SPANISH AMERICAN WAR HARDTACK

$250.00

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Item Code: 1219-43

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Volunteers in the Spanish American War were just as anxious to illustrate the hardships of army life by bringing home souvenir hardtack as their fathers had been after the Civil War. That staple of army field rations had been the subject of many humorous stories, jokes, at least one comic song, and half the title for Billings’ classic account of Civil War army life, “Hardtack and Coffee.” In this case James B. Newton of Company I, 161st Indiana, preserved two pieces of army “hard bread” or “crackers” as they had been known, both showing some wear to the surface, one full size and one about two-thirds there, still enough to make the point to those who had it soft back home.

The 161st Indiana organized at Indianapolis and mustered in during July 1898 with 46 officers and 1,228 enlisted men. They were assigned to Fitzhugh Lee’s 7th Army Corps in August, leaving for Jacksonville, FL, August 11, and were sent to Savannah Oct. 23, sailing from there to Havana on December 13, and arriving two days later. They were in Cuba until March 29, 1899, when they returned to Savannah, mustering out there on April 30, having lost eighteen enlisted men to disease, one by accident, and five who deserted. Newton was a resident of Lafayette when he enlisted June 28, 1898, in Company I, organized at Monticello. Muster rolls show him discharged Jan. 30, 1899, by which time the regiment was in Cuba. He seems to be James Brock Newton (1879-1959) who died in Muncie and whose obituary mentions service in the Spanish American War.

It may have been something of a joke on Newton’s part to keep hardtack in a tin for after dinner mints- perhaps to offer them as an after dinner treat to other veterans. They are preserved in a square tin embossed on the lid: “U-ALL-NO / MANUFACTURING CO / OF AMERICA. / AFTER DINNER MINT/ PAT. APPLIED FOR / REGISTERED IN U.S. PATENT OFFICE.” The “U” does look rather like a “V,” but other stampings of the tin are more obvious and the company trademarked it in 1906, as an obvious pun on “you all know.” The company had a good reputation for the cleanliness of its production facilities, purity of its ingredients, and the preservative qualities of its tins, something the US government took advantage of in World War One, using the production line to make shipping containers for  sensitive detonators and fuzes.    [sr][ph:L]

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