Cabin Fever in Winter Quarters

Field Hospital 1 st Division 2 nd Army Corps near Brandy Station , VA; Feb-March 1864; James Gardner; Library of Congress.

Both armies established more permanent quarters during the winter months between campaigns. Arriving at the 2nd Corps Hospital at Brandy Station, Virginia, in February 1864, nurse Cornelia Hancock described the hospital headquarters as “beautifully laid out” with log houses, “and tastefully adorned with evergreens.”

Assistant Surgeon Daniel Holt, 121 st New York, camped near White Church in spring 1863, described how some regiments had gone to great lengths to ”decorate their streets—setting out lines of trees and enclosing hospital and headquarters with beautiful festoons…the heads of streets arched with letters of the Company occupying the street hanging in graceful circles overhead.”

Inactivity during the winter months could be boring. Some surgeons got leave to visit home; other surgeons brought their wives to visit them in camp. Surgeon William Child, 5 th New Hampshire wrote home from Falmouth Virginia, Dec. 31, 1862, that “I have plenty of time for writing reading and sleeping. For one half hour in the morning I am eager in prescribing for the sick. It is really dull.”

Surgeons and other officers broke up the monotony with outdoor exercise. In February 1863, Assistant Surgeon Cyrus Bacon, 2 nd US described outdoor activities like football, “kicking the ball ‘til dark. It became fine sport with so many playing.” He also described snow balling, snow charges, and tumbling, a form of wrestling.