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However, there did exist inconsistencies between what was procured for soldiers by the government and what the soldiers actually reported eating. Yet standard primary and secondary source accounts reveal no mention of oatmeal either. For example, in the standard work on the subject, The Life of Billy Yank, Bell Irvin Wiley devoted one chapter (22 of 361 pages) to describe foods received as rations, bought from townspeople, and expropriated from the enemy, without one mention of oatmeal.²⁴ Similarly, in another Civil War classic, John Billings's primary source account of a soldier in the Army of the Potomac, titled Hardtack and Coffee, spends one chapter (34 pages) on food without any mention of oatmeal.²⁵ The same is the case for Carlton McCarthy's personal recollection entitled Detailed Minutiae of Soldier Life in the Army of Northern Virginia 1861-1865. McCarthy used one chapter (16 pages of 224) to explain the cooking and eating habits he experienced, still without one word on oatmeal.²⁶

One product that does appear frequently in soldier accounts of field rations is the desiccated vegetable. The product consisted of kiln-dried cabbage, turnips, carrots or parsnips pressed into blocks and shipped to troops. The soldier in the field added water and heat to make the final product.²⁷ Although this process is remarkably similar to the one used by Schumacher to turn animal feed oatmeal into the product that made him a fortune,²⁸ there was no mention of processed oatmeal being used in a similar fashion.

Yet there exist numerous accounts that during the Civil War, Schumacher could not make his product fast enough. He expanded the mill and added modern machinery to increase production. In 1863 he built a separate barley mill²⁹ and ran both mills twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, until the end of the war.³⁰ His resulting financial success was documented when the local paper declared his 1865 income to be the second highest in the city.³¹ By 1868 he had become a director of the Akron Library Association,³² a director of the First National Bank,³³ and a trustee and finance committee member for the Home Savings Land & Building Loan Society.³⁴

Local legend states that Erhard Steinbacher used his Republican Party influence, some aggressive marketing, and his position as a local buyer for the Quartermaster General to motivate the Army to give Schumacher a trial oatmeal order.³⁵ However, the absence of his name from the twenty-eight party members listed as either committee members or event organizers during local re-election efforts for Abraham Lincoln,³⁶ casts doubt on the extent of his influence on the local party at this time. Furthermore, his relationship with the Quartermaster General's office would have been of little benefit in selling Schumacher's oatmeal, as procuring food for the soldiers was under the auspices of the Commissary General. Any oatmeal ordered by the Quartermaster General would have been animal feed, as these agents were chartered with providing transportation for soldiers, weapons, and supplies.³⁷

Erhard Steinbacher's willingness to market himself aggressively was evident in his testimonial advertisements that were placed in the local newspaper. These advertisements looked like actual news stories and were placed near regular text, but at the end of each story would appear "for sale by Weimer & Steinbacher." Ads of this type promoted such products as Radway's Circassian Balm to eradicate dandruff,³⁸ Blake's Patent Fire-Proof Paint,³⁹ and Dr. Hoofland's Celebrated German Bitters that cured just about every malady known to man.⁴⁰

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