The Company Quarters

The the Company Quarters, or enlisted barracks, is where the infantry and cavalry soldiers ate, slept and relaxed while stationed at Fort Larned.

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This kitchen would be used by the company cook to prepare meals for the entire company.

NPS Photo

Of all the buildings at Fort Larned at the time, the company quarters were structures most urgently in need of replacement. As a permanent post protecting the eastern section of the Santa Fe Trail, Fort Larned would have three companies of Infantry for escort duties and one company of Cavalry for a mobile pursuit and defense force. At this point the men were quartered in the old crumbling adobe barracks.

Construction plans for the company quarters called for two sets of company quarters, each designed to hold two companies. The original plans have been lost, but were most likely drawn up in the summer of 1866 by either an officer or enlisted man familiar with masonry or carpentry. The quarters were simple one-story rectangular buildings covered by shingled roofs. The west building, which was designated for infantry, was 150 by 43 feet, while the east building, used for cavalry was 172 by 43 feet. Sometime in 1868 kitchens and storerooms were built on to the back of each barracks, giving them a “T” form. Wooden porches in the front, 10 ½ feet wide, made the buildings complete.

 

The squad room where the soldiers slept and recreated. They slept two to a level on the bunk beds.

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Both structures were built of sandstone, following Quartermaster policy of constructing army buildings from available, local materials, with lime cement used to for mortar. The wood elements such as the supports, joists, rafters, roofing, shingles and flooring used lumber either locally obtained or shipped in from the east. The interiors were partitioned, lathed, plastered and whitewashed to finish out the building.

Although much better than thet adobe barracks the enlisted men had before, these buildings were hardly luxurious, providing only simple, plain quarters. Heat came from four open fireplaces; water for washing, cooking and fire prevention was stored in barrels placed around the building. There were no washrooms so the men washed and shaved in tin basins in the squad room.

The furnishings were minimal, and unlike in the officers quarters, were provided by the army. The squad rooms had double-tiered bunks, with two men to each bunk, rifle racks were at the foot of the bunk and a hook strip for hanging clothes ran around the room. The mess rooms had long tables and benches covered with oil cloth. The men probably ate from tin mess outfits, unless they purchased white porcelain chinaware and tin tableware from a company fund.

 

Buildings at frontier posts often served different functions depending on the immediate needs of the local posts. The floor plans for the barracks at Fort Larned show that these company quarters served different functions at various times during the army period. The west barracks was used for infantry company quarters from 1868 to 1878 while the east barracks had several different uses. From 1868 to 1874 it was used for cavalry quarters; from 1871 to 1875 it was used for both company quarters and the post hospital; from 1875 to 1878 it was the post hospital, as well as the laundress and commissary sergeant’s quarters.

Although the quarters for the enlisted men on frontier posts did not provide much room or privacy, they did provide these with men sturdy, comfortable quarters while in the army. In a letter to Gen. Grant after a tour of the posts under his command in the spring of 1867, Gen. Sherman outlined his reasons for requesting money for improving post buildings: “We cannot expect troops to be worth anything, if we winter them in holes, and force them to fight with rats, bet-bugs and fleas for existence”.

These buildings weren’t fancy, but they did give the men warmer, dryer and substantially more solid quarters than they had before.