What did Revolutionary War soldiers eat? One of the questions that a group of American leaders debated was what and how much should food should be given to the soldiers. They decided on:
One Pound of Beef or ¾ lb. Pork or one Pound of Salt Fish.
One Pound of Bread or Flour per Diem.
Three Pints of Pease or Beans per Week or Vegetables equivalent at 6/ [i.e., 6 shillings] per Bushel for Pease & Beans.
One Pint of Milk per Man per Day or at the Rate of 1d [i.e., 1 penny] per Pint.
One half Pint of Rice or one Pint of Indian Meal per Man per Week.
One Quart of Spruce Beer or Cyder per Man per Day or 9 Gallons of Molasses per Compy [company] of 100 Men per Week.
Three Pounds of Candles to 100 Men per Week for Guards &c.
Twenty four lb. of soft Soap or 8 lb. hard Soap for 100 Men per Week.
Whether they always got all of those things was a different question, but the American soldiers besieging Boston generally seemed to have enough to eat.
Notes
This was one of many things decided on during a conference of New England political leaders and George Washington at Cambridge (the Continental Army headquarters) on October 18-24, 1775.
Note that they didn’t actually write the word “per.” Instead, they used a symbol that looked like a fancy “P”.
I think that “Indian Meal” was cornmeal. As for spruce beer, I hadn’t heard of it except in Revolutionary War writings, so I was a little surprised when I found out that people still drink it today.
Source
“II. Minutes of the Conference, 18–24 October 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-02-02-0175-0003. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 2, 16 September 1775 – 31 December 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987, pp. 190–205.]