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Updated: September 12, 2025
Pity the men that got up this war can't be made to do all the trampin' 'n' fitin'. An' them fellers up in old Injjeanny that come 'round makin' such red-hot speeches to git us boys to 'list, wouldn't it be fun to see 'em humpin' 'long with gun 'n' knapsack, 'n' chawin' hardtack, 'n' stan'in' guard nights, 'n' pourin' water on their blisters, 'n' pickin' graybacks off their shirts, 'n' p'leecin' camp, 'n' washin' their own clothes?"
I made a quart canful of strong, hot coffee, toasted some bacon on a stick, and then, with some hardtack, had a good breakfast and felt better. The fence was of post and plank, the planks arranged lengthwise, with spaces between. We were ordered to lie flat on the ground, and keep the barrels of our guns out of sight, as much as possible.
I accordingly unsaddled my animal, and ate a hearty breakfast of bacon and hardtack which I had stored in the saddle-pockets; then, after taking a smoke, I lay down to sleep, with my saddle for a pillow. In a few minutes I was in the land of dreams. After sleeping some time I can't tell how long I was suddenly awakened by a roaring, rumbling sound.
Then some thoughtful soldier pulled a box of hardtack across the trenches and the little Spanish soldiers fell upon it like schoolboys and scrambled like pickaninnies for a penny. Thus it was that day all around the shining circle of sheathed bayonets, silent carbines, and dumb cannon-mouths at the American trenches around Santiago, where the fighting was done.
Before, during, and immediately after the fights of June 24th and July 1st, we were very short of even the bacon and hardtack.
Each tarried, for a brief time, to attend to the live stock under his immediate care, and some even to snatch a morsel of food, but mostly they were off and away again, a flask of water and a bit of hardtack in pocket, oftener than not forgetting even this meager nourishment.
The staple articles of the latter were flour, beans, salt pork, coffee and sugar. Then we had rice, cornmeal, dried fruit, tea, bacon and a barrel of syrup; besides a good supply of hardtack, crackers and cheese for use while crossing the plains, when a fire for cooking might not be found practicable.
There were these commissary stores carried, calculated by pounds: Bacon, 67,275; corn-meal, 31,250; roasted coffee, 10,200; raw coffee, 3,250; sugar, 2,425; mess pork and beef, 9,600; corned beef, 24,000; beans 18,900; hardtack, 1,250; cans of corn, 1250. June 29.
Si was so mortally tired that it seemed a great relief just to sit still and rest, though the rain continued to pour down. Shorty fished some hardtack and fried pork out of his haversack, and also gave him a handful of ground coffee. Si munched the crackers and meat, with an occasional nip at the coffee. His spirits began to rise just a trifle.
And Si crammed a handful of hardtack into his haversack. Si's cheery view of the case was not without its effect upon Shorty. Indeed, it cannot be denied that there was a great deal of common sense in his homely, good-natured philosophy. Sooner or later every soldier who did not "peter out" came gradually to adopt Si's idea as the governing principle of his military career.
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