Building Winter Quarters

[roundshot]

There is a wealth of fascinating detail in this close-up of Federals building Winter Quarters near Ft. Brady on the James River. Probably men of the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery. Image from the Library of Congress Collection.

[maineman]

OMG! That couldn't actually be a shelter tent in the foreground with a scarcely issued, probably never utilized triangular end piece? Say it isn't so!

[Steve Acker]

Great image. Thanks for sharing.

Steve Acker

[Charles Heath]

Bob, that is a great image. I like the mess kettles drying on the plank in the foreground, which provides photo documentation for something we do on a regular basis.

Just one hint -- please list a source for the images whether they are from a book, NARA, or some other collection. Folks like to be able to find these images on their own, and that little media copyright/plagiarism thing pops up now and then.

Thanks.

[roundshot]

So noted. By the way, a kettle planking is not as tasty as a shad planking.

[Huck]

OMG! That couldn't actually be a shelter tent in the foreground with a scarcely issued, probably never utilized triangular end piece? Say it isn't so!


No I believe that it is a third shelter half being used as an end piece. Hence the look of it being folding in 1/2.

Just my 2 cents.

[Duke20thSC]

Gotta be a fake. That's John Pagano in the lower right hand corner.

[styler]

Very interesting axes.

[GrumpyDave]

That photo is from the Libriary of Congress collection. If you do a web search for Civil War photos, it comes right up on the first page, the first two or three links. There's a whold bunch of camp photo's. Like this one from Brandy Station 1864, Brady Photo:

http://img373.imageshack.us/img373/6821/brandystationvatwomenditw7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[lhsnj]

In looking over the photo, I noticed that the guy on the right who is taking a drink from his canteen seems to be the only guy with a civilian style hat. All the others in the photo appear to be wearing a forage/kepi type hat.

Wonder why he gets to be different?

[ScottCross]

I've built a few cabins for winter quarters before, but these guys are building barracks! There are four shelter halves on one side of the first structure (so, four more on the other), which means there are at least eight men in there! It looks more like a Viking Hall! Ambitious fellows, I'd say.