A few days after leaving Port Gibson rations gave out, and the Union army was directed to live off the country. The region was well-stocked with corn, bacon, sheep, chickens, turkeys, honey, etc. The corn was in cribs. It was taken, shelled and carried to a horse-mill. They would find such a mill on nearly every plantation. There the corn would be gound into meal.
They also found nearly every home had a large and well-filled smoke-house. It was usually a rough, one-room outbuilding without a floor. Many smoke-houses were found filled with bacon; others bore marks of a hasty removal of the contents to some less conspicuous place for safe keeping. Often the meat was buried or put in some spot in the woods, but the hungry Northerners nearly always found the hidden treasure.
Homemade bacon was a favorite with the soldiers, and for a time they enjoyed it with corn bread made from the freshly ground corn meal. Lamb, turkey, chicken and honey were also found.
The trouble with feeding an army off the country in this way was the great improvidence of the soldiers. There was more wasted than eaten. However, for more than two weeks in May, 1863, Grant's army, of thirty to forty thousand men, lived well off the region east and southeast of Vicksburg.
Charles Johnson developed a yearning for fresh milk. He decided he would quench his thirst at the next opportunity:
One day, when on the march, a farm-house was passed, and upon the opposite side of the road were a lot of cows fastened up in the "coppen" (cow-pen), as the Southerners say. I was not long in getting over the fence, nor long in selecting a cow with a fine udder, from which I soon filled my canteen. The fence was again hurriedly clambered over and the regiment overtaken. By and by, when a drink of nice, fresh milk could no longer be postponed, the canteen was turned up, when, horrors! what a bitter taste! Quinine could have been no worse. It was learned soon after from a native that the cows in that season feed upon young cane-shoots, and these give the bitter taste to the milk.
