Use and access to coffee during the warld. Jake wynn and kyle dalton compared union and confederate soldiers and take questions via chat. The National Museum of civil war medicine provided this video. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us on this new program were trying out. Were having a morning conversation over coffee. Im kyle dalton, the membership and development coordinator. And im jake wynn. Im the director of interpretation for the National Museum of civil war medicine and the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office and time in washington, d. C. And im in frederick, maryland, know. To our main location, the cardi building. Were happy for you joining us this morning, especially for those on the west coast. Today were talking about coffee. So ive got my cup of joe right here in the appropriately branded mug. And i see you have yours there. Yes, im supporting George Mason University today. We support education. So my coffee, you could see it behind me here, it is new mexico pinion coffee. I made it in my french press here with filtered water. I do enjoy my coffee. Fresh ground is best. Because that releases the flavors. If you buy Ground Coffee, you were just watching this thing the other day where a cook was talking about this, the Ground Coffee releases the flavor so you need to get the whole bean, grind it yourself and then we do the french press with filtered water. So jake, what are you drinking . So i am ive been a bad boy this morning. And im not Drinking Coffee that i ground myself. I am having a cup of folgers made on a kennox pourover, and to boot it is decaf. So if you saw the post yesterday where i said tune in for caffeinated history, i was lying to you. Were going to get false advertising. Im sorry to you watching, tuning in from snowy maine and shepherdstown and other places around the country and around the world, get you all in here as well. Yeah, i have proven myself to be a liar already at 10 00 on a monday morning. So it is going to be a long week. But thank you all so much for tune in with us today. Is it snowing in maryland or in maine . According to mike, it is. Hes tuning in from snowy maine. I cant see the comments. Jake will have to translate. Ill be comment guy. So bear with us. As we are going through. If you have any questions, as well as were going through, well do our best to answer those for you. If we can answer them. We do have, thankfully there is two of us so it makes it easier to use the google machine. And to find you the right answer as best we can. If we are really struggling, we can drop a story or a link into our social media accounts down the line once we do research. But if you are having any questions through this conversation this morning, want us to address anything, coffee related, breakfast related, food related, i will let you know we have another live stream coming up with the amazing john heckman, the tattooed historian himself and well talk about hygiene and Civil War Soldiers. This is a theme this week. Were talking about the soldier experience. Even the civilian experience during the civil war with focus on food and the Civil War Soldiers favorite morning, afternoon and evening beverage. They did prefer the caffeinated time as opposed to the that im drinking. Did they have decaf in the 1860s. Was that an option. The confederates sure did. But they werent exactly Drinking Coffee. If youre grinding up Sweet Potatoes into grounds to make coffee, we could get into that. I know youre making a face. No, im trying to imagine what sweet potato coffee would taste like. Besides a sodden they thought it was great. George picket loved it. They succeeded, of course. Do they think it will forever be associated with success. Yeah. I mean, yeah. If youre too your two notable things for the civil war is the gettysburg, which is not his fault, but what is his fault is the shad bake down at shoot, what is the battle . Now it is slipping my mind. Its april 1st, 1865 down in georgia. Somebody in the comments could help me out with the name of the battle. Any way, he missed the battle because hes eat b fish that they caught out of the river. It is not a great look for george picket. But he did have brawl ringlets and he did enjoy his morning not coffee but sweet potato and ground up and made into a nice warm brown liquid. I love Sweet Potatoes but that sounds disgusting. Yeah. So that is a good thing to dive into, is to talk about the coffee substitutes. The confederates didnt have access to coffee. Youre importing coffee from abroad. Up to the 1860s. And so with the blockade and the famous anaconda plan that Winfield Scott is going to put in place in the beginning of the war, southern blockade, this means that confederates will not be able to import coffee. Prices of coffee in the south will shoot up and make it basically impossible to get your hands on it. Because they cant get their hands on coffee and they want something that kind of reminds them of coffee, it is going to be grinding up just about thank you john luster. Battle of five forks is what i was talking about. That is where he would be. Yes, instead of commanding his troops. George picket, may he rest in peace. It was 150 years ago. Right. May they all rest in peace. But, yeah, so confederates are really using anything they would get their hands on to grind up. Some is pretty nasty. Like Sweet Potatoes, pretty gross. And corn is another one. Roasted corn ground down. Wouldnt that just be like corn grits. Yeah, but then made into in the same way you would make