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Title: The hoe cake of Appomattox
Commandery of the District of Columbia, War Paper 93
Author: Ellis Spear
Release Date: May 29, 2023 [eBook #70880]
Language: English
Produced by: Charlene Taylor, Donald Cummings, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOE CAKE OF
APPOMATTOX ***
[Illustration: cover]
[Illustration: title page]
Military Order of the Loyal Legion
OF THE
United States.
[Illustration]
COMMANDERY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
[Illustration]
_WAR PAPER_
93
The Hoe Cake of Appomattox.
BY
ELLIS SPEAR,
Companion Brevet Brigadier-General, U. S. Volunteers.
READ AT THE STATED MEETING OF MAY 7, 1913.
PUBLICATION DIRECTED BY THE LITERARY COMMITTEE UNDER AUTHORITY
OF ORDER OF THE COMMANDERY.
The Hoe Cake of Appomattox.
[Illustration]
In considering the unity of that great brotherhood of men who composed
the armies of the United States in the war for sustaining the
government, and perpetuating the form of it made by the founders, we
have been giving attention to every phase of the many common conditions
which formed our common experience and bound us so firmly together,
excepting those of a social and physical character. The great and firm
basis of this lifelong comradeship is, of course, the common devotion
and the common sacrifice in the service of the country on the existence
of which, latent in peace but manifest in war, the very existence of
every government is founded. This common devotion to the service of
humanity is in the political and social world what the attraction of
cohesion and the attraction of gravitation are in the physical world.
We shared alike in that sacrifice and devotion and were fortunate in
that we were born and reached an age when that struggle came on which
allowed us to have a share in that great action, an epoch in history.
We do not envy those born since, although we shall die sooner.
But I think you may properly also consider subordinate conditions of a
physical character as not unworthy of mention and not without effect in
the comradeship which binds us together. We wore common uniform, and in
those four years the fashions did not change. Each fellow looked like
every other fellow. The resemblance went even so far as that quality
of personal appearance which depends upon the use of soap and water,
not always abundant in those years. We lived for the greater part in
the same home, the spacious, well ventilated, scantily furnished and
unroofed out-of-doors. We all had the same kind of bringing up and
education in which “Right face,” “Left face,” and “As you were” were
familiar precepts not to be disobeyed without reproof or punishment. We
were all boys when we went into this school, some of such a tender age
that we should now hesitate to place them in command of a suffragette
platoon. We were all boys in the same class and at the same school. We
slept in the same bed, the lap of mother earth, and dined at the same
table, also usually the lap of mother earth. There was a stern and
commendable impartiality also in the distribution of the fare. Luxuries
were unknown, excepting when, through scarcity, necessities became a
luxury, but we shared alike in abundance and want. We could say with
slight paraphrase, like the three brothers in the song:
We three brothers be
In one good cause;
Tom puffs,
Bill snuffs,
And I chaws.
Of all these common conditions, that of the diet has impressed me most.
It was called rations, I conjecture, from its irrational and unfit
nature and painful uniformity.
Who invented the army ration of 1861 to 1865 is, fortunately for his
reputation, unknown. He was probably some distinguished commissary, and
his works lived after him for many years. He should have a monument
appropriately placed amongst the unknown dead built of some quality
of stone most nearly approximating hardtack in quality and shape, and
surmounted by a marble block carved in imitation of a hunk of rusty
salt pork.
In the formative period of enlistment, when we raised companies and
enlisted men no greener than ourselves, I used to wonder at that
requirement of the army regulations which related to the teeth of the
recruit. It was explained that a good set of teeth were necessary
for a recruit on account of the necessity of biting the end of the
paper cartridge, but for this it appeared that only front teeth
were required, though the regulations included the whole set, and
grinders could not be brought into play in the operation of biting the
cartridges. But when we passed out of the region of the recruiting
barracks, and the early stage of soft bread, and when that wonderful
creation of the culinary art known as the army cracker appeared, this
mystery of the requirement of the teeth was fully cleared up. It then
appeared that the men were selected not for courage or endurance, which
could not be examined into, but for good grinders, and the wonder now
is that men enough to put down the rebellion could have been found with
teeth equal to the task of putting down the army hardtack.
Did any comrade ever study this article in a geological way? It was
a solid, there was no doubt about that. It was not a stratified
rock. It was homogeneous and amorphous, excepting when wormy. It did
not resemble anything in the vegetable, animal or mineral kingdom,
excepting brick. It was inflexible, inelastic, infrangible, and
indigestible, suited neither to the stomach nor bowels, and was
adapted, except in shape, better as armor.
Indeed, instances have been reported, though perhaps not in the
official records, where the haversack of a soldier stopped the bullet
of the enemy, and these perhaps are the only cases where it was found
that the hardtack saved life. It is well known that the army mule would
not eat it, and it is another proof of the high intelligence of that
noble animal, without whose constant aid the rebellion never would have
been put down.
I am aware that in making this statement, in which I seem to attribute
the suppression of the rebellion to the army mule, I am infringing the
claims subsequently made by certain officers who have been talking ever
since the war, notably that famous quartermaster whose stories led his
infant son to inquire earnestly, “Pa, did anybody help you put down the
rebellion?”
