A Treasury of Civil War Family Recipes

A Unique Collection of Treasured Family Recipes and Tidbits of History from Jefferson Davis, General Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, General Robert E. Lee and Others Who Were Involved in the War Between the States. A Treasury of Civil War Family Recipes is chock full of delightfully delicious cooking ideas favored by many famous people of days long past.
It contains the prized recipes for those dishes cooked by, or eaten by, some of the better known as well as lesser-known figures from the Civil War era of our glorious history.
Included are recipes for tasty breads and interesting baked goods, skillet southern fried chicken and really good poultry dishes. Here you will also be treated to many taste-tempting soups, stews and stuffings – and, yes, even pickles as well as loads of other wonderful things.
Or you may wish to try some buttermilk pie, an array of wonderful desserts, rhubarb punch and other delightful beverages. Then make the unique corn bread with a streak of delicious custard running through it.
Yes, you can now enjoy a meal exactly like that eaten by those who wore both the blue and the gray during the War Between the States – or as some unreconstructed Southerners still refer to it – the War of Northern Aggression.
Here you will find the favorites of such historical luminaries as Gilbert van Camp who dearly loved sweet potato biscuits for breakfast.



Or those honey cookies eaten by President Abraham Lincoln.


And the special pork and parsnip stew so enjoyed by Medal of Honor winner, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker.


That unusual molasses pie made by the wife of famed Confederate Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Or those special huckleberry pancakes so dearly loved by General Robert E. Lee.



And the giblet-cornmeal turkey stuffing prepared on special holidays by the Abner Doubleday family.

One very special traditional cake recipe handed down from the Civil War era is this favorite from the family of Confederate Brigadier General Roger Atkinson Pryor (1828- 1919). Mrs. Pryor made this wonderful sponge cake for her family each Christmas season.
Some of the recipes used during the Civil War era, as originally written, would be rather difficult, if not in some cases nearly impossible, to use with any degree of accuracy or ease. This can readily be attested to by this Chestnut family “Receipt” for Billy Goat Cookies as given below. This one was simple written down as a list of ingredients by Mrs. Chestnut. In such cases, the homemaker was expected to know exactly what to do in order to achieve the desired end result. Here it is as originally inscribed in the Chestnut family ledger:

3 cups flour 1 cup raisins
1 cup butter chopped fine 1 ½ cups brown 1 cup walnuts
sugar (scant) chopped fine
3 Eggs 1 teaspoon soda
¼ cup water (scant) sifted in flour

Brigadier General James Chestnut, Jr. (1815-1885) was a fiery orator, an ardent secessionist and a staunch defender of slavery.
This fourth generation South Carolina planter was a Princeton graduate.
He was an aide-de-camp to General P.G.T. Beauregard at Fort Sumter and First Bull Run.

Chestnut was later a most trusted adviser to President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, as well as his aide-de-camp from 1862 to 1864.
On the other hand, a great many other recipes were simply given as one long and often rather complicated paragraph. Ingredients weren’t usually listed in any particular order. This recipe for Baked Cauliflower is a good example of how they were once commonly written. It was a favorite of the Garfield family and regularly made by Mrs. Garfield for her husband, James.:
“One and one-half pounds cauliflower, 2 ounces butter, 1 gill milk, 1 dessertspoonful meat extract, 2 tablespoons flour, a dash of ground mace. Boil the cauliflower; heat 1-1/2 ounces butter and 2 tablespoons flour to a golden brown; add the milk and a tumblerful of water in which the cauliflower has been boiled with 2 saltspoonfuls meat extract dissolved in it; boil this sauce till thick, then flavor with ground mace; strain and pour over the cauliflower, which has been placed in a deep dish; melt the remaining ½ ounce butter, pour it over, sprinkle with grated cheddar cheese and bake in a hot oven, standing the dish in a pan of boiling water.”
James Abram Garfield (1831-1881) pulled himself up by his bootstraps from a poor childhood and became a lay preacher, later a Union General during the War Between the States and finally the President of the United States.