That link should be working now. Actually, hardtack was almost always crumbled up in coffee (rarely soup or stew, when available). There are several more recipes in the article, including the Union Army specifications. Eating hardtack dry is like eating a rock.

From the article:

Hardtack is thick cracker made of flour, water, and sometimes salt. When properly stored, it will last for years. Before the American Civil War, soldiers called it biscuit or hard bread, sailors referred to it as sea biscuit or pilot’s bread, but to the Union Army of the Potomac during the American Civil War, it was known as hardtack, a name that stuck and spread to other units, including the Confederacy, but the name hardtack seems to have not been in general use among the armies of the West.

Because it could be prepared cheaply and would last so long, hardtack was the most convenient food for soldiers, explorers, pioneers, or anyone else who needed to be able to pack light and move fast.

While hardtack was furnished to the army by weight, the biscuits were doled out to soldiers by number. In some units, a ration of hardtack was nine, while it was ten in others, but there was usually enough to go around because some soldiers would refuse to eat it.

Although it was nutritious, soldiers complained that they could eat ten of them in a short time and still be hungry. But the most common complaint was that they were often so hard that they couldn’t be bitten into, that it took a very strong blow even to break them...


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