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Comment by agtech_andy | Hacker News Reader

It is a very compelling article and nice to read about the Liberian farmer entreprenuer, but the South also had tea, tobacco, and yaupon (black drink) which are all stimulants.

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As the article states, it wasn't just stimulant qualities, it was also for morale. Imagine having no choice but to drink tea after decades of very rapid cultural absorption of coffee by every person.

Wouldn't the lack of tobacco have similar effects on Union soldiers' morale?

I'm curious now.

The Union had some tobacco production -- 50 million pounds compared to 225 for the Confederacy. Was that enough for morale?

Also, it looks like cigarettes weren't popular until after the Civil War. What would the morale hit be like for Civil War era pipe/cigar smokers running short, versus the meltdowns experienced by cigarette smokers?

Indeed, I live in Wisconsin, and we were a tobacco growing state at one time. You still see old tobacco drying barns here and there. The folklore is that we grew the cheap stuff that was mixed with the nice stuff from further south, but during war time, it might have been a different set of priorities.

Actually, I wonder how much of the tobacco crop was for domestic consumption anyway -- it looks like 40 million pounds was going to the UK per year; that implies that a good portion of the 225 million pounds the South produced wasn't being withheld from the North.

So I'm guessing the North had plenty of tobacco for domestic consumption.

Mass market factory produced cigarettes came later in America. They were first mass produced in France around 1845, a guy in Mexico made first rolling machine. Here they were first sold for factory workers to have a quick smoke during breaks. Before that was cigars and more commonly pipes. There may have been hand rolled ones but the explosion of use happened after their manufacture was consolidated and mechanized. Also when they got taxed and had to carry tax markings. Cigars were hand rolled in dirty conditions until in NYC the industry was consolidated in the name of public health (big business grab).

https://www.historyextra.com/period/modern/a-brief-history-o... When were cigarettes first mass-produced? In 1881, James Bonsack invented a machine that could produce 120,000 cigarettes a day. He joined forces with Washington Duke’s son and in their first year they produced 10 million cigarettes – more than they could sell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette

For a short while but surely reduced access to smoking would improve performance in the medium term? Both are obviously possibilities and it would be good to know if anyone had an answer.

You can smoke all day and be stimulated around the clock. Try drinking coffee all day every 30 minutes and you’d be bent over on the latreen after your tenth cup by noon.

"You can smoke all day and be stimulated around the clock."

.. and find out that you have trouble breathing after minimal exertion. I gave up fags after 30 odd years (20 or so a day), six years ago.

I could drink coffee every 30 mins and no I won't be hitting the bog. I can quite happily drink "really shite" coffee - that awful desiccated stuff, but I go for 1/2 teaspoon of it and no milk.

I start my day off with decent coffee at home and at weekends (bean to cup) - that's 85% Aribica and 15% Robusta, for me. Thank you Genoa! We gave you cricket and football, you gave us coffee as the good Lord intended it.

Yes, but the union soldiers could not have been smoking for 30 years, because they were on average 25 years old. You probably won't notice a major effect until you've been smoking for decades.

It's not that simple and sadly: "probably" doesn't always work out the way you want it to. For every Dot Cotton puffing away into her 90s, there is someone who dies in their 20s.

Fairly recently: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-56801794 yes, the girl suffered from diagnosed severe asthma. The Coroner gave air pollution as the cause of death. Who knows what would have happened if she was a smoker, but I think we can make an educated guess.

My mum suffered from severe asthma (and hay fever) - enough to have to go to hospital on many occasions. However she never lived in an environment like that girl nor did she really smoke. Oh apart from three years in London and that was back when lead was in petrol. Hmmm.

Anecdotes are not data but I do recommend you avoid fags. Relying on the usual "my gran smoked woodbines until she was 105 and tripped over her old man" is not a particularly clever life choice.

With hindsight I bothered to notice loads of effects that I had glossed over for years.

On average, you are still not going to see the effects of smoking for many years to decades. You might get some exceptions but almost all cases it will take many years of pretty heavy smoking.

I smoked. In the end the best way to stop for me was to take up cycling because I found them fundamentally incompatible. My chest didn’t like it. This was in my 20’s and I was riding 2-6 hours a day.

Endorphins from exercise is a pretty good alternative for smoking.

Interestingly enough, some (not most) of the faster runners when I was in the US Army were heavy smokers.

A couple good cigs used to make me crap when I smoked. A coffee and a smoke was a sure fire thing, we used to have ashtrays by the toilet. I know this sounds gross and younger folks wouldn’t understand but … it was gosh darn amazing . = a great time

I think depends on how much physical exertion the soldiers needed in that day. Athletes don’t smoke (in general). Soldiers who need to march and fight with no vehicles might well be better off not smoking, when the going gets really tough.

I’m open to morale being more important, but doubt it’ll be settled from our rando internet person opinions. If someone has historical info that would be more useful. Maybe recent special ops people have a good view, as they are right on the edge of human performance under life and death pressure, and might well smoke.

Sounds like a way to rile up a bunch of angry troops.

"Hey fellas, if you want your cigarettes, you just gotta get through those guys over there - they have tons of tobacco."

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