 Soldiers of both sides used a variety of sports to entertain themselves in their downtime, but baseball was the most popular. Soldiers often talked about baseball in their letters back home, their diaries, and in their newspapers. They would play the most baseball in the winter and the spring months when they were not busy with the war. Soldiers would spend time playing baseball and watching baseball, as armies would host different games playing one another and often drew large crowds. A Christmas Day game in 1862 drew a crowd of 40,000 soldier spectators.