Hard Tack and Coffee

by John D. Billings
Massachusetts 10th Light Artillery Battery
Full Title: Hard Tack and Coffee: or The Unwritten Story of Army Life

This book is available in audio format.


Hard Tack and Coffee is considered one of the most important books written by a Civil War veteran. Hard Tack and Coffee is not about battles, but rather about how the common Union soldiers of the Civil War lived in camp and on the march. What would otherwise be a mundane subject is enlivened by Billings' humorous prose and Charles W. Reed's superb drawings which are based on the sketches he kept in his journal during the war. The book is abundantly illustrated by Reed's pen and ink drawings. Reed, also a veteran, served as bugler in the 9th Massachusetts Battery and received the Medal of Honor for saving the life of his battery commander at Gettysburg. .

The volume contains twenty-one chapters which treat the origins of the Civil War, enlisting, how soldiers were sheltered, life in tents, life in log huts, unlucky soldiers and shirkers ("Jonahs and Beats"), Army rations, offenses and punishments, a day in camp, raw recruits, special rations and boxes from home, foraging, corps and corps badges, some inventions and devices of the war, the army mule, hospitals and ambulances, clothing, breaking camp and marching, army wagon trains, road and bridge builders, and signal flags and torches.

Some of the information is specific to Billings' experiences as a Massachusetts volunteer artillery veteran. However, much of it is very useful to anyone researching or simply reading about the ordinary soldier in the Union army.

Billings has been described as a skilful writer, both humorous and informative. The historian Henry Steele Commager called the work "one of the most entertaining of all civil war books".

The editors at Time-Life chose this book as one of the volumes of the Collector's Library of the Civil War. It is available in a leather-bound edition with gilded gold edges and also in paperback and digital formats. An audio version of this book is included as one of the volumes on the DVD of our Collector's Library set. The DVD also includes Kindle, epub, PDF, and Word formats.





Hard Tack and Coffee
Hard Tack and Coffee

Billings, John D.
406 pgs.

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