Yanks, Rebels, Rats, and Rations, Quotes

“Rats were eagerly eaten, and hard cabbage-stalk, with raw potato-peelings, which had been thrown into the sewers, was used for food.”
― Patricia B. Mitchell, Yanks, Rebels, Rats, and Rations: Scratching for Food in Civil War Prison Camps

“An Ohioan added that the soup was made in four kettles, but in order to stretch the soup to make enough for 4,000 men, it was then diluted with “freezing water” brought in pails directly from the river. “The quality of the last mess was decidedly thin, after undergoing so many dilutions; and there is no doubt that the addition of some eighty pailfuls of cold river water detracted somewhat from its flavor.” {38}”
― Patricia B. Mitchell, Yanks, Rebels, Rats, and Rations: Scratching for Food in Civil War Prison Camps

“It was a very common thing to find rat-dung cooked in the rice; our pea soup, made from a kind of black pea cultivated abundantly through the South, and fully ripe when gathered, was always covered with pea bugs, which floated on the top; cabbage soup was sometimes substituted for the pea soup, and this was worse, if possible, than the other, as only the outside leaves, covered with worms, were used in making it. The peas, or cabbage, as the case might be, were boiled with the meat, — either corned beef or bacon, — which was put into the mess kettle without being properly prepared and cleaned, and frequently our meat rations consisted of ham and shoulder bones from which the juicy parts of the meat had been cut before they were issued to us, as though they had been refuse from the town or from our own guards. The water in which everything was cooked was taken from the Dan River and was very muddy, so that the soup always contained more or less grit.” {37}”
― Patricia B. Mitchell, Yanks, Rebels, Rats, and Rations: Scratching for Food in Civil War Prison Camps

“Bread made of inferior flour, which was occasionally sour, was issued. The meat was rusty bacon or beef-neck. Twice in one year we had good cuts of beef, but it was so far decayed as to be offensive. Occasionally we had a few worm-eaten peas, and twice I saw some small potatoes . . . . Rats were caught in and about the sinks, and sold freely. The slop-barrels were raked, and bread-crusts were fished out, to be dried in the sun and eaten.”
― Patricia B. Mitchell, Yanks, Rebels, Rats, and Rations: Scratching for Food in Civil War Prison Camps