Dave Wood

Years ago, I was shocked to read in great grandad’s 1865 daily diary that was written on the fourth of July in 1865 in Ft.  Leavenworth that he and his brother-in-law Dewey Parsons had spent “a relaxing day picking blackberries and going into town where the negroes were well-behaved despite an elaborate celebration.”

I’m someone who thinks of the Civil War from my reading of Crane’s “The Red Badge of Courage” and viewing Ken Burns’s excellent TV documentary about the ghastly catastrophe, so I guess I should have realized the conflict was not all blood and guts.

Today, New Year’s Day, I’ve just browsed through a book about farm life given to me for Christmas. In it I stumbled across a letter from a Union officer, from the Second Wisconsin Regiment stationed in Washington, D.C., telling his family back home in Wisconsin about his well-being. It was an awakening from my naivete, so read on and find out why:

“Perhaps you think, because we are away from home, living in tents with nothing but tin cups and plates that we suffer from wants of the necessities of life. Now, so that you will not grieve away in your fears, I’ll tell about what we had to choose from for our Thanksgiving which was yesterday. Governor Randall was present at our table in our tent and ate out of tin dishes, drank champagne from our borrowed glasses and coffee from our tin cups. As did Governor Randall and Senators Seward and Wilson. The President was supposed to attend, but business called him elsewhere at the last minute.

“Golly! Weren’t we glad for the occasion and feasting? So we sang and drank and drank and sang. We sang and joked and toasted and sang until the flesh which gave out, while the spirit was still willing. But the best of it was still willing. We adjourned in good season and parted in quietness and peace, leaving the remainder of eatables to the men who had served us.”

He enclosed a printed menu of the occasion:    

MENU

Soup

Oysters, turkey with Jelly, ducks, spring chickens, lamb with mint sauce, sirloin of beef, pig, wild goose, baked beans, boiled ham, corned beef with cabbage

Vegetables: sweet and Irish potatoes, onions and celery

Main Courses: pork chop with fried apples, chicken pie Yankee style fried liver, lobster salad, ham and eggs, scalloped oysters

Corn bread, rye bread, wheat bread

Relishes, French mustard, Cole slaw, pickles, horseradish Worcestershire sauce

Pumpkin and mince pie, ice cream

Sparkling Catawba and Heidsieck wine, coffee and tea.

This new “Wisconsin Farm Lore” was written by Martin Hintz, who took the previous culinary episode from “Newsletter of the Civil War,” a publication that might have been a parody.

If, on the other hand, it’s legit, then I have finally discovered a falsehood I’ve always believed:  That of all the U.S. military services, the U. S. Navy has the finest cuisine!! 

One thing I CAN be certain of. Great Grandad and Uncle Dewey would have much preferred picking their teeth with officers in Washington D.C. instead of picking blackberries in Kansas.