Life at Fort Donelson

In the quieter period before cold weather and battle at Fort Donelson, soldiers lived in comfortable tents and log huts and received rations of flour, fresh and cured meats, sugar, and coffee, along with boxes from home containing supplies such as uniforms and clothing. About 400 huts were built for the garrison by soldiers and slave laborers as living quarters, with about 100 of them inside the 15-acre fort. In winter, these crude huts, with canvas roofs made from tents and fireplaces made from stone, stick, and mud, helped protect Confederates from wind, rain, and snow and kept many from freezing to death, but most of the thousands of soldiers who arrived before the battle stayed in tents or under blankets on the ground and suffered terribly in the bitter February cold. The only known contemporary illustration of the Confederate encampment inside Fort Donelson appeared in the March 17, 1862, issue of Harper's Weekly, showing a view from the area occupied today by the National Cemetery. Fort Donelson's defenders wore a wide variety of clothing; few had uniforms, most wore citizens' clothes, many officers wore regular gray uniforms, and others wore U.S. Army blue. Although no one knows exactly what the cabins at Fort Donelson looked like, they probably resembled cabins built by Confederate soldiers of Centreville, Virginia, in the winter of 1861-62.

Dover, Tennessee · United States