coffee sow grind it up and then heat it and youre making a face that is kind of how i imagined it. Here is the worst one. Acorns. Actually that doesnt sound too bad to me. You are crazy. That sounds terrible. You have to winnow it because it has the thing inside of the shell that is toxic. But if you take that out, that to me sounds fine. Well, you know, i cant that sounds like bad taste to me. I dont know. But then again youre the one that brought up the sweet potato george likes them, not me. I think in the comments, you should tell us if you would rather have sweet potato coffee or acorn coffee. Yes. Let us know in there. And this is going to get to any next point because im going to ask you, kyle, a question, because one of the more famous coffee additives during the civil war is chickery. So have you had chickery in coffee, kyle . Not no. This is still a new orleans thing. This is still a louisiana thing. This is still a thing down south. Specifically louisiana and new orleans. I really enjoy it. But it is a super acquired taste. But funny story, allison will kill me for telling this but my girlfriends grandmother did back in the 1930s, she lived for a brief time in new orleans and for years and years afterwards, she hated new orleans. Was there for like a year. But she hated, hated chickery and coffee. And up to unfortunately she passed away a little ways back. But to her dying day, she said any time new orleans came up, you could believe they put chicker in their coffee. Terrible. Its terrible. I quite enjoy it. I would be willing to try it. Im not saying to say that i would love it because i havent had it. But i would be willing to try it. Sounds interesting. It is an interesting, you know, concept and something that is i think interesting as a connection to the civil war and you talk about relevance in our mission. But if you look at how tastes evolve over time and that is an interesting one because it sticks with us over all of the century and a half and chickery has been used in coffee down there before the civil war but it becomes much more common and kind of a standard part of the fare that is included right up to the present day. So there is kind of a we love this at the museum. Things that you could touch and taste, that sensory. We just had a video last week talking about sensory history. You could find that actually a couple of videos about sensory videos last week and go back and check our videos both here, on facebook, and also on youtube. So if you havent subscribed to the youtube channel, do that now. And it is that connection that we could all kind of have to the past, is you could taste, you could smell, and here is an example from new orleans, something they were adding during the civil war that you could taste today and became part of culture, which is pretty interesting. It sounds like spam in hawaii. How famously world war ii introduced spam to the hawaiian diet. And here is another question for you. How do you feel about spam . I dont think it is that great. Feel like if youre going to have a canned meat, why not just do corned beef. Hard disagreement here. Im a big spam advocate. I was very disappointed during the pandemic run on the grocery stores, when everyone was picking up toilet paper and taking all of that and emptying shelves, they were also taking spam. I couldnt find it. I was like, come on, this is national emergency. Like i expect to have tin meat. It wouldnt last. And then this is gone. And i was left spamless. Not that i eat it super regularly, but im a fan. If you are going to stock up, might as well grab the things that are going to last, yeah. I could see people in comments talking about spam needs mustard and fry it too. I agree. Yes. Spam sandwiches are just you could fry almost anything and make it better, though. Just ask george picket, frying up those fish. So was there any difference in the way they prepared coffee in the civil war than the way that we do it today. I imagine the chemical process has to be the same. But were they grinding it in different ways or yeah, so, basically any way a Civil War Soldier could get their hands on coffee, they were consuming it. So grinding it up, using the butt of their musket to grind it up. Ive done that to make coffee. Chewing and eating on the beans or to hey, you eat espresso beans. Same concept. If while these guys are on the march and you hear these are one of the biggest complaints and im sure youre familiar with this and those in the comments are as well, soldiers, when theyre on the march, on a force march and they dont have time to stop and brew coffee, it is the worse time. It is the worst. Being woke unup at 2 00 in the morning and you have to go march 30 miles and youre addicted to coffee because youve been drinking it every day. Sorry, i have sirens outside here. Apology. You could hear it. But if youre addicted to coffee, you drink five cups every day and then at one day youre expected to get up early in the morning and march miles, youll be getting any caffeine you could get your hands on. They were drinking it and consuming it any way they could. And they werent too worried about the chemical makeup and how to best make a cup of coffee. So they werent doing the natural new mexico coffee and the filtered water . No. I so i have a question about your coffee. It is from new mexico. It is pinion coffee. Im interested about this. I just read megan kate nelsons fantastic book. It is such a good book. Three quarter war. Yeah. And im wondering were they growing that there during the civil war era, were