Camp life during the Civil War harbored a host of problems, but it was better than marching or combat. For many soldiers, camp was home for up to three years, and they coped as best they could.

Living Quarters

Army regulations required camps to be laid out in a grid pattern, with officers' quarters at the front end of each street and enlisted men's quarters aligned to the rear. The camp was set up approximately along the same lines as the line of battle, and each company proudly displayed its colors on the outside of its tents.

During the summer months, most soldiers slept in canvas tents. At the onset of the war, both sides used what was known as the Sibley tent, named after its inventor, Henry H. Sibley, a brigadier general in the Confederate army. The Sibley tent was a large canvas cone about eighteen feet in diameter, twelve feet tall, and supported by a center pole. It had a circular opening at the top for ventilation and was heated by a cone-shaped stove. The Sibley tent was designed to house twelve men comfortably, but a shortage of supplies often increased occupancy to up to twenty men per tent. As might be expected, the conditions within these tents often bordered on the intolerable; bathing was a rare luxury for soldiers in the field.

Overcrowding was alleviated somewhat when the Sibley tent was replaced by smaller tents that were easier to carry. The Union army primarily used the wedge tent, a six-foot length of canvas draped over a horizontal pole and staked to the ground at the sides, with flaps that closed over each end. The wedge tent also saw use in the South, but when canvas became scarce, many soldiers were forced to make open-air beds by piling leaves or straw between two logs and covering it with a blanket or poncho. During the winter, crude huts were made out of wood — when wood was available.

Daily Routine

Soldiers in the Civil War did not see battle every day, or even every week. Most were inactive about 75 percent of the time, thanks to the hurry-up-and-wait nature of warfare. During these down periods, the typical day started at 5 A.M. during the spring and summer months and 6 A.M. during the fall and winter. Soldiers were awakened by reveille, roll call was taken by the first sergeant, and then everyone sat down to breakfast, which usually consisted of biscuits, some kind of cured meat, and coffee. Eggs and fruit were added to the menu when they were available.

During the rest of the day, soldiers engaged in as many as five two-hour drill sessions on weaponry or maneuvers. Most soldiers found these drills extremely boring and tedious; they wanted to fight, not practice, though they realized the drills could mean the difference between life and death when fighting did occur.

Soldiers also cleaned and readied the camp, built roads, dug latrines, gathered wood for cooking and heating, and sometimes foraged for food to supplement their meals. One of the biggest problems facing soldiers in the field was proper sanitation. Access to clean water for drinking and bathing was often limited, and illness from contaminated water or poor hygiene was rampant. Because army camps were tight-knit groups, a contagious disease such as measles or chickenpox could decimate a camp within days. Indeed, most soldiers had more to fear from illness than enemy bullets.

Food

Food shortages became a serious problem for the Confederacy, and even some Union forces during the later years of the war. Early on, soldiers on both sides were relatively well fed. By mandate, daily rations for Union soldiers in 1861 included a minimum of 20 ounces of fresh or salted beef, or 12 ounces of salt pork; more than a pound of flour; and a vegetable, usually beans. Soldiers also received regular allotments of coffee, salt, vinegar, and sugar.

In the field during long campaigns, however, mandated allotments often fell short. Quality meat and vegetables were in short supply, and soldiers were forced to subsist primarily on salt pork, dried beans, corn bread, and hardtack, a biscuit made of flour and water that more often than not was contaminated with weevils and other critters. The lack of fresh vegetables and fruit often led to outbreaks of scurvy, a disease caused by a vitamin C deficiency.

As the war progressed and supply trains found themselves unable to reach forces in the field, soldiers on both sides often had to live off the land. Hunting helped provide meat, but sometimes armies were forced to take what they needed from nearby homes and businesses. Confederate soldiers, who usually found themselves fighting on the home field, preferred to request provisions from sympathetic citizens. Sometimes they stole supplies or took them by force, though pillaging was something most soldiers did only under the most dire of circumstances.

Coping

Boredom was a chronic problem in most army camps. Drilling helped take up some of the day, but the soldiers had to devise other forms of recreation to help them while away the rest of the hours. Those who were able wrote long letters home or read books, magazines, and newspapers when they could get them. Others played cards or engaged in various sports, such as baseball, boxing, and cockfighting. Some camps, desperate for activity, even staged cockroach and lice races. Drinking and gambling were discouraged by military officials, but both activities were nearly impossible to control, especially after payday. Contact with prostitutes also was strongly discouraged but, again, nearly impossible to stop. Soldiers on leave frequently visited brothels, and prostitutes were known to visit military camps in specially equipped wagons.

Alcohol was a huge problem on both sides. Soldiers on duty were prohibited by army regulations from buying liquor, but soldiers found a number of ingenious ways to smuggle alcohol into camp and keep it hidden from their commanding officers. The members of one clever Mississippi company managed to sneak a half-gallon of whiskey past guards by pouring it into a watermelon; they then kept the watermelon hidden by burying it beneath the floor of their tent and drinking from it through long straws.

Of all the hardships soldiers faced in camp, homesickness was probably the most rampant and difficult to cure. Furloughs were rarely given — both sides needed as many able bodies on the battlefield as they could muster — and often impractical, since most units were so distant that it would have taken soldiers days or even weeks to reach home. Many soldiers became so homesick that they deserted, sometimes for a short while, sometimes forever. During the war, 141 Union soldiers were executed for desertion, though Lincoln signed numerous pardons for the common offense. “I prefer to take the risk on the side of mercy,” he explained.