In regard to food, which comes first in importance of the five heads of the soldier's wants, the English soldier was remarkably helpless till he learned better. The Russians cut that matter very short. Every man carried a certain portion of black rye bread and some spirit. No cooking was required, and the men were very independent. But the diet is bad; and the Russian regiments were composed of sallow-faced men, who died "like flies" under frequently recurring epidemics. The Turks were in their own country, and used their accustomed diet. The French are the most apt, the most practised, and the most economical managers of food of any of the parties engaged in the war. Their campaigns in Algeria had taught them how to help themselves; and they could obtain a decent meal where an Englishman would have eaten nothing, or something utterly unwholesome. The Sardinians came next, and it was edifying to see how they could build a fire-place and obtain a fire in a few minutes to boil their pot. In other ways both French and Sardinians suffered miserably when the British had surmounted their misfortunes. The mortality from cholera and dysentery in the French force, during the last year, was uncalculated and unreported. It was so excessive as, in fact, to close the war too soon. The Sardinians were ravaged by disease from their huts being made partly under ground. But, so far as the preparation of their food went, both had the advantage of the British, in a way which will never happen again. I believe the Americans and the English are bad cooks in about the same degree; and the warning afforded by the one may be accepted by the other.
At the end of a day, in Bulgaria or the Crimea, what happened was this.
The soldiers who did not understand cooking or messing had to satisfy their hunger any way they could. They were so exhausted that they were sure to drink up their allowance of grog the first moment they could lay hands on it. Then there was hard biscuit, a lump of very salt pork or beef, as hard as a board, and some coffee, raw. Those who had no touch of scurvy (and they were few) munched their biscuit while they poked about everywhere with a knife, digging up roots or cutting green wood to make a fire. Each made a hole in the ground, unless there was a bank or great stone at hand, and there he tried, for one half-hour after another, to kindle a fire. When he got up a flame, there was his salt meat to cook: it ought to have been soaked and stewed for hours; but he could not wait; and he pulled it to pieces, and gnawed what he could of it, when it was barely warm. Then he had to roast his coffee, which he did in the lid of his camp-kettle, burning it black, and breaking it as small as he could, with stones or anyhow. Such coffee as it would make could hardly be worth the trouble. It was called by one of the doctors charcoal and water. Such a supper could not fit a man for outpost duty for the night, nor give him good sleep after the toils of the day.
The Sardinians, meantime, united in companies, some members of which were usually on the spot to prepare supper for the rest. They knew how to look for or provide a shelter for their fire, if only a foot high; and how to cut three or four little trenches, converging at the fire, so as to afford a good draught which would kindle even bad fuel. They had good stews and porridge and coffee ready when wanted. The French always had fresh bread. They carried portable ovens and good bakers. The British had flour, after a time, but they did not know how to make bread; and if men volunteered for the office, day after day, it usually turned out that they had a mind for a holiday, and knew nothing of baking; and their bread came out of the oven too heavy, or sour, or sticky, or burnt, to be eaten. As scurvy spread and deepened, the doctors made eager demands on Government for lime-juice, and more lime-juice. Government had sent plenty of lime-juice; but it was somehow neglected among the stores for twenty-four days when it was most wanted, as was the supply of rice for six weeks when dysentery was raging. All the time, the truth was, as was acknowledged afterwards, that the thing really wanted was good food. The lime-juice was a medicine, a specific; but it could be of no real use till the frame was nourished with proper food.
When flour, and preserved vegetables, and fresh meat were served out, and there were coffee-mills all through the camp, the men were still unable to benefit by the change as their allies did. They could grind and make their coffee; but they were still without good fresh bread and soup. They despised the preserved vegetables, not believing that those little cakes could do them any good. When they learned at last how two ounces of those little cakes were equal, when well cooked, to eight ounces of fresh vegetables, and just as profitable for a stew or with their meat, they duly prized them, and during the final healthy period those pressed vegetables were regarded in the camp as a necessary of life. By that time, Soyer's zeal had introduced good cookery into the camp. Roads were made by which supplies were continually arriving. Fresh meat abounded; and it was brought in on its own legs, so that it was certain that beef was beef, and mutton mutton, instead of goat's flesh being substituted, as in Bulgaria. By that time it was discovered that the most lavish orders at home and the profusest expenditure by the commissariat will not feed and clothe an army in a foreign country, unless there is some agency, working between the commissariat and the soldiers, to take care that the food is actually in their hands in an eatable form, and the clothes on their backs.
