By late December, General Felix Zollicoffer decided to winter his command at Beech Grove and ordered huts built to protect the brigade from bad weather, directing officers to work with Captain Sheliha, engineer officer, on the cheapest and most practical design. Between 800 and 1000 cabins stood at Beech Grove along the ridge and around and behind the fortifications, each housing four men. Built of logs, dug about three feet into the ground, chinked in the crevices, and fitted with stick chimneys plastered with clay, some also had glass windows and wood floors, and many were quite large. Private William H. Isom of Company B, 17th Tennessee, wrote that the regiment built log cabins for winter quarters and was living fat. The Confederates also had a good supply of food, with sugar, coffee, tea, eggs, butter, cabbages, chickens, and pigs plentiful, and Colonel David Cummings of the 19th Tennessee wrote his wife that they were well fixed in their mess for a while. After the battle during the night of January 19, Confederate troops hurriedly abandoned Beech Grove. When Union troops arrived the next day, they found that the Confederates had left almost everything behind, including commissary stores, camp and garrison equipment, household goods, and personal goods; Captain Judson Bishop of the 2nd Minnesota wrote that all of the comforts that accumulate about a soldier during a month in camp were there in profusion. Clothing, including boots, pants, coats, and drawers, was found on the river bank where hundreds of wagons filled with baggage waited to cross, and fleeing Confederate soldiers were visible on the far bank. The 19th Kentucky Infantry Regiment was assigned to destroy the Beech Grove encampment and surrounding earthworks, spending a full month leveling the fortifications and burning the cabins.