Diet, Disease & Death

The U.S. Government provided supplies for the Arkansas mounted horsemen or "Rackensackers." Daily rations were supposed to include ¾ pounds of bacon or beef per day, hard bread (in the Civil War called hardtack), and occasionally coffee, salt, and soap. As one Pulaski County soldier recalled "The beef we here received was very bad–so poor, as the soldiers say, that to throw it against a smooth plank it would stick." The men supplemented their rations with food like fruit, sweet potatoes, corn, hot chocolate, and pelonsellas (a block of brown sugar) bought from the Mexicans.

Disease was a common problem for soldiers in the U.S.-Mexican War. Typhus killed several Arkansans near San Antonio, Texas. The measles, often combined with the common cold, left many soldiers buried in unmarked graves in Mexico. Other diseases that the men faced included yellow fever, malaria, dysentery, and smallpox. The Arkansas regiment left in July 1846 with 870 men. Disease, death, and desertion reduced those ranks to 479 by February 1847.