Indolence is the mother of invention. Private Posts 1898 Culinary Campaign

John U. Rees

Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection

The 1898 Spanish-American conflict, Ambassador John Hays splendid little war, was a short-lived deadly affair, noted mostly for Cuban liberation, Americas first flirtation with world-class imperialism, and diseases that laid low thousands of U.S.

troops. The food front was epitomized by the embalmed beef scandal, when a portion of the endemic illness suffered by soldiers was blamed on canned and refrigerated meat.

1

Charles Johnson Post was a private in the 71st New York Volunteer Regiment; no

ordinary enlisted man, he was a newspaper cartoonist before the war and working for

William Randolph Hearsts Journal when the U.S.S. Maine blew up, setting off the conflict. Posts memoirs, likely written between 1946 and 1956, were first published in 1960. Like Revolutionary soldier/memoirist J.P. Martin, his narrative is notable for its

candor, humor, and sense of immediacy, bringing the soldiers experience to life for the reader. Lucky for us, Private Post often mentioned food and cooking. Though he begins

on the subject while still soldiering in the states, it is military food preparation in Cuba

we focus on. 2

The 71st New York landed at Siboney, Cuba on 23 June 1898. Shortly after leaving

ship Posts company attempted a meal, Back in our machine shop [their temporary quarters] we rustled our own midday dinner canned corned beef, or sowbelly, as we might choose; and hardtack and coffee. No Buzzacots [portable stoves] had come ashore,

so we made our own little fireplaces with a few rocks and with a fishplate or so to make a

grid. It was here Post first learned that kitchen skills could be useful. I traded my ability as a maker and maintainer of fires for other duties that were apt to be onerous and

laborious. Later, by adding a little cooking to this, I even lessened the fatigues of

soldiering. For example, I only had to take out the sixteen canteens of water detail for my

section when I chose; sixteen canteens can become heavy, and it was simpler to loll about

a little fire and boil or fry something while someone else, less gifted in cookery,

performed the sections arduous tasks. On June 26th there was a rumor that we were to move. At dawn roll call we were ordered to hustle through our breakfast at full speed. By

this time we had several little fireplaces made with railroad fishplates and rocks and

could cook fairly comfortably. Breakfast was corned beef, hardtack, and coffee. The

coffee beans were still issued already roasted; we pounded them to a very coarse powder

in our tin cups, and then boiled them furiously. It suggested coffee and later we were to make coffee from green beans that would not even do that. The coffee was not even

boiling when the sergeants were around our heels. Pack! Roll your pack get a move on! Hurry! fall in! 3 Two clarifications are in order. Fishplate was a metal or wooden plate bolted to the sides of two abutting rails or beams, used especially in the laying of railroad track.4 And sowbelly was a familiar 19th century American army food. Private R.C. Miller, 8th Ohio Volunteers, arrived in Cuba around 10 July and testified at the Embalmed Beef hearings that the men were often served "sowbelly, a sort of fat salt pork." Questioned if the army

issued the kind of bacon he ate at home, Miller replied No, sir. [but] Once in a while we bought it in cans at the commissary.

Q. Do you know that that bacon which you call sowbelly is substantially the form of bacon

that has been issued to the United States troops for the last hundred years?

A. No, sir. I liked it very well, but I didn't know that.5

The 71st Regiment participated in the famous San Juan Hill fight on July 1

st, and during

the fighting and siege of Santiago rations were scanty and poor. After the Spanish

garrison surrendered on July 14th

Private Post noted, Rations now came out of Santiago by wagon We got beans and unroasted coffee and hardtack and sowbelly. And, once, fresh beef! The beef was dumped from the Army truck to the ground under a tree; this

was the tree the regimental horses had used for their stable. There were quarters of beef,

fore and hind; the quartermaster sergeants got an axe and chopped off a section for each

company. Having a fashionable butcher for a quartermaster sergeant was an advantage.

