October 2020
The continued lack of vitamin C (which leads to scurvy) begins with poor wound healing, then bleeding and blackening of the gums, followed by severe pain in the extremities, and death. Humans and primates are omnivorous general feeders not specifically adapted to eat and digest either meat or plant material exclusively, though modern vegetarians may beg to differ. The human digestive system does not synthesize vitamin C from a diet whose primary nutrients are from meat alone, as most carnivores do, and must regularly include plant sources to obtain the necessary compounds for good health.
It is important to realize that the amount of nutrients from any one source of food supply is not the only determinant of its importance to an army, but rather the importance lies in a steady, consistent supply of a variety of nutrients in the dietary rations. Getting enough “calories” from a steady diet of fatty meat and fried hardtack or cornbread was not enough to maintain the health of a fighting force over the long haul.
Worse yet, a number would perish from these debilitating conditions alone, regardless of any other wound or ailment. There was little the physicians could do for it that produced any long term improvement. While
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nutritional deficiencies from poor diet were one root cause of diarrhea/dysentery, after onset an improved diet seldom affected the chronic form of the disease to the point of full recovery. The soldier always remained susceptible to recurring attacks of intestinal disease afterwards. Physicians suspected a correlation between the role of nutrition to intestinal illnesses and scurvy, but could do very little about it given the number of battlefield injuries they had to contend with. While not exempt from intestinal problem themselves, the invading Union force used to call the condition “the Confederate disease,” that both sides rightly blamed on the poor diet and lack of sanitation in Army camps. Common medical treatments for diarrhea/ dysentery included opium pills,
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laudanum (morphine in an alcohol base), or blue mass (mercury mixed with chalk). Other treatments were strychnine, turpentine, calomel, lead acetate, quinine, silver nitrate, camphor, whiskey, and ipecac. One doctor prescribed strips of raw beef liberally coated with vinegar, salt, and pepper. It proved about as effective in the long run as any of the other treatments listed.
Craig L. Barry was born in Charlottesville, Va. He holds his BA and Masters degrees from the University of North Carolina The (Charlotte). Craig served Watchdog Civil War Quarterly as Associate Editor and Editor from 2003–2017. The Watchdog published books and columns on 19th-century material and donated all funds from publications to
battlefield preservation. He is the author of several books including The Civil War Musket: A Handbook
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for Historical Accuracy (2006,
or Editorial
The Unfinished Fight: 2011),
Submissions is
Essays on Confederate Material
the 20th of each
Culture Vol. I and II (2012, 2013) and four books in the Suppliers to the Confederacy series on English Arms & Accoutrements, Quartermaster stores and other European imports.
Readers may recall two previous articles (May and June of 2017) in this column dealing with The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Researchers now have even greater access to writings to and from our nation’s sixteenth president thanks to the Library of Congress’s crowdsourcing efforts and contributions from the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. Working under the ‘Letters to Lincoln’ heading, the collection contains over 40,000 documents, with 20,000 now digitized and available online. The collection spans from 1774 to 1948 and covers military topics, family issues, and many other themes. Visit https://crowd.loc.gov/campaigns/ letters-to-lincoln/ to read more on the scope of this mission.
Users may wish to begin their exploration at https://www.loc.gov/ collections/abraham-lincoln-papers/?q=%22by+the+people%22+volunteers. The image above illustrates the homepage and shows some of the varied search options available. For a look into Lincoln’s wartime documents, this writer, after selecting the date option of ‘1860- 1869,’ arrived at the following archives for each year of the American Civil War. The collection has 166 files from 1861, 308 from 1862, 1863 contains 189, 417 documents from 1864, and 98 from 1865. Diving into the deep end of the pool, this writer opted for 1864. Numerous sort options exist; date (oldest first) seems a desirable selection. One may need to experiment a little using various keywords to narrow down the search results. This writer searched using both ‘Sherman’ and ‘Savannah;’ either term will drill even deeper into the papers, but ‘Savannah’ obviously produced documents about Sherman’s capture of the city in December 1864.
The ability to view a digitized copy of the original document and then see a transcription serves as one of the high values in this site. As of this writing, volunteers have transcribed over 10,000 of the documents, and their work continues.
Most readers have heard of Sherman’s famous message sent to Lincoln, the one offering “… as a Christmas gift, the City of Savannah” (Image shown). Now, students can see Lincoln’s response to Sherman.
The terminology of the site offers descriptions like this one for Lincoln’s response.
‘Abraham pers: Correspondence.
Abraham Lincoln to William T. Sherman, Monday, December 26, 1864 (Capture of Savannah, Georgia).’ First, look at the penmanship of Lincoln in the image shown. Next, and a most helpful tool, click on the ‘Show Text’ link above the image, and presented for the user, in adjacent fashion, the transcription and the original. (See image.) Try various search terms, select from the drill-down options, and enjoy the harvest. Several helpful tools exist.
Lincoln paSeries 1. General 1833–1916:
Index to Abraham Lincoln Papers: http://l c w e b 2. l o c. g o v / •
Explore the writings of Lincoln, and enjoy continuing luck while cgi-bin/ampage?collId=gd c 3 & f i l e N a m e = s c d0001_20101124004alpage. db; available in PDF or HTML formats.
Library of Congress Finding Aid (PDF): https://findingaids.loc.gov/exist_collections/ead3pdf/mss/2009/ ms009304.pdf Provenance of the Abraham Lincoln Papers: the history of the papers, at https://w w w. l o c. g o v / c o l l e c tions/abraham-lincoln-papers/articles-and-essays/ provenance/.
David C. Mearns’s two-volume The Lincoln Papers— circa 1948—available for purchase at booksellers, also serves as a helpful tool when researching Lincoln’s papers. Check https://www.worldcat.org for a copy of the two-volume set in a nearby library.
researching the American Civil War.