January 21, 1864---Hoochless Ohio

JANUARY 21, 1864:            

Although the South suffered increasingly dire wartime shortages as the war went on, the North was not immune. On this day, an order was issued in the Department of The Ohio forbidding the distilling of spirits---not because of any temperance movement pressures but because the military authorities feared a shortage of grain for foodstuffs in the unforgiving winter of 1864.