John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life

[124] A recruit of longer standing, who had been through this experience and had begun to feel his wisdom-teeth coming, would take his up in a bag made of a scrap of rubber blanket or a poncho; but after a few days carrying the rubber would peel off or the paint of the poncho would rub off from contact with the greasy pork or boiled meat rational which was its travelling companion, and make a black, dirty mess, besides leaving the coffee-bag unfit for further use. Now and then some young soldier, a little starchier than his fellows, would bring out an oil-silk bag lined with cloth, which his mother had made and sent him; but even oil-silk couldn't stand everything, certainly not the peculiar inside furnishings of the average soldier's haversack, so it too was not long in yielding. But your plain, straightforward old veteran, who had shed all his poetry and romance, if he had ever possessed any, who had roughed it up and down “Old Virginny,” man and boy, for many months, and who had tried all plans under all circumstances, took out an oblong plain cloth bag, which looked as immaculate as the every-day shirt of a coal-heaver, and into it scooped without ceremony both his sugar and coffee, and stirred them thoroughly together.

There was method in this plan. He had learned from a hard experience that his sugar was a better investment thus disposed of than in any other way; for on several occasions he had eaten it with his hardtack a little at a time, had got it wet and melted in a rain, or, what happened fully as often, had sweetened his coffee to his taste when the sugar was kept separate, and in consequence had several messes of coffee to drink without sweetening, which was not to his taste. There was now and then a man who could keep the two separate, sometimes in different ends of the same bag, and serve them up proportionally. The reader already knows that milk was a luxury in the army. It was a new experience for all soldiers to drink coffee without milk. But they soon learned to make a virtue of a necessity, and