1861 Winter Quarters in Photographs

This week I searched for images of Civil War winter quarters in the online Library of Congress catalog, and here are a few of the results. I think it’s especially interesting to look at the types of shelters and the activities the soldiers were doing or paused doing for the photographs.

Most of the photos in this post focus on the photographic evidence of the camps in Northern Virginia during the winter of 1861-1862. The snug cabins in the images were probably some of the best constructed during the war. Photographs and sketches of winter shelters in the later years of the war usually do not appear as sturdy or elaborate.