they drinking local brew. That is a good question. I dont know if they used pinion coffee, i know the apaches were eating it. And that is one of the reasons i was like acorn is not a big deal. I did some historical programming for the city of cupertino, in california, and we talked about how they would eat acornmeal into like cakes. So that is something that people eat on the regular and it seems like a flavor that wouldnt be that different from the ernarth flavors of coffee. I know supplies lines were real thin for both sides. Yeah. I know that i think it was another great book out there about west im trying to remember. I think it is steve ians book that he wrote about john fremont, the explorer. Oh, yeah, youre right. And their trips west before the civil war. And that at one point they were crossing a river and their entire supply, an entire westward trip, with hundreds of pounds of coffee and it is spilled into the river they lost all of their coffee. That is another interesting point because you mentioned that the confederates largely didnt have access to coffee. It is not getting by the blockade by enlarge so they are trying to rely on this and northern troops arent getting it elsewhere, in new mexico and elsewhere. And do you have any account of experience of withdrawal from caffeine. It sounds like it is an important part of their diet. I think it is interesting when you look at accounts of soldiers and you could see when their miserable, when they dont have coffee and they write about that. And this is a good question. Im not sure how much they made the connection of, like, coffee being a drug. They call it the most the most commonly used drug in america is coffee. And im not sure how much they were aware of that. And they werent these arent chemists that are by enlarge serving in these armies. And at the time, remember i was doing research on the opioid addiction crisis after the war and there is one historian that argued that addiction didnt exist because they didnt understand addiction. Which is a bad argument but it does get to even the chemists dont understand, this is not a moral failing, it is a chemical imbalance. That is an important thing. But from reading many at this point probably many thousands of accounts of Civil War Soldiers, both working at the museum and also privately in my personal life, you could definitely tell the difference and people will note in their diaries that they didnt have coffee. Especially those northern soldiers who dont have access to it. We have a great question here from the comments that i think this is a good time to address this. Paul lawson said what is the difference in miles that a regiment could walk with caffeine and without. I dont have the answer to this. But this is something kyle has been working on doing a kind of march, a test march to see soldiers back in the day, back in the civil war, versus soldiers marching today. I know it is on hiatus. But, yeah, the idea is working with the u. S. Marine Corp Historical company, which is a semi official part of marine corp and they do the living history for them, going to manassas around the anniversary of the battle and recreating a route that the marines took. There was a regiment of marines that fought at manassas famously. And we wanted to get soldiers in both civil war uniform gear, water, like all of the things they would have been carrying in battle, and then we wanted to get modern soldiers in modern combat load and have them recreate the route together and running when they were running or firing when they were firing. Or at least mocking that. Im not sure the regulations on that. And then afterward checking it out, what is their hydration level which we already know is going to be vastly different between the modern and civil war. How many calories did they burn, heart rate, that kind of thing and then draw conclusions about what effect combat load has between the civil war and today. There are some snags weve hit. Obviously the pandemic being the main one. It is not going to happen this year. I could say that for certain now. It may help next year. There are legal and medical concerns. They had a low amount of how much water they were getting. You see in accounts of Wounded Soldiers begging for water. When i was growing up it was the lead poisoning, they were just not getting enough water. And theyre carrying a single canteen of water. That is difference even to a very fit 20something marine running around in wool without enough water is a dangerous thing to do. So we need to be very careful about whether we proceed with this and understandably the marine corp has concerns about that. So we have to address that and make sure safety is addressed. So hopefully this will go forward. If we dont do it with the mean corp next july, i think well do something similar. In maybe safer conditions recreate the route around South Mountain or maybe a winter skirmish or something. But i think it is a project worth looking into. And i think caffeine is going to be something we have to take into account. Because some of the guys, as you said, theyre heavily dosing with coffee. I think i saw a figure that was something on the order of the average soldier consumed 36 pounds of coffee a year. How does that compare to today. In the union army. Im not sure. The average american that could the google miachine and see if e could find that here. But there are great articles out there about the progression of coffee usage from the civil war in the army and military right up to the present day and coffee since