After the Confederate victory at Ball’s Bluff in October 1861, the Union and Confederate armies settled into winter camps between Washington and Richmond. Confederate forces withdrew from Fairfax County to Prince William County and defended a line from Manassas to Quantico, while batteries on the Potomac River blockaded shipping to Washington. Many units built log huts with clapboard roofs for winter quarters in the Neabsco and Quantico Creek area. Gen. John Bell Hood’s Texas Brigade established Camp Wigfall here late in the summer of 1861. When not on picket duty, the men cooked and cleaned camp, played cards, foraged, and visited brigade sutlers or friends and relatives at nearby camps. They also built The Lone Star Theater for the newly formed Hood’s Minstrels, whose actors, brass band, and choir performed there, including banjoist Sam Sweeney and Harry McCarty, lyricist of “The Bonnie Blue Flag.” Unsanitary conditions and crowding brought outbreaks of measles, dysentery, diarrhea, and typhoid fever that caused more deaths than combat. Most soldiers came from the Deep South and depended on local citizens for care while army doctors struggled to control the epidemics. Early in March 1862, the Confederates withdrew closer to Richmond, taking what supplies they could, but bad roads, too few wagons, and their hurried departure forced them to destroy provisions and munitions. Federal troops later occupied some of the camps, but most soon disappeared.