Life at Fort King was harsh for soldiers used to northern climates and more settled conditions, as they faced extreme heat, unfamiliar insects and animals, wool uniforms unsuited to Florida, unsanitary quarters often shared with livestock, scarce food supplies, and widespread excessive alcohol use. Most soldiers who died there died from disease or climate-related illness. On September 26, 1837, Surgeon Samuel Forry of the U.S. Army wrote to Lt. J.W. Phillips that nearly the whole garrison was drunk after the arrival of supplies, that the post had become unhealthy, and that forty men were on the sick list, mostly with intermittent fever. Although each soldier had an established ration, supplies depended on wagon shipments over roads that were often raided, while local sourcing was also unreliable, so soldiers supplemented what they received through the sutler or by trading with civilians or the Seminole. In 1820, rations included pork or fresh or salted beef or bacon, bread or flour or hard bread or corn meal, whiskey, and for every one hundred rations soap, candles, salt, vinegar, and peas or beans; in 1825 the peas or beans allotment was reduced; in 1832 the whiskey ration was stopped because of drunkenness though spirits sold by the sutler remained allowed; in 1834 the President substituted coffee and sugar for whiskey; and in 1838 Congress increased the coffee and sugar allowance per one hundred rations. The diet remained unhealthy, with fresh foods and vegetables available only if grown on site or obtained through trade with Native Americans or settlers. The recorded dead among soldiers stationed at Fort King from 1835 to 1842 included many who died of dysentery, chronic diarrhea, congestive fever, bilious fever, yellow fever, consumption, and diseases attributed to climate and severe service, as well as others killed by Indians, in action, by wounds, in Osceola’s raid, or by an accidental musket discharge; civilian dead were not included.