Cramped Quarters

Cramped Quarters. . , Lower-ranking commissioned officers and their families lived in the row of houses in front of you. Although preferable to the barracks of the enlisted men, officers still had to share each of these small homes with as many as 10 other people., Rank is Everything , Military rank determined everything about where and how soldiers lived, including amount of living space and total weight of belongings allowed. Look in the windows of the house closest to you to see where a married 2nd Lieutenant with a wife, child and servant are living in two rooms, while an unmarried 1st Lieutenant and his servant have a full three rooms. Is their furniture heavy or light?, Fancy Deadly Foods , Officers didn't eat in the mess halls with the enlisted men; they bought their own food and had servants prepare it. As wealthy regulars at the trader's store, they had more access to fancy canned foods. Unfortunately for them, 1870s manufacturers sealed cans with lead and preserved canned meats with formaldehyde. A potent neurotoxin, lead has been linked to schizophrenia, while ingestion of formaldehyde can lead to blindness, coma and death., Bring Your Wife and Kids but ... , Only officers were allowed to bring their wives and children with them, but Army rules at the time discouraged it. Since living space was based on rank, whole families could be scrunched into one or two rooms or "ranked out" at any time, forcing them to move at a moment's notice when a higher-ranking officer came to the fort., Captions , Second Lieutenants Robert Irvine and Leighton Finley relax in their shared quarters at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in the late 1870s., This servant in the kitchen of an officer's quarters was probably a European immigrant., A popular saying, "If the Army had wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one. rings true. Army rules discouraged officers' wives, like the ones pictured here, from following their husbands to the frontier.