We all helped, in fact, but with the volunteers the first duty was to
chew, or at least to reduce the ration to chewable condition. Soaking
in water was tried, but that was too slow. The ration of one day needed
the soaking of the day before. Do any of the companions remember seeing
it spluttering in the grease of the frying pan?
But the same genius which invented the hardtack must also have invented
that other main element of the ration, rusty salt pork, an infernal
compound of animal fat, with sodium chloride, in which the chloride
predominated, a combination of the cheapest of minerals with the basest
of animals, and rusted by time and heat of the climate.
I speak of coffee respectfully. It was not “Java and Mocha Mixed.”
Do you remember how the men carried it on the march? The detachable
lining of the haversack furnished the bag. The ground coffee and the
brown sugar, well mixed, made a solid ball held in the bottom under a
retaining knot tied in the bag itself. A well-battered tin can served
as the pot, and in it the mixture was boiled until the last percentage
of caffeine was extracted, and the liquid and solid parts were in equal
and uniform mixture. Then came that miracle of simultaneous cooling and
settling and diluting by a little cool water poured on the top. What
a fountain of life we drank from that flowing bowl, soothing to tired
muscles and sore feet.
It is true that our diet had not always the same monotony. At Wapping
Heights, in what the men called the “Molasses Gap,” in July of 1863,
we had marched away from these regular rations, and our diet was more
varied and scanty. The purveyor for my mess who had charge of my led
horse and the incidental purveying captured a lean old duck. A few
fragments of beet leaves from a trampled garden, and a half handful
of cracker dust from his inverted haversack, water, the fragments of
duck, and no salt, the whole imperfectly boiled, was offered for our
dinner.
It was several years before my stomach would accept duck again.
Later in the day we had a handful of blueberries. The next day,
returning out of the gap, the brigade nearly went to pieces in an
old blackberry field. Later in the day a lean, wayworn steer was
sacrificed, speedily dissected, and passed around while still warm
to be broiled in the smoke. As Dr. Johnson said of the beef in the
Hebrides, it was “ill-kept, ill-killed, ill-dressed, ill-cooked,
and ill-served.” Too tough for chewing, it could be cut small and
swallowed. In the night, on picket, there was a shower, by advantage
of which some of my men stole a hive of honey. I ate, in the rage of
hunger, I think a couple of pounds, comb, grubs and all, and then an
oppressive doubt struck me that perhaps beeswax was not digestible.
But I slept well, though wet, after a day in which the fare, scanty
but diversified, was blueberries, blackberries, tough beef, and honey,
served in succession.
But I am rambling. The war ended at Appomattox, in a climax, both in a
military and dietetic sense.
The climax of the diet consisted in the fact that, having run away from
our wagons and the pork and hardtack, for two days we had nothing,
which fact prepared me for an anticlimax.
Some relief came later at Appomattox after the surrender, and while we
were waiting for some final details some of us were invited to dine
with a family living there. To show that we had no hard feeling we
accepted the invitation, and consolidated our rations. We furnished
salt pork and coffee, and the family a chicken miraculously spared for
the occasion. There were also hot biscuits. There was not enough of the
consolidated provisions to go around in full helpings, but the buckles
of our belts were in the last hole, and, being guests, we restrained
our appetites. The hot biscuits left a good taste in our mouths. Later
I had a further relief in the commissary line. On the 12th of April,
1865, we left the Appomattox House, on a not very hurried march back
toward Petersburg. There was now no such occasion for haste as when we
came up, no occasion except for lack of rations, and lack of rations
discourages haste. Our horses were in the same gaunt condition, and
showed no tendency to wild galloping. It fell to my lot that morning to
ride ahead of the column with a single orderly, and about noon we came
upon a solitary negro shanty in the edge of a wood. In the front (and
only) door stood one of the emancipated.
Feeling sociably inclined at the sight of a human being unexpected on
that road, I accosted her in a friendly way, but omitted the customary
preliminary topic in beginning conversation with strangers. The weather
was not on my mind, nor the surrender, nor the condition of the country
in general, nor of the colored race in particular. I went directly to
the most important matter in the world at that time, and from my point
of view. Had she anything to eat? Neither the appearance of the house
nor of the woman had any suggestion of Delmonico’s, but that did not
deter me. I was not expecting terrapin stew or roast beef. Such things
had passed out of the memory of my stomach, though scientific men tell
us that the memory of the smells is the most acute and permanent of all
the senses. I doubt if at that time I should have recognized the smell
of roast beef had it been in the atmosphere. There was a distressing
hesitation in the old woman’s manner, but finally she admitted that
she was the possessor of a hoe cake. A hoe cake! The discovery of
America was a less important event (to the orderly and myself), and the
shout of “Land” no more exciting to the sailors of Columbus than the
announcement of “hoe cake” to the followers of Grant on that occasion.
