Established in 1858, Camp Floyd was the largest military post in the United States. It was created to put down a Mormon rebellion that never took place. When the Civil War began in 1861, soldiers were recalled and Camp Floyd was dismantled. Little evidence of the once thriving camp remains. Living conditions were hard; one soldier with Johnston's Army wrote on September 25, 1858 that Camp Floyd was a miserable, disagreeable, and uninteresting place on a dry plain with no grass or other vegetation except sage, and with only a little dirty stream near the west end of camp that was scarcely large enough to drown a mouse. A small stream once separated Camp Floyd from the town of Fairfield, and the Commissary building is believed to be the only original structure remaining from the military camp. Lieutenant H.S. Putnam of the U.S. Corps of Topographical Engineers surveyed the camp in January 1859 and drew a map.