Once I believe there was even filet mignon for the captain. The regimental quartermaster

saw to it that each company took its turn at stew meat. Anyway, I preferred stew meat; it

made a gravy, or soup, when a sack of flour got through to us. Lord, how good it was! It

made hardtack edible almost.6 Charles Post took the opportunity to delve further into camp cooking. The Young Mens Christian Association brought up a tent I heard that the Red Cross had sent up some cornmeal and some white flour, a barrel of it. They had, two huge sacks. It was fine

flour, and I knew if you mixed it with water you got dough; and if you heated dough you

got something to eat. Cooking is easy. Just dough and heat With the [tin] mess cup of flour I made dumplings. It was, as a matter of fact, the first time the wagon came through and dumped the fresh beef on the stable ground. Jimmy and I combined our fresh

beef. We added river water; then we made dough of flour and water and dumped it in the

stew. Men stood around and looked at my boiling cup and its dumplings. In that hour I

made a reputation as a veritable chef. Also, from experience back in the States, I knew

how to build a fire and get it going, with the utmost economy in twigs and firewood no more did I forage for my firewood. I built and made fires for others, and saved them

labor in firewood foraging. For this service I would trade a wood detail. Also I would

cook a meal, or add dumplings to it, for other favors in the line of distasteful duty.7 It was not till after hostilities formally ended on the island that Charles Johnson Post

faced his ultimate culinary challenge. Posts regiment stayed on in Cuba until late August. For much of that time the unit remained in the lines outside Santiago, still

suffering from lack of food and other supplies. Posts captain decided to take a detail into the city and retrieve stoves, tents, and other regimental equipment from shipboard.

Unwilling to work in the stifling holds removing the needed stores, Private Post hit upon

a plan for remaining ashore, in the shade. I am not gifted by nature other, perhaps, than having been given a superb sense of the value of indolence. I have often noted the

close relationship between indolence and achievement. A busy person goes ahead and

does the job; the indolent man thinks up a better way to do it. Thus indolence is the

mother of invention. Post put his plan into action: Captain, I asked, who is going to cook for this outfit? Captain Rafferty replied there were plenty of Cubans to do the job, at which Post retorted, My Gawd a Cuban! I slandered a fine people; but in war no holds are barred.8 The bait was swallowed whole.

The captain turned abruptly. Can you cook? Yessir! I said. It was ridiculous. Could I cook! All one needed was a fire and something to put in it or

over it. Also, if one was a good cook one simply told someone else to make a fire and

what to put on and take off it. I proposed to be one of those good cooks. So I answered the captain. Why not? Then, dammit, returned the captain, cook! And it better be good.

To cement his position Post said, Captain do I understand that now I cook and unload the ship too? Sergeant, said the captain, he cooks and nothing else.9 Private Post promptly asked for something to cook with, and the captain ordered an

oven brought with the first load from the ship. The Buzzacot arrived. It was the colonels own pet Buzzacot for the headquarters mess. It was just right for our twelve men! That night we camped under one of the big corrugated-iron sheds It was a luxury. We had messed at noon any old way; the nights dinner was on the Buzzacot. The dinner was hardtack, sowbelly, and coffee same as in the trench.10 And what, pray tell was a Buzzacot? Private Post first encountered them stateside:

The cooking apparatus was what was officially designated as a Buzzacot Oven. This was a series of huge pots and pans (including a wash boiler) nesting one within the other,

all enfolded within two sections of an iron grill. The Buzzacot could cook for a hundred

men with ease, and burned fuel like a blast furnace In operating it, mere cooking was one of the minor elements to be mastered. You had to nurse the grill like a premature

infant. The grid was the type made famous by St. Lawrence [he was roasted to death on a

gridiron]. You watched the wind, you banked one side or tore it down a bit. You made

big, fat embers and then put them on the lid of one of the huge pans you were using as an

oven, to get the heat down on the upper side of your roast or beans. You fanned it with

your hat, or you coaxed it and cussed it in a thousand ways. And sometimes you

succeeded rather well. But for an army in the field before Q, X, or K rations were

invented, for soldiers who were not merely hitchhikers on baggage wagons or tanks, I

want to say that the Buzzacot was a superb though eccentric instrument.11

Post continued his narrative: all about us, under this shed and the next, were mountains of fine white flour, Pillsburys 3-XXXs, canned beef, canned fish, jellies, sugar, roasted coffee in waterproof waxed bags Red Cross supplies, and there were not wagons and mules enough to get them back to the hills and the trenches. When he questioned Captain Rafferty, the reply was we will draw three days rations tomorrow morning hardtack, sowbelly, beans, and coffee. Also sugar, salt, and pepper. Post considered his dilemma, I felt that the captain would not like to have me pillage Red Cross supplies or, perhaps, he might not like me to get caught at it. But I was a cook and the first duty of a cook is to cook food. Few in the Army, outside of the plush-sofa

offices in Washington, regarded either sowbelly or hardtack as being in the nature of food

as the term is commonly used. And here I, a cook, in the land flowing with honey and

protein, had nothing to cook. My duty was plain. I have, therefore, nothing to blush for

when I state that we lived well.12

Avoiding or deceiving the guards, Post and his comrades filled their larder.

