Weather in the Mid-Nineteenth Century Meteorologically, the
Civil War took place at the tail end of what is often termed the
Little Ice Age, a period of general cooling and unpredictability
that most scholars date from roughly 1310 to 1850. Despite what
its name suggests, the Little Ice Age actually encompassed
dramatic fluctuations in weather, with one year bringing an
intensely cold winter and easterly winds, and the next heavy
rains and raging heat. On the whole, conditions began to warm
after 1850, but during the war Virginia experienced extreme
precipitation and alternate periods of blazing heat and bitter
cold. Weather Shaped Campaigns and Battles Weather
considerations influenced strategic planning in the Civil War.
Army commands requested weather predictions and some data were
collected using the telegraphs, though the resulting forecasts
were not very accurate. Perhaps most significant, armies usually
did not campaign in the winter months, with a few notable
exceptions, and instead established more p