Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1899 — SOLDIERS' PUDDING. [ARTICLE]

SOLDIERS' PUDDING.

How the Cook of a Company Snr prised Hia Comrades. "Tn November, *62,” said Judge Langbein, who was a drummer boy in the famous Hawkins Zouaves, “we were in camp at Falmouth, directly opposite Fredericksburg; Md., where many of our command fell a little later. We could get nothing but the ordinary rations, but we had prepared for that by starting a company fund several months before for the purpose of supplying a Thanksgiving dinner. There must have been something like S4O in the fund, and our cook kept the disposal of this fund a profound secret It seems ridiculous now, but I don’t believe that any child ever waited far the coming of Christmas morning

with a keener excitement than we did for that Thanksgiving dinner. When it came at last, we found that the great dish was nothing more nor less than a good old-fashioned plum pudding, rich and savory. I’ll never forget that’ pudding, but it was the only thing we had. It had taken all the company fund to buy the flour and other ingredients for the pudding. I tell you, though, it seemed good to our stomachs, which had endured a steady diet of hardtack and coffee for weeks. I don’t believe that a band of street ragmufflns ever tackled a feast with a keener relish than we poor fellows felt when we devoured that pudding.”