SW039 Army Victuals: Jerry Morris Takes Measure of Marchers by the Volume of their Vittles

[Editor's Note: This is the 11th in a series of podcasts over the coming weeks promoting the Seminole Wars Foundation's self-paced virtual challenge, The Major Dade Memorial March to Fort King that launches in just a few days, on Dec. 22. Registration to join Laumer's Legion is now open. Visit www.seminolewars.us for details.]

Courtesy photo Linda and Jerry Morris at St Francis Barracks, St Augustine, Fla.

In this episode, Jerry Morris discusses his 1830s victuals display and the pamphlet he penned based on it along with his overall research, entitled The Army Moves on Its Stomach. He does not ration his insights here but doles out healthy portions to help listeners understand what it took the Army to feed its troops on a 7- to 10-day march between military posts in Florida.

Why did he do this? Because it wasn't enough for ex-paratrooper Jerry Morris to march 60 miles with Laumer's Legion in 1988, retracing the 1835 route of Major Dade's fateful march to massacre. He had to map it as well and he did with Jeff Hough in The Fort King Road: Then and Now. Even that wasn't enough. Jerry Morris also wanted to know what the Soldiers ate along the march route. He had wondered about this while he himself was marching five days from Tampa to Bushnell. The contemporary fare he nibbled upon gnawed at his conscience. This wasn't what they ate, he told himself. A library quest soon ensued and after that, a compilation of recipes and after that, carefully measured amounts in mason jars along with baked hard tack meeting all 1830s standards for quality (Note: no worms. Those only came later with the Civil War and unscrupulous contractors). He soon had a field table display from which he educated spectators visiting various Seminole War battlefield sites during living history demonstrations. With his great wife Linda, Jerry moves the accoutrements in a trailer from site to site today, even though he now moves around in a mobility scooter. From middle school students to the author of the History of the Second Seminole War, Dr. John Mahan to a five-year-old girl attending a battle reenactment with her dad, Jerry gives every presentation as if it was his first one and with the personal delivery one would expect to his dearest friend.

Courtesy photo Jerry and Linda Jerry Morris at Seminole Wars Battle Reenactment in Florida. 

 

Host Patrick Swan is a board member with the Seminole Wars Foundation. He is a combat veteran and of the U.S. Army, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Kosovo, and at the Pentagon after 9/11. A military historian, he holds masters degrees in Public History, Communication, and Homeland Security, and is a graduate of the US Army War College with an advanced degree in strategic studies. This podcast is recorded at the homestead of the Seminole Wars Foundation in Bushnell, Florida. 

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