It is for American soldiers to judge how much of this applies to their case. The great majority of the volunteers must be handy, self-helping men; and bands of citizens from the same towns or villages must be disposed and accustomed to concerted action; but cooking is probably the last thing they have any of them turned their hand to. Much depends on the source of their food-supply. I fear they live on the country they are in,—at least, when in the enemy's country. This is very easy living, certainly. To shoot pigs or fowls in road or yard is one way of getting fresh meat, as ravaging gardens is a short way of feasting on vegetables. But supposing the forces fed from a regular commissariat department, is there anything to be learned from the Crimean campaigns?
The British are better supplied with the food of the country, wherever they are, than the French, because it is their theory and practice to pay as they go; whereas it is the French, or at least the Bonapartist theory and practice, to "make the war support itself," that is, to live upon the people of the country. In the Peninsular War, the French often found themselves in a desert where they could not stay; whereas, when Wellington and his troops followed upon their steps, the peasants reappeared from all quarters, bringing materials for a daily market. In the Crimea, the faithful and ready payments of the English commissariat insured plenty of food material, in the form of cattle and flour, biscuit and vegetables. The defect was in means of transport for bringing provisions to the camp. The men were trying to eat hard salt meat and biscuit, when scurvy made all eating difficult, while herds of cattle were waiting to be slaughtered, and ship-loads of flour were lying seven miles off. Whole deck-loads of cabbages and onions were thrown into the sea, while the men in camp were pining for vegetable food. An impracticable track lay between; and the poor fellows died by thousands before the road could be made good, and transport-animals obtained, and the food distributed among the tents and huts. Experience taught the officers that the food should be taken entire charge of by departments of the army till it was actually smoking in the men's hands. There were agents, of course, in all the countries round, to buy up the cattle, flour, and vegetables needed. The animals should be delivered at appointed spots, alive and in good condition, that there might be no smuggling in of joints of doubtful character. There should be a regular arrangement of shambles, at a proper distance from the tents, and provided with a special drainage, and means of disposing instantly of the offal. Each company in the camp should have its kitchen, and one or two skilled cooks,—one to serve on each day, with perhaps two assistants from the company. After the regular establishment of the kitchens, there was always food ready and coffee procurable for the tired men who came in from the trenches or outpost duty; and it was a man's own fault, if he went without a meal when off duty.
It was found to be a grave mistake to feed the soldiers on navy salt beef and pork. Corned beef and pork salted for a fortnight have far more nourishment and make much less waste in the preparation than meat which is salted for a voyage of months. After a time, very little of the hard salted meat was used at all. When it was, it was considered essential to serve out peas with the pork, and flour, raisins, and suet, for a pudding, on salt-beef days. In course of time there were additions which made considerable variety: as rice, preserved potatoes, pressed vegetables, cheese, dried fruits and suet for puddings, sugar, coffee properly roasted, and malt liquor. Beer and porter answer much better than any kind of spirit, and are worth pains and cost to obtain. With such variety as this, with portable kitchens in the place of the cumbersome camp-kettle per man, with fresh bread, well-cooked meat and vegetables, and well-made coffee, the soldiers will have every chance of health that diet can afford. Whereas hard and long-kept salt meat, insufficiently soaked and cooked, and hastily broiled meat or fowls, just killed, and swallowed by hungry men unskilled in preparing food, help on diseases of the alimentary system as effectually as that intemperance in melons and cucumbers and unripe grapes and apples which has destroyed more soldiers than all the weapons of all enemies.
So much for the food. Next in order come the clothing, and care of the person.
The newspapers have a great deal to say, as we have all seen, about the badness of much of the clothing furnished to the Federal troops. There is no need to denounce the conduct of faithless contractors in such a case; and the glorious zeal of the women, and of all who can help to make up clothing for the army, shows that the volunteers at least will be well clad, if the good-will of society can effect it. Whatever the form of dress, it is the height of imprudence to use flimsy material for it.