the civil war has always had this place of love with the u. S. Military just because, well, ever since Andrew Jackson banned the whiskey ration and changed it to coffee, so we could thank Andrew Jackson for all of this. I think we could go further back than to the revolution. Yes, take us there, kyle. The movement away from tea and the consumption of tea for political reasons and into coffee, so much so i was just telling you about this earlier today, there is a case in quebec, 76, i think, where an american soldier was wounded and captured by the british and the surgeon said to him, hey, you need to drink tea, you need this stimulant or you will die and he said no, im not going to drink that tea he dies. And subsequently, probably falsely, the british conclude it is his stubbornness and inability to drink tea killed him. And that is the cultural shift from tee from tea to coffee. There were coffee houses and there is legal designations that separate a coffee house from a tavern. They could both serve drinks but in coffee houses you dont have to have rooms available. It is not a major course until the revolution and that continues into the 19th century. So the seeds of civil war addiction to coffee are planted in the 1770s. Maybe even 1760s if you want to go back. So i looked it up. I was not able to find a specific number for how many pounds of coffee the average american consumes in a year, but the average american consumes 3. 1 cups of coffee per day. Her day . Really. Yes. So that is what im finding on the internet. We know that the most reliable source of information that exists a simple Google Search is all you need. Exactly. There was another where did i i lost the comment now. Another comment that i thought oh, good old emily fubner commenting, bringing in one of the highlights that the concept of coffee as a drug may have existed at the time and that quakers, amongst other religious groups, told people to stay away from coffee because they could get too bothered. That is a good point. Feeling all of the emotions and feeling when youre all hyped up on coffee. And i wanted to go back to paul lawson, thanks for the question about the march. Sorry we dont have a more specific answer for you. Im sorry that i like both decaf and spam. I think that is addressed earlier at the time. I realize that doing more live streams that more and more people are going to hate me every day. Has anyone comments on sweet potato versus acorn. Yes. There was a whole thread going on about that. I dont know oh, drew gruber said i need to switch to pork roll. I agree it is amazing. And if i lived in new jersey, i would probably eat it every day. But, yeah, well have to go and do a scientific tabulation to see our poll of sweet potato versus acorn . Yeah. Which one would be the better coffee. I think we could put that in a fancy graphic like were buzzfeed. Yes, there will be many gifs. Gifs not jiffs. It is getting going and getting me wondering about the number of stimulants that Civil War Soldiers are into. Tobacco, coffee, alcohol could be a stimulant, initially anyway. And they are smoking and drinking a lot with all of these. So do we know, could that affect their sleep patterns, is there any research on that . I wouldnt imagine there could be but maybe. I havent come across anything about sleep patterns. It is important to remember how active all of the soldiers are all of the time even when in camp. Theyre out drilling, procuring fire wood and food and even when they are not on the march, theyre still busy. Again, i havent seen that, whether or not that is a thing. I would probably this is why i switched to decaf, because i drank it. I was well above the average american Drinking Coffee a few months ago. So i was having those problems. And i imagine that this is something the Civil War Soldiers may have experienced. I dont know whether or not they have made that connection. And you brought up tobacco, and this is an interesting one, there is a lot of communication, especially in virginia, during the civil war, with union and Confederate Forces occupying the same ground very close to each other, usually with a river in between them. There is a lot of cross line trade amongst that trade is union coffee for confederate tobacco. Now is that something that you see that trade was frowned upon by Army Commands but this is something that there was some fraternization. Fraternization. Fraternization. Now you have me do it. Im sorry, im making you mispronounce words. So the Army Commands did not like that. But soldiers at the front lines were doing it. And that is one of the things that they were exchanging, would be coffee for tobacco. Confederates couldnt get their hands on coffee. And Union Soldiers didnt always have access to tobacco. So that trade was going to be pretty common during the war. Mmhmm. I also think it is interesting, because in my very broken up talk on anesthesia, there is talk about getting chloroform and ether through the lines and there isnt a lot coming through the blockade but the confederates prioritize and see it as a military necessity. Is there any show that they prioritized coffee or was it seen as a luxury or a leisure item. Not a priority. And keep in mind anything they could get through the blockade, the price of that good was just astronomical. I mean, theyre struggling to get their hands on even basic goods and if things are speneakg through, and medical supplies will be some of the items coveted coming through, but, yeah, ive not seen im not a expert on blockade runners and what is