Daily Bread

Daily Bread. . Keeping soldiers fed was a challenge on the frontier. Supplies were often limited to what could be preserved and shipped long distances., An enlisted man's rations consisted of flour, salt beef, salt pork, beans, rice, molasses, and coffee. The quality of the cooking depended on the soldiers assigned to kitchen duty that week., At Fort Randall, most of a soldier's daily ration of flour was made into bread in the bake house that once stood on this spot. Its two brick ovens could bake as many as 500 loaves at a time., Captions: , Drawing of the bake house at Fort Randall., Privates show off vegetables grown in the post gardens at Fort Assiniboine, Montana, about 1885. Similar produce would have been grown at Fort Randall., Book pages: , About mid-winter, scurvy made its appearance. We had been fed on a salt meat diet for nearly eight months and, with the exception of a few wild fruits, had had no vegetables. Those who were attacked became pale and listless. After awhile their gums began to bleed and their teeth loosened., The Indians seemed to have plenty to eat and lived quite comfortably. They had stores of pemican, corn, roots, dried fruits and buffalo tallow, which had been melted and put into bladders for preservation. They also had game from hunting., In early spring, a large post garden was planted about a mile west of the fort. By summer, we had an abundance of vegetables. Game, when we could get it, made an agreeable change in diet. We managed to kill a deer now and then, and plenty of ducks and geese in spring and fall.