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How Coffee Fueled the Civil War
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com ^ | July 9, 2014 | JON GRINSPAN

Posted on 07/12/2014 6:45:01 AM PDT by NKP_Vet

It was the greatest coffee run in American history. The Ohio boys had been fighting since morning, trapped in the raging battle of Antietam, in September 1862. Suddenly, a 19-year-old William McKinley appeared, under heavy fire, hauling vats of hot coffee. The men held out tin cups, gulped the brew and started firing again. “It was like putting a new regiment in the fight,” their officer recalled. Three decades later, McKinley ran for president in part on this singular act of caffeinated heroism.

At the time, no one found McKinley’s act all that strange. For Union soldiers, and the lucky Confederates who could scrounge some, coffee fueled the war. Soldiers drank it before marches, after marches, on patrol, during combat. In their diaries, “coffee” appears more frequently than the words “rifle,” “cannon” or “bullet.” Ragged veterans and tired nurses agreed with one diarist: “Nobody can ‘soldier’ without coffee.”

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: History; Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: 18620913; abrahamlincoln; antietam; coffee; godsgravesglyphs; greatestpresident; ohio; thecivilwar; williammckinley
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To: Monkey Face

Available as an IV drip i understand. :)


21 posted on 07/12/2014 1:48:48 PM PDT by moose07 (the truth will out ,one day.)
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To: moose07

Only for the first hour. After that, I’m fueled and ready too go!

How are you, this fine evening, Moosie?


22 posted on 07/12/2014 1:51:25 PM PDT by Monkey Face (Auto correct can go straight to he'll.)
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To: x

It’s been 30 years or better since I left New Orleans and I can still recall the smell of chicory coffee brewing. I hated the stuff!


23 posted on 07/12/2014 1:52:23 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: rockrr

But is there *caffeine* in it?


24 posted on 07/12/2014 2:53:10 PM PDT by txhurl (2014: Stunned Voters do Stunning Things!)
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To: txhurl

One summer I worked in Montana on a temporary job, with a crew from various parts of the country. One fellow was from Louisiana and he brought his own coffee with him; it was something that apparently is only sold in south Louisiana (it did not contain chicory, btw). He drank it all day long, kept one of those mugs (that looks like an upside-down funnel) on the dash of his pickup....along with a bottle of Mylanta. He’d take a sip of coffee and a sip of mylanta all day long. One day he convinced me to try some of his coffee and that stuff was like battery acid. I can’t imagine how he had any lining left in his esophagus after drinking that foul brew.


25 posted on 07/12/2014 3:18:29 PM PDT by Renfield (Turning apples into venison since 1999!)
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To: Renfield

Unrelated: I took up SanPelligrino Citrus Sparkling water cans a few weeks ago (trying to kick my Coke habit), and had my first 8oz Coke today, it felt like fire burning all the way down.

This from a 40-yr Coke drinker.


26 posted on 07/12/2014 4:40:38 PM PDT by txhurl (2014: Stunned Voters do Stunning Things!)
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To: Monkey Face
No can function without coffee!

I bought my wife a tee shirt that reads: "Instant human. Just add coffee." She is a real coffeeholic, and has turned me into one.

27 posted on 07/12/2014 6:26:55 PM PDT by JoeFromSidney (Book: Resistance to Tyranny. Buy from Amazon.)
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To: txhurl

They used to sell coffee with chicory here in Mississippi, but I have not seen it on the shelves in a long time. It tastes like real bad coffee that has brewed too long.


28 posted on 07/12/2014 9:41:31 PM PDT by Vietnam Vet From New Mexico (If you don't want to stand behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them.)
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To: txhurl

I’m definitely not a chicory expert but my web searches say no - no caffeine.


29 posted on 07/12/2014 11:09:21 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: txhurl
I’ve always read about Louisiana folks using chicory as a coffee substitute....

Every time I drank chicory coffee I got the shits. The same with barley coffee.

30 posted on 07/12/2014 11:17:55 PM PDT by Octar
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To: NKP_Vet

Coffee was the impetus behind the whole scientific & intellectual revolutions of the past 3 centuries. The coffeehouses were powerhouses where ideas were exchanged by caffeinated men.

(I love the stuff — can’t start my day without it.)


31 posted on 07/13/2014 12:19:01 AM PDT by MoochPooch (I'm a compassionate cynic.)
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To: MoochPooch

“I love the stuff — can’t start my day without it”.

Same here and the stronger the better. I wake up at 4 AM and drink coffee till about 9 AM. How many cups this is, I don’t keep track. I don’t drink it during the day or at night. Both my parents would. My old man drank coffee at every meal, black, and would drink it all day if he could. My mother had a funny little habit of drinking coffee when she ate fish. The rest of us drank iced tea but she had to have coffee with her fish.


32 posted on 07/13/2014 6:20:05 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
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To: NKP_Vet; SunkenCiv
The William McKinley Monument at Anteitam:

The inscription reads: "Sergeant McKinley Co. E. 23rd Ohio Vol. Infantry, while in charge of the Commissary Department, on the afternoon of the day of the battle of Antietam, September 17, 1862, personally and without orders served "hot coffee" and "warm food" to every man in the Regiment, on this spot and in doing so had to pass under fire."

Since this was the bloodiest day in American military history, it was quite something for a man safely in the trains to go up to the fighting on his own initiative. He didn't get a medal, but did get a battlefield commission.

33 posted on 07/15/2014 3:07:46 PM PDT by colorado tanker
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To: colorado tanker

Would love to one day visit the battlefield.

Deo Vindice

GG Grandson of Duncan Black
15 NC Infantry
1843 to 1921


34 posted on 07/15/2014 3:20:15 PM PDT by NKP_Vet
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To: colorado tanker

Serving food and drink while under fire is not everyone’s cu-, uh, never mind...


35 posted on 07/15/2014 3:27:28 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: NKP_Vet
I wake up at 4 AM and drink coffee till about 9 AM. How many cups this is, I don’t keep track.

I have only one BIG cup of coffee per day.

Now, I'll top it off 5, 6, 12 times...but it's the same cup! :-P

36 posted on 07/15/2014 3:49:25 PM PDT by uglybiker (nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-BATMAN!)
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To: NKP_Vet

I have been there four times, learn something new every time, and my family fought with Iowa and Illinois Regiments in the West.


37 posted on 07/16/2014 11:49:43 AM PDT by Little Bill (EVICT Queen Jean)
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To: txhurl

38 posted on 01/16/2019 11:44:02 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet (You can't invade the mainland US. There'd be a rifle behind every blade of grass.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Happy upcoming Birthday, old fren.


39 posted on 01/18/2019 5:25:54 PM PST by txhurl (whoa)
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Note: this topic is from 07/12/2014. Thanks NKP_Vet. If you wanna get down, down on the grounds, caffeine.

40 posted on 07/13/2020 5:27:20 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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