My father used to tell us boys of his experiences as a soldier in the Civil War, and none of his stories compared with the saleratus biscuit incident:

The Union Army had been on the march for many days on short or no rations. There was a pontoon bridge across the Mississippi River. They were ordered to camp on the river bank and guard the crossing of the troops to follow, which would require several days.

My father noticed that a steamboat had been sunk and that barrels of flour had been salvaged from the wreck and were piled up under a soldier guard on the levee. My father realized that the flour would be unharmed on the inside as the water would not penetrate very deeply through the outer layer of flour. He called the matter to the attention of his buddy and proposed that they pool their funds, buy up all the saleratus possible from the sutler's stores, filch some flour, build an oven, fry out bacon grease, make saleratus biscuits, and sell to the hungry hardtack-weary troops as they made the crossing.

They hired an old negro man to help them and got a batch of biscuits in the oven and discussed the price to charge. They decided to make it 30-cents a dozen for the biscuits and let no one soldier have more than one dozen. Both partners were sorely tired from the day's long march so they drew cuts to see which would get to rest first. My father won the stretch of sleep until midnight. When he awakened, it was daylight and he hurried up to find that his buddy had been entirely too busy doing business to stop and call for relief. There was a terrific demand for the biscuits and he had money in every pocket.

They did a brisk business for three days and had $300.00 apiece in cash when word came they should start on the march again and that a battle was imminent. There was no way to send the money back home so they carried it on their persons and agreed that if neither were killed, the other would send the money to his people. Neither was harmed in the battle and the money was sent later safely to their home folks.