Awesome video! Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for watching.
This is awesome, thanks guys for sharing.
Glad you enjoyed!
@@CivilWarDigitalDigest I wish we had these videos years ago when I was reenacting. Such great information
If you rotate the cast iron lid counterclockwise and turn the spider clockwise ever so often, you'll make sure to have a more even cook.
Great history lesson! Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed!!!
Absolutely awesome!!
Thanks!
At home - 425 degrees for 10-12 minutes.
From experience?
You guys make it sound so simple and delicious.
They really make it look easy when I would burn them on the outside and raw dough in the inside
Cooking fat, from salt pork or beef, was often used as a substitute for the lard.
Thanks for a great video.
Glad you liked it.
Very enjoyable video
Thanks!
You made Soft Tack!
In a way, definitely!
Would they have baking soda back then? And in the south? I thought they would use more along the lines of potash.
I wonder if the pioneers did the same.
Thanks from old New Orleans 😇
Is it the same as to biscuits used by sailors !!
Tack biscuits
Would the lard have been rendered from pork or beef? Curious which would’ve had more availability (at least for the Southern troops).
If it is lard, it is pork. If it is beef, it is tallow, in my experience.
@@CivilWarDigitalDigest Amusing story. "Schwartz & Pfifer"
"At Valley Mountain the finest and fattest beef I ever saw was issued to the soldiers, and it was the custom to use tallow for lard. Tallow made good shortening if the biscuits were eaten hot, but if allowed to get cold they had a strong taste of tallow in their flavor..."
"Pfifer had got the fat from the kidneys of two hind quarters and made a cake of tallow weighing about twenty-five pounds. He wrapped it up and put it carefully away in his knapsack. When the assembly sounded for the march, Pfifer strapped on his knapsack. It was pretty heavy, but Pfifer was “well heeled.” He knew the good frying he would get out of that twenty-five pounds of nice fat tallow, and he was willing to tug and toil all day over a muddy and sloppy road for his anticipated hot tallow gravy for supper. We made a long and hard march that day, and about dark went into camp. Fires were made up and water brought, and the soldiers began to get supper. Pfifer was in a good humor. He went to get that twenty-five pounds of good, nice, fat tallow out of his knapsack, and on opening it, lo and behold! it was a rock that weighed about thirty pounds. Pfifer was struck dumb with amazement. He looked bewildered, yea, even silly. I do not think he cursed, because he could not do the subject justice. He looked at that rock with the death stare of a doomed man. But he suspected Schwartz. He went to Schwartz’s knapsack, and there he found his cake of tallow. He went to Schwartz and would have killed him had not soldiers interfered and pulled him off by main force. His eyes blazed and looked like those of a tiger when he has just torn his victim limb from limb. I would not have been in Schwartz’s shoes for all the tallow in every beef in Virginia. Captain Harsh made Schwartz carry that rock for two days to pacify Pfifer."
Co. Aytch - Sam Watkins
Thank you
I would’ve assumed their bread ration was partially made up of corn meal, or was that specifically a late war thing?
The south still makes the best biscuits.
Great video, seems the audio went weird halfway through then resolved.
As we noted in the graphics.
I recall making those many years ago at an event. I think we burned them. 😢
Would a bit of salt be good?
They look good
👍
So you made scones, or many small dampers.
No salt? I would want salt in the biscuits.
one can call em confederate biscuits, but its highly probable (given multiple examples of camp made breads) that union made something very similar.
I have that thought, but we have Dough Gods and flapjacks both in Union accounts- and this takes the warmth of a cast iron spider or Dutch oven to make. The Feds often had sheet steel mess kettles. I’m not sure the idea holds up widely because of that.
@@CivilWarDigitalDigest learn something more every day. i was aware of some of the cook equipment used by Union and very little of the CS. ehat i have kearned have been from you awsome people.
my group,while we are 100% Union portrayal, we tend to experiment with both sides rations for the fun of cooking and the hilarity that ensues from the learning that comes with it.
Thanks for what you guys do and im.glad to continue to support yall.
I've witnessed Confederate in reinaction camps boil peanuts in a tin can.
Elvin Bishop sitting on a bale of hay.
Or you could load them in your canon if you need to. 🤔
Actually, way too soft for that.
soliders need flour,water and a good portion of imagination
Truer words have never been spoken…
Your biscuits would probably taste better if you added a bit of salt
If it was to be had.
no salt?
Not here.
@@CivilWarDigitalDigest why
@@ftargr They probably didn't have any, it was hard to come by. They didn't have Safeway or Walmart to shop at
@@historyandhorseplaying7374 It was part of the Confederate ration and from documentation, it was very commonly issued out without a lack of it.
@@davisjacobs5748 I would say it depended heavily on where/what county/state the unit was from. I am sure it was a lot more difficult to have salt someplace like what is now West Virginia, than in southern Florida or parts of coastal Virginia where there were actual salt works under COnfederate control. Remember that transporting salt is VERY heavy, very difficult and slow to get over mountains and through bad roads, so where there are no rivers for transport, abundance is going to be very low.
The inside of the Dutch oven at 1:14 doesn't look so great. All the best.
It’s a very rare original and not used for cooking. We were blessed to film it.
Thanks for the info and all the best. @@CivilWarDigitalDigest
Are these Johnny cakes ?
Salt. A pinch of salt. And audio for this video.
The confederacy was full of worms
So all the ration they got was flour? All they ate was biscuits, no meat or vegetables (no protein or anything else, just carbs?) How long could you survive on that?
No, the complete ration is meat, beans, rice, bread, sugar, coffee, soap, and candles. Of course, it varies during portions of the war. But, these are so ubiquitous with the Confederate ration because of how often they got flour as part of the bread ration.
Was the winning Union Biscuits any different. If so they should be advertised as the winning entity.😊
You why many Confederate soldiers had missing teeth? It was these biskets.
It wasn’t these. These are very soft when they come out of the oven, especially compared to the federal issue hardtack
People everywhere in those days were missing a lot of teeth due to tooth decay. Fluoride and daily oral hygiene was not a thing back then. Things got so bad for the Confederates late in the war they had nothing but parched corn, which they probably had to keep in their mouth for half an hour before it was soft enough to swallow (they often had no time to boil it, the Union army was pressing them so hard. Lee's army was virtually starving by Appomattox, and the first thing Grant did after the surrender was send a big load of rations over to them.
Union biscuits sounds like a ritz cracker of the 1860s… “Confederate biscuits” sounds like a form of edible horse manure used to sweeten the coffee substitute!!!
My Grandma, Non Confederate, West By God Virginia Baby! (Winning Team), made them. Biscuits, squirrel, rabbit, pheasant, deer, depending on what season, gravy was the norm for breakfast unless she made syrup, basically frying sugar and water till it became thick to put over biscuits or fritters instead of gravy.
WV here too, but my ancestors were Confederates.
Why do you Americans Call Scones "biscuits" ?
Why do you British (if you are) call Cookies "biscuits"? We say truck, you say lorry. We say gasoline, you say petrol. Plenty of other examples. French Fries vs Chips. Potato Chips vs Crisps.
Imagine rising above you pathetic life in Cornpone, Alabama and this is all you get for your efforts.
If I had lived back then I would be flying a confederate flag🤠
First!
😆 *PromoSM*
Deo Vindice!