"A year ago to-day I cradled rye for Theron Wilson, and I remember we had chicken pie for dinner with home-made beer to wash it down, To-day I have hard-tack. Have I ever described hard-tack to you? … In size they are about like a common soda cracker, and in thickness about like two of them…. But… The cracker eats easy, almost melts in the mouth, while hard-tack is harder and tougher than so much wood. I don’t know what the word "tack" means, but the "hard" I have long understood….. Very often they are mouldy, and most always wormy. We knock them together and jar out the worms, and the mould we cut or scrape off. Sometimes we soak them until soft and then fry them in pork grease, but generally we smash them up in pieces and grind away until either the teeth or the hard-tack gives up. I know why Dr. Cole examined our teeth so carefully when we passed through the medical mill at Hudson."

Overtime, it is natural for language to change and develop as new words are added to the dictionary. For example, your BlogMaster can sometimes be accused of being a mouse potato. The term "mouse potato" is a recent addition to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. It means I spend too much time at the computer, just as a couch potato spends too much time sitting on the couch watching television. Can you imagine asking someone from the Civil War what the words Internet and BlogMaster mean! Words also fall from use and become forgotten. Many of the words used during the Civil War are not often heard, read, or understood today.

Anyway, we were hungry so we sat down for some hardtack, salted horse meat, and coffee, but had no desire to get some stew of hardtack, vegetables, and salted meat going. Despite the unpleasant air of this area, we’ll set up a lean-to for one night’s use and break out some hard liquor and get drunk. If we get time later on, maybe we’ll have ourselves a contest where body lice are placed on the center of a saucer or plate, and wagers are taken as to which louse will scurry and fall of the edge of the plate or saucer first. Better get a fire going and try to dry out our shoes [shoes were also often called brogans]. We should be safe from Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Jubal Early tonight. We are proud to be Pennsylvanians who signed up for one hundred days’ service after Gettysburg and serving under General George G. Meade, as far as we’re concerned there is no one better than Meade because he’s the most important person in our group. Maybe tomorrow we’ll start a battle. We intend to utterly destroy the Confederates. I swear, I’ll spend all night slapping large mosquitos!

I only hope I won’t have to deal with diarrhea tomorrow, like I did today. It sure made things uncomfortable for me and I almost had a fit of hysteria dealing with it. Good heavens, it’s none of your concern. I’ve been eloquent here, but I’ll shut up now.

Hardtack was a typical item in the diet of both Billy Yanks and Johnny Rebs. Hardtack was a quarter-inch thick square of baked unleavened flour. The soldiers often joked about hardtack. One joke the soldiers told was that the only protein in their diet came from the worms found in the hardtack.

* 4 cups of flour

* 2/3 cup of shortening

* 2 teaspoons of salt

* 1 cup of water

1.) Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

2.) Combine flour and salt, begin mixing in shortening a

little at a time. Use the mixer on medium setting.

Add more water or salt as needed, to obtain a similar consistency to Playdough.

3.) Roll the Hardtack dough into a thickness of about 1/2 inch.

4.) Cut dough into squares of 3 inches by 3 inches by 1/2 inch.

5.) Poke 16 holes into each biscuit. An old ballpoint pen might work best.

6.) Put biscuits on a non-greased cookie sheet and bake in the pre-heated 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for 20 to 25 minutes per side.

If the biscuits come out soft, don’t worry…they will become hard in a day or two!

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought on July 1, 2, and 3, 1863. July 3, was a Friday. Around 8:30 that morning, 20-year-old Miss Mary Virginia (Jennie) Wade was at home and busy baking bread for hungry Union soldiers. At the Farnsworth house, almost two blocks away from Jennie Wade’s home, a Rebel sharpshooter was perched in hiding. Thinking the Wade house was a Union headquarters and hoping to pick off a Yankee officer or soldier, the Confederate sharpshooter fired a single bullet toward the Wade home.

The sniper’s bullet passed through two doors of the Wade house before it struck Jennie Wade in the small of her back just below the left shoulder blade. Jennie died instantly as the bullet tore through her heart.

Jennie Wade began each day reading from the Bible. The passage she happened to read on July 3, was; "Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart." Death was abundant at Gettysburg in early July of 1863. The Union suffered approximately 3,155 killed and the Confederacy approximately 3,903 killed. Miss Jennie Wade was the only civilian killed at the Battle of Gettysburg.

You can visit the Jennie Wade House in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. When you visit Jennie’s home, you can see where the north side of the house is blemished with over 150 bullet and shell holes from the Gettysburg battle. On display at the Wade house, is the bullet that killed Jennie Wade, the young bread baker.