coming through the blockade, but know that even if you could get those goods through, their price would be unattainable for the average person to have that, even soldiers to get their hands on those goods. And it reminds me of the popular historians of the civil war, but in one of his books he argued the blockade wasnt that big of a deal which is a shockingly bad argument to make and his argument was, well, when they announced the blockade, they didnt have enough shifts. It took them a long time to get all of the ships built and in place. And that is true. But there is a psychological esk effect, too. Just saying were blocking the south, dropped importation by half. That was just them saying hey we have a blockade on paper. And by the end of the war, nothing is getting through. So i think it is important to acknowledge, that, yeah, it does have a very dramatic effect on the stuff coming in. Now im also not an expert on what is being carried in. But i think it is interesting to see is there coffee getting through and how much is it and how much coffee is coming through. How much value wise and how much it would cost and how much for volume. And yeah, it is interesting, i think it is a good point that you mention and that is that pesky thing of economics and maritime trade, is that youre talking about ships coming, even if youre in 1861 announcing a paper blockade, this is going to increase risk for those doing shipping and that is going to jack the price up. And so that is going to lead to that kind of escalation. So even by the time the blockade is effective, ill say 1862, 1863, trade, like you said, it going to be way down. And there is a focus again on the goods that are required by the confederate war effort. I think muskets, thinking medical supplies, that sort of thing. So i want to jump in. Thank you all so much for tuning in. Weve had a great audience so far which is fantastic. Thank you all for tuning in. Ive seen a lot of questions, a lot of questions, i dont know if well be able to get to all of them. Thank you all so much for commenting and asking those questions. And engaging with us in conversation. We really appreciate that. If you are enjoying the video, please go like the video. If you havent already. Share it. Get more people into this conversation. As kyle mentioned earlier, for those of you who werent here at the beginning, we are a member supported moourm. If youre enjoying this conversation, were having many of these kind of digital programs. About all topics related to civil war medicine and tieing into today. If you are enjoying these conversations and want to support us, consider becoming a member. We are a membersupported organization. Consider a donation. Every little bit helps. We havent been open since midmarch to the public so every little bit helps us. Right, kyle . Yes. Everything that jake just said. Im not sure which way what jake said. It is on my left but im sure it is on everybody elses right, i think. So, want to transition. I few a few favorite coffee choices and i saw one person ask about scrapple. Like the meat coffee goes great from breakfast so i also have a scrapple story as well. Another thing that is this is you flying your pennsylvania flag. Yes. I should have the pennsylvania flag behind me or wear it as a cape. What is the pennsylvania flag. Im not familiar with it. It looks like 30 other state flags. So blue with the state seal. Exactly. Oh, boring. Okay. Yes. Favorite state flag, new mexico. Love the new mexico state flag. That is by far the best one. I love the california state flag. But new mexico i think is the best. All the marylanders in the comments im sure are going to oh, shoot. Because marylanders love their flag. It is a really good flag. As a pennsylvania, im just like so, right, scrapple. Get us back on message. And that was chris who asked about scrapele. Yes, we do have some accounts of scrapping being eaten during the civil war. There is a unit in pennsylvania, the ones that are famous that dug the mine that exploded the crater at petersburg. Oh, theyre the ones that dug . Yeah, my coal region roots feeling a connection to those guys. But there is a great letter collection published and im trying to remember the soldiers last name is pollock and it was put together by a friend of mine, hes a ranger at gettysburg. Fantastic historian. And as the 48 pennsylvania was sitting in camp, by fredericksburg in december of 1862, after the battle or just previous prior to the battle, they received a shipment from home and it included in that shipment was scrapple. And the soldiers just devoured it. And he even notes, i think he notes in there that is you might have thought us monsters for just devouring this scrapple, but they loved it. Im sure other soldiers probably ate it too. I just imagining the orks from lord of the rings when they eat that guy and all of the pieces are flying everywhere. Another reason for you to hate me. Ive never seen nor read the lord of the rings. Really . That is a deliberate choice. Youre taking pride in avoiding something that is popular . Well, i feel like youve called me out. Struck me. I didnt think that scrapple was that old, actually. I mean not being from pennsylvania. I didnt realize that it wasnt a modern invention that came around in the 50s when there is all kinds of meat. I just saw a comment, scrapple equals scrabble. It is goat. You could trace it back in pennsylvania and i know there are other Midatlantic States that also have it, that scrapele culture. That is a weird thing to say. Well go with that. And