Imagine showing up to enlist in the Union Army during the Civil War and being told to open your mouth.

The Army wanted to see your teeth.

And not just because they were concerned about whether you could chew your dinner.

Civil War soldiers carried ammunition in paper cartridges. To load a rifle-musket, a soldier typically tore open the cartridge with his teeth before pouring the gunpowder down the barrel. That meant a man’s teeth could affect whether he was considered fit for military service.

Army medical regulations instructed surgeons to determine whether a recruit had enough sound teeth to properly chew his food and to tear open a cartridge quickly and easily.

The standards could get surprisingly specific. Revised regulations listed the loss of all the front teeth, canine teeth (‘eye teeth’) and first molars – even on only one jaw – as grounds for rejection.

So yes, during the Civil War a bad enough set of teeth could help keep a man out of the Army.

Of course, considering what awaited many of the men who passed that examination, being told you had terrible teeth may have been one of the better pieces of bad news you could receive in 1863.