Sketches of the campaign in northern Mexico : in eighteen hundred forty-six and seven / by an officer of the First Regiment of Ohio volunteers.

.230:1:11:E iN THlE CAMP.
some fruits, with which they opened a prosperous traffic.
At no time indeed did our people want for the common
necessaries of life; and there was no one in our regiment
who will not remember and appreciate the indefatigable
exertions of its commissary, Captain Stevens. He was
always prepared to feed the hungry, and at the right time
and place, no matter how hurried or long the march.
While in the wood of San Domingo, most of our companies built bake-ovens and succeeded in making excellent
bread, which we found an agreeable substitute for _pan-demaiz, slapjacks and ship-biscuit. The last named ration,
by the way, had also begun to disclose a very suspicious
meaty flavor, and caused the coffee or liquid in which it was
usually soaked by those whose teeth were otherwise unequal
to its mastication, to assimilate vermicelli soup. It will be
observed therefore that the famous "'meat-biscuit,' which
was exhibited by a Texan gentleman at the Wold's Fair in
London, is nothing so very new under the sun; and my
belief is that the invention was suggested to him by a specimen of our army bread.
As the troops were regularly paid, and with those almighty
dollars whose talismanic influence is acknowledged in all
quarters of the globe, it was within their power to obtain
many little comforts. To many, however, " the shining mischief " but furnished the means of indulging the passion for
gaming, to which soldiers seem peculiarly addicted, and
the greatest portion of their pay soon found its way into the
pockets of the gamblers and adventurers who swarmed, like
famished harpies, in the track of the army. Every effort