there are other down southers and ive seen people refer to things close to scrapple. But it is the bits that dont always make it into the other cuts of meat. And its yeah, it is definitely an acquired thing. I think it tastes good. I think it is the what it is made of concept that makes people a little it is not visually appealing. No. I mean it is like a loaf of weird meat. It is kind of gray. At least the ones that ive had. Im not an avid scrapple eater. So scrapple story aside and transition back to coffee, so one story that is why were here. But one of the more famous coffee stories, we have the Pry House Field Hospital Museum at antietam. It is a great place. Come visit it when this is all over. Yeah, and there is a lot of exterior, and you could come and visit us even if you dont go into the house. I was just hiking at antietam the other day and i saw hardly anybody on the trail which is nice. And the grounds are still open there. Remember, social distance anybody. Wash your hands. If youre going to the grocery store, put on the mask. All of that being said, so one of the monuments, one of the more famous monuments is by burnside bridge at antietam and it is a monument to William Mckinley. He was part of the 23rd ohio volunteer infantry. Hes one of two future president s who served in that unit. Lieutenant colonel rutherford b. Hayes. They were in the same unit. Yep. Lieutenant colonel hayes was severely wounded at South Mountain, shot through his arm at elbow and knocked out. So hes not at antietam, but William Mckinley is. He was a commissary sergeant for the regiment. While he does not take active part in the fighting at antietam at the 23rd ohio ninth corp,s going to do, hes remembered for delivering coffee and sandwiches to the regiment just after taking the bridge while waiting to make what is known as the final assault toward the town of sharpsburg on september 1862. So after his death and assassination in 1901, the survivors of the 23rd ohio decided to remember mckinleys actions at ant eat um and they put up a monument to him there at burnside bridge. The monument dedicated to coffee in the civil war, dedicated to the efforts of William Mckinley. That regiment after the war and after both rutherford b. Hayes go on, this is nicknamed the president s regiment because they do have two members of the unit that go on to become United States president s. Which is pretty cool. And im a fascinated by rutherford b. Hayes, if you type into the search box, youll find my article about hus wounding at South Mountain. He was shot four times during the war and managed to survive. Including a spent round hitting him in the forehead. And yeah, it knocked him senseless, but luckily did t did not cause any permanent damage and he did go on to become president from 1876. So that is one side of this. Kyle, do you have any comments . I quick note to that. There is a mckinley coffee based on this story. I found it on the internet. You could order bags of mckinley coffee and theyll send it to you. And i forgot the other one. So it must not have been that important. Oh, now i remember. There was a documentary on the History Channel years ago and it originally they planned to show the assassination of William Mckinley, he was killed and i was cast to be leon shoal gosh. It didnt pan out and that got cut from the documentary any way. But a couple of fun little foot notes there for mckinley and his fascination for coffee. Im so sad your movie career doesnt take off. I mean, with a face like this, i could have been the next brad pitt. There you go. Take it away. Do you think kyle dalton looks like brad pitt . So my other coffee story that i want to talk about it, is one i wrote about for my side projects which is pennsylvania in the civil war put on my pennsylvania flag cape again. And that is so i wrote an article about a soldier from the 45th pennsylvania and his name was eframe. Myers and he wrote about some of his experiences in the civil war. He was severely wounded at the battle of petersburg. And some of the early assaults in the battle of peterberg in the early summer or late spring or early summer of 1864. And so i wrote about this at pen civil war. Com and that is where you could find it. But he often times in his little history of his service, he writes about how much he loved coffee. He is talking about hes filling up his canteen, hes walking on the march, hes taking it with him everywhere. Coffee is really important to him. This is common in the civil war. You see this everywhere in the history of the war. If you go through and look for coffee in a Civil War Soldiers diary or letters or memoirs, youre going to see it time and time and time again. It had that kind of place. It brought soldiers together. There is a camaraderie effort to it. Imagine sitting around the fire boiling your coffee and waiting for it to be done and cauyoure talking together and bonding over this common activity youre all going to engage in . And they talk about rum punch, and i forget what historian said this, as the lubricant. Not just because it was a good drink, but because it is a way of guesting people talking and gathered around the table. So it sounds like the same thing for coffee. It is a social lube riricant. It is this bonding that bring people together. And so you see it in a lot of accounts of the civil war. And myers is a coffee lover and he writes about it frequently in his recollection of the wartime service. He noted about it going into battle at peterberg. And this is june 18th, i think, 1864. June 16th, 