America at War : The Common Cup
than ordinary value because it was the last that he had the material for making . He has ... just got his coffee heated to the boiling point when the officer of the day came along , and he was ordered with the rest of us to fall in . Everybody knows that when coffee first boils , it takes a mischievous fancy to running over . This fellow waited a little too long . His coffee made out to boil , and in his hurry to remove it from the fire , he spilled the whole of it and burned himself in the bargain .... it was more than this soldier could muster , and the consequence was that he invoked terrible imprecations of wrath upon the heads of all officers in general and this one in particular . 12
In April 1865 , at the bloody , bitter end of the Civil War , Ebenezer Nelson Gilpin , a Union cavalryman , wrote in his diary , “ Everything is chaos here . The suspense is almost unbearable . We are reduced to quarter rations and no coffee ,” he continued . “ And nobody can soldier without coffee .” 13
The lack of coffee in the Confederacy affected soldiers and civilians alike . The acquisition of “ magic beans ” became a major preoccupation . An American Battlefield Trust article on coffee relates an oral history from one Virginia family :
As Union soldiers moved out after a small skirmish in the Northern Neck , Confederates scoured the campsites for every bean left behind , regardless of the dirt and debris clinging to the dropped bits . It was too precious of a commodity to leave in
14 15 the field .
The Coffee Wagon ,” The US Christian Commission . The Coffee Wagon was invented , built , and presented to the Commission , by Mr . Jacob Dunton , of Philadelphia . 15
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