By morning we had roasted coffee out of waterproof waxed bags There were two sentries to each supply shed, and they were a nuisance They were particularly odious about the pile of nice white Pillsbury 3-XXX flour. Sometimes we stabbed a sack with a

bayonet and let it run into mess tins But we got bolder Sugar? It lay stacked in tons around us! Potatoes, onions, turnips, everything. The stacks were assorted, and we found,

by scouting, where there were jams and jellies, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, canned

tomatoes, lime juice for lemonade and all for a little patience and ingenuity from time to time.

13

Cheap labor and Cuban food was near at hand, too.

Even as I had hoped, I found those who would work for hardtack and sowbelly: two

young Cubans who dragged bucketfuls of water broke crates into kindling and firewood and blew the embers into a blaze come mealtime. They led me to a Spanish

baker up in the city; and the baker traded me sixty pounds of utterly delicious Spanish

rolls for a hundred pounds of raw white flour, and threw in two pounds of sweet

chocolate in addition. We traded every day [and] Every day Captain Rafferty rode out to our trenches. His gunny sacks were filled with the rolls and bread of the Spanish baker, some of the chocolate, and whatever else we had been able to accumulate. It was a

lovely existence Once we had baked beans, for a Sixth Cavalry cook alongside our shed baked them in his Buzzacot with hot embers on top of the oven pans to brown them

nicely I furnished the sowbelly for them. But, outside of that, I merely waited until he called and I sent the little Cubans over.14

In the midst of this land of milk and honey Posts nemesis Sergeant Myers attempted his downfall.

Then Sergeant Myers had an idea Captain, said Sergeant Myers, I think we should have a pie. And he gave me an unpleasant look. Fine! Fine, Sergeant in fact Ill give a little dinner, responded the captain cordially. Theres a Regular officer Ive met Ill invite him Yessir, Captain, I said. But no lard for shortening! I had him there, I thought. I had never made a pie.

I brought some off the ship today, said Sergeant Myers evilly. So we had pie. Amazing as it may seem, there were cans of superb peaches among the

stores I dusted off, and washed off, a bit of the cement floor of the shed, and rolled out the crust with a whiskey bottle filled with water to keep it cool.

15

Despite Private Posts amateur status and Myers treachery the meal was a triumph.

Captain Raffertys final words had been: And Ill bring a steak! that afternoon there was the captain, a slice of meat half the size of one of our tattered ponchos over his

arm. It was steak! the Regular Army captain came shortly afterward and under his arms were two bottles of wine!

We started with bouillon, made from Leibigs Beef Extract in our tin mess cups. My Cuban assistants collected and washed them up for coffee. We had steak, broiled over the coals from a fire of packing boxes and crates that had been tended all that afternoon.

With the steak there were petits pois from a case of those little French lacquered tin cans.

There were tomatoes, softly thickened with flour and a dash of salt and sugar. There were

lyonnaise potatoes, boiled that morning. Then we had the peach pie, with cheese the Red Cross thought of everything and coffee.16

Coffee was followed by wine (the Cubans washed the tin cups again), which Post and

the other enlisted men shared; The wine was port, maybe, or Madiera. Never was there such flavor, or such a bouquet with its gentle warmth. The evening closed with cigars and sentimental songs. Not long after that the 71

st New York took ship for home; Private

Posts culinary campaign had drawn to a successful close.17

U.S. Soldier, 1898, by Frederick Remngton

Appendix: The Buzzacott Oven

Manual for Army Cooks (Prepared under the direction of the Commissary General of Subsistence.

Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1896 revised edition), 216-222.

Buzzacott Oven

Various portable stoves and ovens have been invented and placed upon the market for use in

camp cookery.

The Buzzacott oven is now generally used in the Army; it is an adaptation from the Dutch

oven. It consists of a large rectangular box; the bottom is made of sheet iron or steel with a top of

similar material.

It is compact and strong for transportation.

