Hardtack and Coffee: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Hardtack and Coffee, credited to John Billings, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Hardtack and Coffee by John Billings. Read in English by Maria Kasper; Greg Giordano Hard Tack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life (1887) is a memoir by John D. Billings, a veteran of the 10th Massachusetts Volunteer Light Artillery Battery in the American Civil War. Hard Tack and Coffee is not about battles, but rather about how the common Union soldiers of the Civil War lived in camp and on the march. It covers the details of regular soldier life, including enlisting, how soldiers were sheltered, Army rations, offenses and punishments, a day in camp, boxes from home, foraging , the army mule, hospitals and ambulances, clothing, breaking camp and marching, and other similar topics. Billings has been described as a skillful writer, both humorous and informative. The historian Henry Steele Commager called the work "one of the most entertaining of all civil war books". - Summary by Wikipedia

Recording facts

• Recording title: Hardtack and Coffee
• Author credits: John Billings
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 21
• Listed recording duration: 11:42:11

Catalogue topics

• American civil war
• army life
• 19th century
• soldier memoir

Track guide

1. 01 - Introduction and Chapter 1 - The Tocsin of War — 32:40
2. 02 - Chapter 2 - Enlisting — 14:19
3. 03 - Chapter 3 - How the Soldiers Were Sheltered — 29:10
4. 04 - Chapter 4 - Life in Tents — 19:54
5. 05 - Chapter 5 - Life in Log Huts — 29:33
6. 06 - Chapter 6 - Jonahs and Beats — 33:58
7. 07 - Chapter 7 - Army Rations — 59:45
8. 08 - Chapter 8 - Offences and Punishments — 36:02
9. 09 - Chapter 9 - A Day in Camp — 58:56
10. 10 - Chapter 10 - Raw Recruits — 36:24
11. 11 - Chapter 11 - Special Rations - Boxes From Home - Sutlers — 27:17
12. 12 - Chapter 12 - Foraging — 36:50
13. 13 - Chapter 13 - Corps and Corps Badges — 41:05
14. 14 - Chapter 14 - Some Inventions and Devices of the War — 18:18
15. 15 - Chapter 15 - The Army Mule — 32:55
16. 16 - Chapter 16 - Hospitals and Ambulances — 34:02
17. 17 - Chapter 17 - Scattering Shots — 21:39
18. 18 - Chapter 18 - Breaking Camp - On the March — 38:27
19. 19 - Chapter 19 - Army Wagon Trains — 51:40
20. 20 - Chapter 20 - Army Road and Bridge Builders — 24:24
21. 21 - Chapter 21 - Talking Flags and Torches — 24:53

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.