9 men per A shaped tent. 14 pounds of straw per man per month for bedding.

ALS from Calvin Welty of the 8th Illinois Cavalry, Company L. Datelined ''Camp Ill Nov 28th [1862],'' letter reads in part: ''Öwas much greaved to here that your health was verry poorÖmy health is verry goodÖthere are some seventy in the hospital at present, two out of our Co. there has been two deaths since we arriv here. We had a grand Oyster supper this evening. our Col bought eighty bushels for the RegtÖhad a little snow storm last sunday morning just enough to say snow. we are in the same quarters yet. Dont know how long we will remain our colonel went to see if we could get a chance to go to South CarolinaÖI would like verry well to go thereÖall that we have got for bedding is two blankets and fourteen pounds of straw to each man per month for the latter is worth ten dollars per tun. Nine of us tent in one tentÖdo our cooking out doors. I have cooked two days since I been in the service. after I cooked the last day the boys offered to give me ten dollars extraÖthey wanted me to cook for twenty menÖYou speak of dancing school being held out the prairie. I think they want to learn the ladies how to dance so that they can take the young men to dancing frolics after they get home from the war. it is a verry good planÖ''

I wonder if that is the "common" A tent? If so, things were mighty cozy, even for 'average" CW sized guys. And 14 pounds of straw per man would go a pretty long way. Neat stuff.

I read the quoted letter three or four times and didn't see where he mentioned an "A Tent". A while back we did the math and prooved it would be almost impossible for more than four people to lie down flat in a "A Tent" made to QM specs. You might fit five if everybody was spooning. Or, you might fit six if they were gay, and you left the 126 lbs of straw outside.  

My guess is the Gentleman is talking about a Sibley Tent. If memory serves, they were designed to hold fourteen soldiers. The Army was still issuing Sibley tents as late as 1864.

Bill,during your 1SG days did you have any experience putting up GP rounds?  They have the same center pole concept but not quite as tall.  

--Last edited by Curtis Makamson on 2007-09-19 21:04:23 --

Quote :

Curtis Makamson wrote : Bill,during your 1SG days did you have any experience putting up GP rounds?

Yep,

Except we called them GP Smalls. They had one pole. A GP Medium had two and a GP Large had three poles. My Son-in-Law tells me they are all gone now. We also had Command Post and Mess tents to deal with.  

--Last edited by Bill on 2007-09-20 08:19:07 --

Bill,

Same here for being unable to determine the tentage type from that quotation. I do like the reference to 80 bushels of oysters, and wonder if that regiment's paperwork trail yields any clues to straw ticks being issued to better conserve bedding.

Man, a GP small really stinks after a few weeks in the field!

I'll ask the boys what kind of tents they had in St. Charles, IL. We have a muster every April on the original ground along the Fox River, now called Langham Park. I've got a Captain's Diary that's been published....maybe he'll have a clue?

Have heard of 12-18 in a Sibley, sleeping like spokes of a wheel, feet in.....he's complaining about 9 people per tent.....
I'll also ask about straw ticks.

The discussion about tents got me to thinking. I thought this was pretty interesting.

Tent Contracted For During 1861-1864

Type       1861      1862      1863     1864        Totals

Sibley     11,621    1,140      0       0           12,761
Hospital       50    4,805      7,040   7,680       19,575
Wall        3,039   14,400     12,110   3,500       33,049
Common     34,257   70,350    159,820   6,000       270,427
Shelter    10,000  452,000    590,000   1,295,070   2,347,070

Total number of tents actually purchases 1861-1865

Sibley      38,123
Hospital    25,113
Wall        70,949
Common     256,047
Shelter  2,199,366

There's some interesting stuff here. You'll notice the Government purchased over twice as many Sibley tents as they contracted for. Were these tents available on the open market, prewar contracts, or just a mistake in the numbers?

You will also notice that contracts for Common Tents in 1863 exceeded the contracts for 1861, 62, & 64 combined. Seems like a lot of guys were sleeping in Common Tents until the end of the War. Not everyone spent the War on campaign.

Over half of all the shelter tent halves were contracted for during 1864. It's doubtful shelter tents were very common in 1862, since only 450,000 were contracted for during the year.

You will also notice that flys were not listed. I wonder if they were issued as a set with the wall and hospital tents?

I took this information from "The Tent Industry in the Northern United States during the Civil War", by Mark Wilson.  

