Fort Abercrombie's commissary storehouse held the fort's food supply in a long, single-story structure built of hewn logs and covered with clapboard siding. Because protecting food from the elements was urgent, a storehouse was typically one of the first buildings constructed at a frontier fort, and its wider doors were used for unloading supplies. An 1862 sketch of Fort Abercrombie shows the commissary storehouse to the left of the flagpole. Food stored there included salted pork or beef, flour, peas, rice, beans, coffee, tea, sugar, vinegar, salt, and pepper. To supplement these basics, soldiers were often encouraged to grow gardens, and the addition of fresh vegetables added variety to their diet and helped prevent diseases such as scurvy. The commanding officer appointed a sergeant to supervise the day-to-day work in the commissary storehouse, including tracking the amounts and types of food stored there and overseeing its distribution to all the soldiers at the fort. The sergeant shown in typical 1860s dress uniform for a foot soldier wears sky-blue trim on his frock coat and a hunting horn insignia on his hat, indicating infantry service, and carries a noncommissioned officer's sword on his left hip as more a symbol of rank than a weapon.