The woman disappeared for a moment, and then produced the goods. It
was almost within my grasp. I fear the immediate negotiations were
precipitate on my part. She had a corner in the market. There was no
standard of prices on hoe cake that we knew of, and doubtless the
shrewd old mammy understood the situation and our needs. My memory
is not clear as to the details of the negotiations. In my eagerness
to secure the cake the details are obscured by the importance of
the result. Whether the price was fixed by the woman, or whether I
offered all the money I had, is not now clear to me. Probably it was
the latter. At any rate, the price agreed upon was a quarter of a
dollar, enough, I have since surmised, to buy, at that time, a whole
bushel of corn. By favor of an overruling Providence, and against all
probability, I had that quarter. It was the extent of my financial
assets, and I was on the verge of liquidation. But what of that? The
choice between starvation and bankruptcy is soon made. In fact it made
itself. The quarter was, of course, of the shinplaster kind, sole
currency in those days. It was depreciated in value, as we knew to our
sorrow, and hoe cake had appreciated. But I paid over that quarter,
the most important property I ever possessed. I justify this statement
to incredulous comrades. What might have happened in lack of it? It
probably saved me from the crime of highway robbery, of burglary,
or even murder, depending upon the obstinacy and resistance on the
part of the newly emancipated, refusing to surrender the cake without
compensation. But I acquired it honorably, by fair bargain, and at the
seller’s price, although possibly, as it now occurs to me, she may have
been overawed by the presence of superior armed force. But she did not
look it, and I dismiss the unworthy surmise. She had a monopoly and
exercised it with moderation, a shining though humble example, which,
I hope, will make John D., J. P. Morgan, and the Armours ashamed of
themselves when they read this history; and I am proud on my own part
to record this transaction as a refutation of the groundless charges
that soldiers, on both sides, during the Civil War, stole chickens and
other edible things.
I fancy that I hear some inquisitive comrade or even a common civilian,
after all this fuss which I have made about a hoe cake, inquiring
how large it was. That question cannot be answered so easily.
Dimensions are relative, and it will not be expected that I measured
it accurately. If I inserted that detail it would, to an unfriendly
critic (and there are such among the common civilians above mentioned
and sometimes among old soldiers), it would, I say, give an air of
improbability to the whole story. This I desire to avoid, for I have
in mind the incredulous reception of another story, told by some
comrade, in which he represents himself as lying, on a winter’s night,
on a blood-soaked field of battle (apparently the sole survivor), and
protecting himself from the cold, by dead bodies, one on each side and
another at his head; and I do not propose, in this history, to give
comrades or others occasion to quote to me the insinuating remark,
“Tell that to the marines.”
But to recur to the hoe cake, from which I have so widely and
unwarrantedly digressed. As I have said, dimensions are relative. To
me, at that time, it appeared larger than the rising moon, distorted
and enlarged by the evening mists, or, not to seem too poetic, as large
as the fifth wheel of a battery as it appears stuck on behind.
I do not wish to exaggerate, but only to express adequately the
importance of the ancient corn product on this occasion, and as it
looms up in my memory. To any inquiring mind still unsatisfied it may
be said that subsequent observations, made under circumstances more
favorable to accurate measurement, lead me to believe that the cake
aforesaid was about eight inches in diameter, and an inch and a half
thick.
Still I do not hold to these subsequent observations and reflections.
That hoe cake remains, in the memory of my early life, as the rising
moon in the east, while I now, alas! am tending low down in the west.
But there is another and to me still more important circumstance
connected with this affair, affecting my subsequent history and
moral character, and only as a most confidential communication to my
companions of the war do I write it down as a turning point in my
history.
I was never before under such moral strain or under anything
approximating such strain, except once, somewhere about the region of
Spottsylvania, C. H., when, after a prolonged diet of dirt, salt pork,
fried or raw, and hardtack, a brother officer lent me his canteen just
brought up from the rear filled with a rich soup. I did not drink (as
I afterwards feared) all I properly might; but then he stood before me
with a watchful eye. Here I was in full control of the situation. I am
proud to say that even at that late stage in the war I had such moral
sense remaining as to property and particularly as to hospitality,
and I shared with the orderly, probably as hungry as I. But how did I
divide? Equally, notwithstanding the disparity of rank and the fact of
possession. My good angel must have been with me. Spite of the clamors
of a beastly appetite, and although the cake was round, I broke it on
the square.
Success in that severe trial has rendered it easier, in all these
subsequent years, to divide fairly with my fellow man. Perhaps I have
not always done it, but when it has fallen to my lot to cut a pie I
have remembered that hoe cake.
As to the eating, I did not observe the orderly. I was too busy with my
half. It is safe to assume that he ate his. Of course no drink offering
accompanied the cake. It was sheer grinding and mastication, but the
flavor developed can be understood only by one who has exercised the
process, under like conditions, to wit: hunger and the hoe cake. It
brought out the ethereal sweetness of the Indian corn, a flavor as of
sunshine and mother earth, of the neighborhood of oak and pine and
sassafras and wild flowers, combined in the subtle chemistry of nature.
I Fletcherized before Fletcher, and looked regretfully on the last
fragment. I learned, too, that important lesson that the pleasure of
eating depends more on the appetite than upon the diet.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
――Underlined text is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
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