I know that chocolate was considered a medicine in the 17th Century, but the Civil War?

Portions of a requisition made by Asst. Surg. J. B.Brinton, U. S. Army, medical purveyor, Army of the Potomac, May 17, 1864

"It is also desirable that he procure a barge and load it with 3,000 iron bedsteads or wooden cots, 3,000 mattresses, 10,000 sheets, 7,000 pillows, and 100 brooms, 400 rubber cushions with open center, 10,000 pillow-cases; 5,000 suits hospital clothing, 2,000 blankets, 3,000 counterpanes, 500 wooden buckets, 20 cauldrons, 12 cooking-stoves with furniture complete, 10 barrels of fern sulphas for disinfectant purposes, 200 pounds cocoa or chocolate, 200 pounds corn starch, 100 dozen bottles porter, 600 pounds oakum, and 1,000 bed-sacks. The above supply to be on a separate boat, and not to be used unless the emergency requires, which emergency will be the establishment of hospitals."

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David Upton