[Supply Steamers at Nashville, Tennessee]

Rodney Poole

1862 · Albumen silver print from glass negative · Photographs

The seemingly endless array of steamships along the wharf at Nashville, Tennessee, provides an accurate report of the complex preparations required to supply the United States Army before an impending Civil War engagement-in this case the battle of Murfreesboro on December 28, 1862. The square containers in the foreground are clearly stenciled "Pilot bread from the U.S. Government Bakery, Evansville, Ind." Customarily known as hardtack, this dried biscuit was a common provision that stayed soldiers' hunger with, or more often without, other more precious foodstuffs such as sugar and coffee. Behind the crates of hardtack are barrels of Cincinnati rot-gut, a cheap whisky distilled for military use only.

Artist

Rodney Poole

Date

1862

Medium

Albumen silver print from glass negative

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gilman Collection, Museum Purchase, 2005