The outfit includes all the necessary utensils for roasting, baking, frying, broiling, and stewing,

as well as many of the cooks' tools for the use of a full company of seventy-five men. It is issued

by the Quartermaster's Department, upon requisition, to United States troops, for use in field and

camp service.

Plate 7 represents the entire military outfit, as pricked for transportation. Inside are the thirty to

thirty-five utensils comprising the outfit. Size, 25 by 35 by 14 inches. Weight, 175 to 200 lbs.,

complete. In shipping, it forms its own crate, and when thus closed this skeleton stove forms an

iron crate about the whole, fastens or binds it together and permits of any heavy objects being

packed on top of it without danger of crushing.

Plate 8 represents the general appearance when set up for use. It can, however, be rearranged as

circumstances require.

Plate 7. Buzzacott Oven packed for transport.

Plate 8. Buzzacott Oven in operation.

1890 patent illustration

http://www.google.com/patents/US434242

[Patent] (No Model.) 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 F. H. BUZZAGOTT. PORTABLE BAKE OVEN.

No. 434,242. Patented Aug. 12, 1890.

Inventor.- 12E, fizz ewoz'fit,

(No Model.) 2 Sheets-Sheet 2,

F. H. BUZZACOTT.

PORTABLE BAKE OVEN.

No. 434,242. Patented Aug. 12, 1890 Q 1' J, w {7 M94 "II mm vgus cu, mum-mm, wunmmw, u.

c.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

FRANCIS HENRY BUZZACOTT, OF FORT SUPPLY, INDIAN TERRITORY.

PORTABLE BAKE-OVEN SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 434,242, dated

August 12, 1890.

Application filed December 27, 1889. Serial No. 335.157. iNo model.) A

' and described.

In the drawings which illustrate the manner of carrying out my invention, Figure 1 is v a

perspective view of the bake-oven with the hood removed. Fig. 2 is a perspective view of same

with a hood or covering placed over it. Fig. 3 is a cross-section of same, taken on line so a: of Fig.

2. Fig. 4 is a transverse section taken on line y y of Fig.2. Fig. 5 is aperspective view of the bake-

oven, showing the end partly broken away, revealing the baking-pans in position on the inside.

Fig. 6 is a detail in perspective of the supports on which said oven rests, and Fig. 7 is a detail in

perspective of the lifting-hook used for removing the lid.

Referring to the drawings by letter, A represents an oven constructed of sheet metal, as illustrated

in Fig. 1,being provided on the inside with rests a, which form bearings for smaller baking-pans

0', thus leaving an airchamber around them, through which the hot air circulates.

B is a hood made similar in shape and design, but larger, and deep enough to cover said oven A

and extend down below the base thereof in such a manner as to retain the heat.

0 is a horizontal bar having its ends 0 bent in such a manner as to form suitable supports for said

oven. 0 are perforations in said supports a, by which the oven is transported to any desired

locality. This may be done by running any suitable bar through the perforation and raising it from

the ground.

D is a pan made larger than those marked 0, (represented in Fig. 3,) which may be placed in the

main oven when so desired.

0' are suitable handles provided for smaller baking-pans C, by which they are lifted in and out of

the oven.

a are handlesproperly secured to the hood or covering B, by which it is raised from the bake-oven

A by using the lifting-hook F, said hook F being provided with a suitable handle. This portable

oven is designed to be used for outdoor purposes, and will be found very convenient in army or

camp life.

Having thus fully described my invention, what I claim as being new, and desire to secure by

Letters Patent, is

A portable bake-oven comprising in its structure the pan A, supported above the ground and

having ledges a inside of it, the

pan D, supported on said ledges, and the hood B, having open bottom and sides of a depth greater

than the height of pan A, but less than the combined height of pan A and its supports C, whereby

room is left under the oven for fire, the tops of pans Aand D being closed by hood B, and a hot

jacket or chamber provided in hood B around pan A, as set forth.

In testimony whereof I affix my signature in presence of two witnesses. 1

FRANCIS HENRY BUZZACOT'I.

Witnesses:

JAMES WILSON, JAMES MATTHEW.

Endnotes

1. Ambassador John Hay, It has been a splendid little war , Walter Millis, The Martial Spirit: A Study of Our War with Spain (Cambridge, Ma.: The Riverside Press,

1931), 340. Edward F. Keuchel, "Chemicals and Meat: The Embalmed Beef Scandal of

the Spanish-American War," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 48 (Summer 1974),

249-264.