1864. He wrooi writes as soon as we goat into place our cook went to make the coffee. Fall in. It was hurry, of course, but i managed to fill my canteen and took time to wrap my skillet in the sheld shelter tent and flung it across my breast. I thought at time if a mini ball hits the skillet, it will glance. When all was ready to move, we were ordered to the right. We had not gone far in that direction when captain fessler gave orders, close up, boys. I repeated his command. That instant a cannonball hit a tree and passing through it struck me on the left leg above the knee. It was a spent shot or that i or that would have been the last of sweaty myers. The soldiers nickname was sweaty, which is hilarious. That sounds like a dockic relief character in a mob movie. Yes. Sweaty myers. Its force threw me feet. Four or five of the boys carried me some distance to the rear. At first i thought my leg was broken but it was not. It grew dark and i said, boys, go back to the company, and they told me two months later when i returned from the hospital, they did not go back that night. They laid me down in the woods. Our hospital steward, james a. Myers was on the lookout when the regiment went into action. He found me lying up against a tree Still Holding on to my canteen of coffee. Coffee got him through. Hopefully a metal canteen so he put boiling coffee into his metal canteen and carried it off to battle. That just seems uncomfortable. Yeah. A long with like throwing the skillet over his back and what a look, you know. Wow, oh, man. That makes me think of Clint Eastwood in a few dollars more where hes wearing the metal plate and uses it to stop the bullets. Sorry, what was that . I missed that. In Clint Eastwood, and one of the sergio movies where he has the plate to stop the bullets. Back to the future 3. Another story for you. Ive never seen any of the back to the future movies. Ive never watched them all the way through. I feed off the hate, everyone. Well, speaking of Clint Eastwood, one thing that weve been talking about for a future broadcast and a reason for us to stick with this channel, subscribe on our youtube and follow us on facebook. Were looking to do a video where we watch scenes of civil war hospital or medicine from Popular Culture, mercy street, the good, bad and the ugly has a few which is why i was think being it. Gettysburg, whatever the Popular Culture things are that show hospitals, we want to see the scenes and react and talk about what is accurate and what is not. How it works as entertainment. So keep an eye on our channel for future fun videos hopefully like that. Yeah. Another one that im really excited about is kyle is going to be doing some cookie for you all. Yes. So in the coming weeks, were trying to figure out the logistics of this and how it will work. But think civil war cooking show. And its in my kitchen. Yes. So for a free preview of kyles i feel bad for emily who is going to have to sample all of your fare that youre going to make. I think some is going to be pretty good. I think some will be absolutely disgusting but all of the recipes are coming from the 1862 hospital stewards manual written for hospitals in the civil war, Union Hospitals and it actually has the recipes in there with some degree of particularity. This is how much you put in and how long you cook it. This is in an era where recipes are getting more specific. So it is easy to recreate these. And im not looking forward to trying some of the others. Yes, so questions. Going to start going back through some of them. Here is one that im seeing and im going back to the top here in a second but this is relevant to oh, kyle has to refill. Everyone watch his pour his fancy new mexico coffee. All right, welcome back, kyle. Question for you about where you got those recipes that youre kind of looking at . Oh, the hospital stewardss manual. It is Public Domain so published in 1862, Government Printing office. This is sort of related to the move within the medical department toward professionalization. The hospital steward was noncombatant and very well paid, the highest paid noncommissions officer in the army and so you were away from combat and getting a lot of money and had alls of perks and something that people really liked. And unfortunately that meant that officers would reward certain soldiers with that, whether they were qualified or not. You were supposed to have some pharmaceutical knowledge. Hospital stewards were also in charge of if they worked with a particular regiment, in charge of important things behind the lines, helping to administer hospitals and that is a life or death situation. These guys are well paid for a reason. But there were a lot of them that were underqualified in 1862. So they created this manual called the hospital stewards manual in the Government Printing office so stay are you completely inept to prepare, whether you did the cooking or a cook with a hospital. Because surgeons in longterm care in these general hospitals behind the lines were getting specific dietary prescriptions. You had to eat a certain kind of food. So this manual walked you through how to make them. So well try to prepare some of those and broadcast that as a cookie video. Find the recipe for yourself and try it for yourself. There is gross stuff. Cabs foot jelly and some good looking stuff like a beef stew that i think is pretty tasty. So check it out. Find it on google books and an archive. Org has it at well. It is all over the place. Its not hard to find. Another question just came in and it is