I read an article about marines on patrol in Iraq. They spooned at night to keep warm. I recall the grade school stories about the hardships of Valley Forge - how cold it was etc - but they never mention spooning. Does anyone know of contemporary references to spooning at Valley Forge?
Why would you expect references? This is a common method of maintaining body temperature in exposed conditions, or even not-so-exposed-but-still-fairly-cold-conditions. Do you want references to say that they dressed in layers and kept their heads covered?
This isn’t a specific answer but keep in mind that in the days before all of the “gay awareness” it wasn’t odd, deviant, or caused an immediate reaction of suspected homosexual activity if two people of the same sex slept in the same bed. It was oftentimes a matter of practicality. Two people, one bed, limited resources. Just because they went to sleep in the same bed didn’t mean that they were boffing each other. If it was bone-chilling cold they may help each other keep warm, that’s not sex, that’s survival. Were Arctic explorers that slept with dogs into bestiality? I highly doubt it.
Recently, some historian determined that Abe Lincoln slept in the same bed with another man for awhile and inferred that Abe may have been gay. That fails to take into account the way things were at the time and there was nothing abnormal or necessarily homosexual about the arrangement.
Hierarchy of needs. Survival is first. I tend to think that soldiers at Valley Forge who were on the verge of freezing to death probably shared their body heat. Even if they were homosexual that kind of activity was probably not on their mind. They wanted to survive the night.
The winter at Valley Forge for the Revolutionary Army was a mild one. The biggest problem wasn’t cold, it was water. The warmer winter meant cycles of freeze and thaw, and with everything and everyone wet all the time, and disease was spreading.
I lived directly across the Great Valley from the campgrounds at Valley Forge. You can look out my mother’s kitchen window and see the park in winter when the foliage is gone. Even a mild winter there means very low temperatures overnight. I’m sure they all huddled for warmth when they needed to. And in those conditions, sex was probably the last thing on their minds.
Rev War I don’t know but there are a couple F&I sources from the French side that specify “nose to toes” when in a tent with the last man (the one at the opening) being in full uniform with belly box and musket.
<off-topic>You are greatly minimizing this issue.
The main book sources are Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carl Sandburg Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (1926) and Kinsey Institute scholar C.A. Tripp The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln (2003) – neither particularly ‘recent’.
Sandburg casually refers to Lincoln’s relationships as “a streak of lavender”, as if it was well known. Writing 75 years later, Tripp addresses this in much more detail, including discussion of the issue you raise.
And, of course, there is the (now rather dated) SMDB column: Was Abraham Lincoln gay?
</off-topic>
Fire and a hot meal was more interesting …
IIRC, in the inns of the day, it was common for travelers to share a bed. Would not have been remarkable at Valley Forge to do the same. Besides, if they were homophobes, they could always use a bundling board;)
There are frequent references in Civil War journals and letters to nonsexual spooning by troops sleeping in cold weather, but I don’t recall any in the Valley Forge literature. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it happened, though.