2. 71st Regiment Infantry New York Volunteers Spanish-American War (World Wide

Web),

http://www.dmna.state.ny.us/historic/reghist/spanAm/infantry/71stInf/71stInfMain.htm

Charles Johnson Post, The Little War of Private Post: The Spanish-American War Seen

Up Close (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), introduction, page

v (hereafter cited as The Little War of Private Post).

3. Ibid., 125, 145.

4. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th

Edition (New York:

Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000).

5. Overview of American soldiers diet in the 1898 Spanish-American War. Standard ration: At the beginning of the war the daily allotment consisted of "1 1/4 pounds of beef or

3/4 pound of pork, 18 ounces of bread or flour, 1/10 pound of coffee, 15/100 pound of

sugar, 1 pound of vegetables; 2 quarts of salt, 4 quarts of vinegar, 4 ounces of pepper, 4

pounds of soap, 1 1/2 pounds of candles, to 100 rations." On the transport to Cuba one

regular cavalry regiment subsisted on "hard bread, coffee, sugar, salt, and some canned

beans and tomatoes," along with canned roast beef eaten cold from the container. The

canned beef's condition was poor and the subject of a later Congressional investigation; the

men "didn't like the taste of it, and ... didn't appear to be able to eat it." One officer noted that

it had "a lot of scraps floating around in the grease and a very peculiar odor ... it was a

stringy substance, and ... was different colors at different times." On shore bacon, canned

corned beef, and canned, fresh, and refrigerated beef were issued, with the soldiers

preferring fresh beef, corned beef, or bacon.

Testimony of Private Miles O'Dwyer, 9th Massachusetts Volunteers.

"Q. What meat was issued to you [on Cuba] from the 1st of July until the end of the siege ...

A. We got a can of roast beef for the three days' ration in our haversacks and as much hard-

tack as we could stuff in for the travel ration up ... We made the forced march up that night

... [Before the fight at San Juan Hill] The companies formed a sort of stack of their

haversacks, and some companies were detailed back [to retrieve them] ... I never saw my

haversack after I left it there."

O'Dwyer also related that from the 2nd of July till the 17th their meat ration consisted of

"about half corned beef and half roast beef," with more of the former being issued. He also

noted that "a very small percentage" of the canned beef he saw was tainted. "... we formed

messes, [a corporal and] eight men to a mess ... The minute that we would get a can we

would open it, and ... division it ... We would take it out with a spoon, and the way we used

it we would soak up a little hard-tack, and then ... mix it up with the roast beef, and put it in

on the pan, and in some cases we would get a tomato ration and make a sort of stew. We

would add a little water to ... cook it, but there was a great deal of complaint against the

roast beef, because it was sort of a jelly stuff, and if you added a little water it would make a

liquid of it. ... It was not as satisfactory ... as the canned corned beef. ... we used to like [to

receive] onions because that would take the nauseating taste off the meat ... and make it

palatable in the stew."

Commissary-General of Subsistence, Report for year ending June 30, 1898, 7, 25-32; cited

in Charles Knowles Bolton, The Private Soldier Under Washington (Williamstown, Ma.,

1976), 80. Food Furnished by Subsistence Department to Troops in the Field ... In Response

to Resolution of the Senate of March 30, 1900, the Original Record of the [U.S. Army]

Court of Inquiry Relative to the Unfitness for Issue of Certain Articles of Food Furnished by

the Subsistence Department to Troops in the Field During the Recent Operations in Cuba

and Porto Rico, part I (Washington, D.C., 1900), 5, 52, 429-432, 461-463. Convened in

Washington, D.C., 15 February 1899, The court was directed to investigate certain allegations of the Major-General Commanding the Army in respect to the unfitness for issue

of certain articles of food furnished by the Subsistence Department to the troops in the field

during the recent operations in Cuba and Porto Rico."

6. The Little War of Private Post, 250.

7. Ibid., 250-252, 254

8. Ibid., 271-272.

9. Ibid., 272-273.

10. Ibid., 273.

11. Ibid., 11.

12. Ibid., 273-274.

13. Ibid., 274-275.

14. Ibid., 275-277.

15. Ibid., 277-278.

16. Ibid., 278.

17. Ibid., 278-279.