asking about a link to our Museum Online store. We dont at the moment have an online store. Were kind of in between websites and were about to make some changes to try to get an online store. We had it in the past and were trying to get it back. In the meantime, if youre look for information on what is available in the store, contact our store manager and that is trish flora, and im putting her email into the comments right now. There you go. So you could contact her. She could let you know if youre looking for a specific book or any merchandise or anything like that. That is how yeah, like kyle is doing a good job of showing off some of the swag and the coffee mug there. We have tshirts, hats, that sort of thing available. On that note, too, i do want to thank david heinz who just dropped a comment in and i just saw his membership come through. Thank you so much, david, for becoming a member. Thank you so much for supporting us. So im trying to go back through some of the comments here. If you dropped a comment in way up top, currently there are 267 comments. Holy cow. So if you have a burning question, please ask it again. Because im having a hard time going back through all of the comments. Im assuming that most are in support of acorn coffee over sweet potato coffee. I have no dog in that hunt. I said acorn coffee was the most disgusting sounding to you. I picked the side of this battle. I didnt know i was picking a side. You made a judgment call. I dont want to drink either of them. Okay, so here is a question. How can you go through step by step how they brewed their coffee . This is a great question that i dont fully know the answer to. Kyle, youve done a little bit of living history. I have. I started living history when i was 13. I dont really do it as much any more but i did it professionally for a long time. And when i was teenager in california, i went out to arizona. We talked earlier about making Kate Middletons book about the new mexico campaign, the furthest west it got was a National Park now, maybe a state park, and i went and did a reenactment there and we tried making coffee the way they did back then when they were really stretching for it. So we wrapped up the coffee beans, the whole coffee beans in a cloth, i think it was linen and we stuck it on a rock and hit it with the butts of our muskets and try to griepd nd it and we did that for a while and it did not grind up very well. And we put that dirtcovered sack into a kettle and boiled it and it was terrible. It was so bad. It was not fun. But that was the way that we did it. Presumably, maybe the Quarter Master or commissary would have had some grinders because that is going to be way more efficient. I dont know if they provided the beans whole or ground to the troops. You would think ground because that is would have been easier and quicker. But i have no idea. So on this topic, there is a great a great series of videos on that encompassing all aspects of the civil war with a living history angle and that is the civil war digital digest which is over on youve seen a couple of those. Theyre great videos. If you want to learn more about cooking in the field, and kind of every aspect of soldiers life, highly recommend checking that out over on youtube. Youll find a lot of great information there. Kyle, we just crossed over an hour mark so i think were going to start to wrap up here. That is probably a good idea. So just want to ill start and then ill let kyle do conclusion. But thank yall so much for tuning in with us. If you havent yet liked the video, go ahead and do that. It still helps us at the end. Even if you dont like me because i like scrapple and i eat spam and i drink decaf and i havent seen lord of the rings. Or back to the future. You could pet angry emoji and say youre mad at me but it helps people to see the videos an engage in the conversation. I helped to manage the facebook page, twitter, instagram and youtube. Along with the other Staff Members here at the museum. So every little bit helps and your participation and sharing the story, sharing your interest in these topics and this discussion helps us to reach more people and that is big goal of what were trying to do is to have more people be aware of the National Museum of civil war medicine, of what we do and, i mean, the fun that we could have in full filling our mission and that is a long rambling discussion. We talked about a lot of things other than coffee in the civil war as well. But these kind of videos, these kind of programs help more people to see what we do and your participation is just thank you so much and i feel like ive made so much digital friends so thank you all so much for tuning into these. American history tv on cspan3. Exploring the people and events that tell the american sorry every weekend. Coming up this weekend, on saturday at 10 00 eastern on reel america, 75 years ago, august 15th, 1945, marked the end of world war ii. Well feature three films about the state of affairs immediately after the war, road to democracy, here is germy and a ceiling on your home. And on sunday account 6 00 p. M. Eastern on american artifacts, a to tell the history of africanamericans in congress. Then at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, a look at past Political Convention acceptance speeches by president ial nominees including bill clinton and george h. W. Bush. Explore iing the story. Watch American History tv this weekend on cspan3. Up next on civil war, his tor can yan Harold Holzer and Valerie Paley talk about artifacts featured