[4V50 Gary]

While before Petersburg, doing siege work in the summer of 1864, our men had some wormy hardtack served out to them for a time. It was a severe trial, and it taxed the temper of the men. Breaking open the biscuit, and finding live worms in them, they would throw the pieces in the trenches were they were doing duty day by day, although the orders were to keep the trenches clean, for sanitary reasons.

A brigade officer of the day, seeing some of these scraps along our front, called out sharply to our men: " Throw that hardtack out of the trenches. " Then, as the men promptly gathered it up as directed, he added: " Don't you know that you've no business to throw hardtack in the trenches? Haven't you been told that often enough?" A disgruntled soldier offered his explanation: " We've thrown it out two or three times sir, but it crawls back!"

H Clay Trumball, War Memories of Army Chaplain, 1898 pp52-53