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On January 25, 1863, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker assumed command of the Union AOP. On that day 85,000 officers and men of their 135,000 man army were “unaccounted for.” Placed in command of a defeated and demoralized force, they began a complete turnaround in which the men would receive better food and medical care and…

The Army of the Potomac’s “Valley Forge” took place between January 25 and April 27, 1863. Fighting off demoralization, sickness and disease, and privation, the army’s soldiers and animals persevered through the cruel and fickle weather. No known historian suggests this was not the army’s low point in morale and effectiveness for the entire war…

Seemingly impossibly, the AOP’s situation worsened after the battle of Fredericksburg. Burnside’s planned movement upriver through Bank’s Ford peninsula, Rappahannock crossing, and flanking attack was overwhelmingly overpowered by surface warming and heavy winds and rain. The 135,000 man-60,000 horse/mule-6,000 wagon-1,000 ambulance-414 artillery piece-army literally carved its way into the clay-loam soil and the rains turned…

A wharf at Belle Plain was initially established in Stafford.  A second wharf was added in the King George portion of Potomac Creek.  Confusingly, both were referred to as Belle Plain.  The “Upper Wharf” in Stafford is shown.

Life was not perpetually bleak during the “Valley Forge,” as evidenced by celebrations in on the cavalry raid’s same day (St. Patrick’s Day, March 17th). The Irish Brigade’s steeplechase horse racing and sack-races relieved tedium and whetted appetites for food and drink. Celebratory fare included “thirty-five hams, and a side of an ox roasted; an…

Soldier recreation in the 1863 Stafford winter was largely limited to physical activities, including snowball fights and baseball. More cerebral pursuits included small group singing (depressingly sentimental songs, like this one, were often forbidden). Reading Bible and Biblical “Tracts,” amply supplied by U. S. Christian Commission delegates and workers, was another diversion. Books, newspapers, letters…

Combat artists captured numerous scenes of the Stafford camps.  This drawing was by artist Alfred Waud.   Camp scene Camp scene

This is a representative camp showing huts within unit camps.  This camp was above Falmouth.  It shows the 3rd Division, III Army Corps Camps of  84th Pennsylvania, 1st and 2nd U. S. Sharpshooters, and 110th Pennsylvania Regiments. The U.S. Sharpshooters constituted the 3rd Brigade and the 84th and 110th were in the 2nd Brigade.

A variety of soldier huts were employed during the winter of 1863. These generally housed four soldiers who lived, cooked, and ate together and found as much comfort as possible in the crude structures. A particular problem was the inability to control the smoke from the rudimentary chimneys. White Oak Civil War Museum, has examples…

This camp of the 110th Pennsylvania Infantry in the winter of 1863 shows a typical camp and the general condition of the once forested Stafford County.

The scene shows Belle Plain with a wagon train (note unit markings for the Cavalry Corps) and U.S. Sanitary Commission and U.S. Christian Commission workers in the rear. (Close-ups reveal they are holding apples for the troops.)

Hooker’s second greatest reform was the creation of the “Bureau of Military Information.” It became the first all-source intelligence organization in use by the U.S. Army.  The bureau, led by Colonel George H. Sharpe, organized and analyzed combat intelligence from cavalry, spies and scouts, reconnaissance balloons, intercepted signals, prisoner interrogations, and civilian debriefings.