George Pickett Goes to a Shad Bake

…and the South loses the American Civil War

By late March 1865, the end of the Civil War was in sight. The war that had once looked so good for the South had taken a turn after Gettysburg. Now, things were grim. The Union was in better shape, better supplied, and had far more men. The walls were closing in around Lee as he tried to prevent the fall of Petersburg and Richmond. But his supplies were short and his last supply port had been cut off. His army was in rough shape, morale was low and they were decimated by wounds and desertions. Lee and his generals were desperately trying to hold the line.

On his right flank was General George Pickett, one of the Civil War’s more interesting characters. He had graduated last in his class at West Point and fought in the Mexican American War. He wore a tailored uniform with gold buttons, rode an enormous black charger, and had long perfumed hair that hung in ringlets. He was a storyteller, charming, flamboyant, eccentric, and annoying. At Gettysburg he made a doomed frontal assault with more than 50% casualties that he would forever be linked to by name – Pickett’s Charge. The charge both immortalized and ruined him, and he brooded over and blamed Lee for it until his death.

Lee ordered Pickett to hold the line against Union General Phil Sheridan. Pickett surprised Sheridan by advancing and pushing him back. By doing this, however, Pickett had unwittingly exposed himself and correctly surmised that Sheridan knew this as well. He was forced to pull back to the crossroads at Five Forks where he held the line. There, Pickett received a terse message from General Lee: Regret exceedingly your forced withdrawal, and your inability to hold the advantage you had gained. Hold Five Forks at all hazards. Under this enormous pressure and with the stakes so high, Pickett naturally decided to go to a shad bake.

Had I been asked before today to define the word ‘shad’ I might have ventured an archaic past participle of shed, show, or shit. Once collocated with ‘bake’ shad becomes food, drugs, or a dance move from the 1970s. In the end, shad is a fish. A voluminous fish found in the North Atlantic, shad swims up fresh water streams to spawn and when they do people catch them in great quantities and bake them on planks of wood circled around a fire. My interest grew into amazement when learning that my new piscine friend has a starring role in the story of America. Shad was long a staple diet to several east coast indigenous tribes. Native Americans in Connecticut introduced shad and its planked baking method to early colonists. In the 1680s, William Penn negotiated with the Lenape over rights to shad fishing spots in the Schuylkill River. At Valley Forge in 1778, George Washington’s men were saved from starvation by an early thaw and early shad spawn. The shad appears in American artist Thomas Eakins’s famous 1881 painting ‘Shad Fishing at Gloucester on the Delaware River’. It’s Connecticut’s state fish. The shad is ‘the fish that fed the (American) nation's founders’. Not a bad resume for an animal with no arms.

Given its importance, why is the shad not on the U.S. Dollar or lying open-mouthed on the seal of the United States? Why do we not pledge allegiance to the shad or faithfully impart ‘in shad we trust’? While the shad fed America’s founding fathers, the founding fathers probably weren’t too thrilled about it. When Abigail told John Adams that shad was for dinner, he probably rolled his eyes and said, ‘not again!’ The shad, aka the inside-out porcupine, is infamously bony, and thousands of miniscule bones stand between a diner and nutrition. So while eating one would keep you alive, it would do so in a state of tedious frustration. By the late 18th century it had become known as a poor man’s food. Nevertheless, the shad bake saw a reemergence in the early 1800s when the Middle Class began discovering travel and Americana. Thus the shad bake was rebranded as a quintessential springtime event. The baking method of nailing the shad to wooden planks in a circle around a fire was seen as folksy local tradition in coastal communities in New England, the MidAtlantic states, and in the South. And on April 1 1865, the inside out porcupine was to play its role in U.S. history once again.   

The holder of the shad bake, General Thomas Rosser, was a native Virginian and knew that it was shad season. He had apparently waded into the Nottoway River with a net and captured the shad himself. Rosser had a reputation as a gourmand and a drinker, and George Pickett and Fitzhugh Lee (Robert E’s nephew) probably accepted Rosser’s invitation knowing they were in for a good meal and brown liquor. Besides, Pickett was probably desperate for a little relaxation and, believing he’d broken up the Union forces for the time being, saw no harm. One can hardly blame the man. However, that he failed to tell anyone where he would be or put anyone else in charge is slightly harder to accept. So when the Union attacked that day, Pickett was not only absent, nobody knew where he was.

While Pickett was picking a thousand small bones out of a fish, the assault unrolled against his men. Further creating a perfect shadstorm for George Pickett’s situation, a thick forest stood between Rosser’s camp and Five Forks which dampened any sound. So nobody in Rosser’s camp could hear the battle. By the time they were alerted and Pickett got to his men, nearly half of them were wounded, dead, or captured. Subsequently, the confederate Army would lose the Third Battle of Petersburg, Richmond was captured, and Lee was forced to surrender his army on April 9 at Appomattox. Pickett no doubt shad himself.

Pickett, (Fitzhugh) Lee, and Rosser languished over the feast and immensely enjoyed themselves. In the words of historian Ed Bearss, if there was whiskey or brandy, ‘it was not shunned’. However none of them showed any signs of being drunk. Were we to authentically celebrate Pickett’s shad bake with what soldiers drank in the field, we would be drinking whiskey. If you care to do that, then grab the closest bottle of bourbon or rye and have at it. But let’s celebrate with a perennial classic southern cocktail: the mint julep.

Ingredients

-          4-5 mint springs (leaves only)

-          2 sugar cubes or ½ ounce simple syrup

-          2 ½ ounces bourbon (yes, bourbon)

-          Crushed ice (yes, it should be crushed for the full effect)

-          Mint sprig for garnish

-          Shad (or fishsticks)

Kentucky senator Henry Clay introduced the mint julep to Washington D.C., so what follows is his modus operandi in almost pornographic detail. My notes are in parenthesis.

The mint leaves, fresh and tender, should be pressed against a coin-silver goblet (or any cup) with the back of a silver (or any) spoon. Only bruise the leaves gently and then remove them from the goblet. Half fill with cracked (crushed) ice. Mellow bourbon, aged in oaken barrels (Maker’s Mark is our favorite at HH, Booker’s, on the other hand, will make this experience ethereal and narcotic) is poured from the jigger and allowed to slide slowly through the cracked ice (please, please do this, and let us know if it made you feel like 19th century southern gentry).

In another receptacle, granulated sugar is slowly mixed into chilled limestone water to make a silvery mixture as smooth as some rare Egyptian oil, then poured on top of the ice (NB: there will never be a sentence as beautiful as that one). While beads of moisture gather on the burnished exterior of the silver goblet, garnish the brim of the goblet with the choicest sprigs of mint (NB: I stand corrected. Enjoy!)