Authorized Rations for POWs

Although prisoners' accounts, such as the ones reproduced here, describe hunger — sometimes extreme hunger amounting to starvation — Federal authorities in theory at least prescribed an adequate diet for POWs in their charge. By modern standards it was a far from balanced diet, heavy on fats and starch and completely lacking in fresh vegetables, but the fare — had it been provided — would have kept their prisoners alive and in reasonable health.

An order of William Hoffman, Commisary General of Prisons, dated 1 Jun 1864, lists the following as regulation rations:¹

Daily, for each person:
Pork or bacon or Fresh Beef	10 ounces   14 ounces
Flour or soft bread or Hard bread	16 ounces   14 ounces
For every hundred rations:
Beans or peas	12-1/2 pounds
Rice or hominy	8 pounds
Soap	4 pounds
Vinegar	3 quarts
Salt	3-3/4 pounds
Potatoes	15 pounds

Every other day the sick and wounded were to have twelve pounds of sugar, five pounds of ground or seven pounds of green coffee or one pound of tea to every one hundred rations.

Source notes:

¹ Official Records, Series 2, 7: 183-184. In Richard F. Hemmerlein, Prisons and Prisoners of the Civil War (Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1934), 105-106.

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