Ever since chests of tea were thrown out into the Boston Harbor during the American Revolution, coffee had been the staple beverage for Americans. So it didn't come as a surprise that one of the main factors that the Union considered as an ingredient of their victory during the Civil War was coffee. However, coffee at that time was pretty hard to come by, given the blockade that the Union had set up in the South, preventing coffee imports from Brazil from entering the country. Luckily, Stephen Allen Benson, who was born in Maryland but emigrated to Liberia to escape tensions in the South, had an interesting proposal to the North.
Being president of Liberia, Benson had told the Americans in the North that they had ample supply of coffee in their country, and they would gladly export them. Thus began the partnership between Liberia and George W. Taylor, a member of the Free Labor Movement, which would continue for the next decade, and supplied the North with coffee for much of the remainder of the Civil War.
However, one thing stood between this partnership, and it was that Liberia had not yet been recognized, and so, no formal trade treaties had existed between the two countries until President Abraham Lincoln officially recognized the republic in 1862. This created an opening for Liberian coffee to enter the American market, and before long, the Union Army was once again invigorated by the sweet-smelling aroma of caffeine.
On the other hand, the dwindling supply of coffee in the South made it difficult for the troops to maintain morale, with some soldiers even attempting to engage in secret trades with the North for their coffee in exchange for tobacco. This was further aggravated when Union troops destroyed 500 sacks of Brazilian coffee in Atlanta, which showed just how much coffee the North had, as instead of consuming the South's supply themselves, they just destroyed it.
At the end of the war, Benson unfortunately died but the trading partnership between Liberia and the US continued, even paving new partnerships to be formed with other countries like Britain and Germany. By 1885, Liberia was exporting about 800,000 pounds of coffee per year, which drastically jumped to over 1.8 million seven years later.
This whole trend of drinking coffee became embedded in American culture, and soon enough, the US was importing 11 pounds of coffee per person, per year.
(Image credit: Library of Congress/Battlefields)
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