--Last edited by Bill on 2007-09-20 23:18:12 --

Total tents purchased during the WBtS = 2,589,598

Sibley      38,123 = 1.5%
Hospital    25,113 = 1.0%
Wall        70,949 = 2.7%
Common     256,047 = 10.0%
Shelter  2,199,366 = 84.8%


Anyone know where I'm going here? There's 3000 Federal reenactors at an event...

In defense of the common tent, I believe some units in the west didn't get the tent d'abri till well into '63.  

More importantly, if you're at an event with 3,000 other reenactors, you need something to shut out the headlights...

Grump,

There is another way to look at tent useage.

Sibley Tent 23,346 X 14 = 326,844 men sheltered

Common Tent 256,047 X 4 = 1,024,188 men sheltered

Tent d'abri 2,199,366 X 1 = 2,199,366 men sheltered

Obviously, not every tent, purchased during the War, survived the War. I would suggest, however, the wastage of Shelter Halves was greater then the larger tents, made from much heavier canvas and carried in wagons.

It seems to me that through most of 1862 the most common shelter for troops on campaign was still the Common Tent, or no tent at all. It wasn't until 1863 that the production of the Tend d'abri was great enough to meet the needs of the Army.

General Halleck didn't issue the order requiring men to carry shelter tents until October 1862. Sort of interesting, Grant had to reissue this order in May 1864, stating "When troops refuse to accept shelter tents they will not be furnished with any other", futhermore "any one who shall issue or direct the issue of tents other than as prescribed will be tried by courtmartial or reported for summary dismissal."  Sounds to me at least some units were doing their best not to obey Halleck's earlier order.

Bill,

Keep in mind the amount of tentage that didn't make it to the front lines, but had a heck of a function back in training camps, garrisons guarding various assets, and that sort of thing. Miller's shows a heck of a lot of tentage in the background in his shots, although some of the images are famously miscaptioned.

Sometimes the word "paulin" appears in these inventories instead of "fly." That may or may not be the case in your reference.

I enjoyed the tentage at the SCAR Shiloh NPS LH this year. It was fun to see a dozen Sibleys in use, among other things.

Bill, I think that you're correct in assuming that tents were intended for use in the field and that's where most of them ended up.

Reading the reports of the QM department it appears that wherever possible barracks and hospital buildings replaced tents in rear areas.  Photographs of City Point and other depots bear this out.  In fact, as the war went on, the cost of tentage rose to such an extent as to discourage its casual use for any other purpose than the intended. In discussing the operations of the Sixth Division (responsible for barracks, hospitals, and burials) for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1865, Meigs notes "The material (wood) used in these hospitals is cheaper than any other, cheaper even than tents..."

Mike,

I do think a lot of the Common Tents were used in the rear areas. As I said in my first post "not everybody was on campaign". Of course, there were rear areas and there were really rear areas. My guess is the really rear areas got the wood buildings. It's not very cost effective to abandon a building after a few months.

You'll notice I said that magic word "guess"!  

Just curious  about where the  8th Ill. Cav. was on this date in '62 ?

Thanks,
Kevin Ellis

Take a look in the OR's. You might get some insight there.

Dave

Quote :

Longbranch wrote : Just curious  about where the  8th Ill. Cav. was on this date in '62 ? Thanks, Kevin Ellis

I pulled out the "The Captain" by Winfield Scott Hall. A Biography of William Cross Hazelton, Captain in the Eighth Ill). William was mustered in as a 1st Sergeant, Company D (issued CHESTNUT Horses). When the letter was written, they weren't at Camp Kane (my initial surmise)...they had left for the East on October 14th. They were at Camp Illinois near Washington City...specifically: Meridian Hill, two miles north of the White House and one-half mie east of Rock Creek where it flows through the National Zoological Park.

Meridian Hill Baptist Church:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlongtype=internal&addtohistory=&latitude=TdUUvEGu4nDvOxWm%2fWSkaw%3d%3d&longitude=QWRmMdQAOaftSdCFD1lmMQ%3d%3d&name=Meridian%20Hill%20Baptist%20Church&country=US&address=3146%2016th%20St%20NW&city=Washington&state=DC&zipcode=20010&phone=202%2d387%2d4181&spurl=0&&q=Meridian%20Hill&qc=%28All%29%20Places%20Of%20Worship

So 1/2 mile east would be north of Columbia Heights....say 15th ST NW and Irving st. NW? The current Meridian Hill Park is between 15th and 16th ST NW...roughly 1.5 miles north of the White House..that's the hill Top? There's a Kalorama Rd NW running up to it....some of the Iron Brigade boys camped at Kalorama!

"The name Meridian Hill comes from a proposal in the early 1800s to establish an official meridian or longitudinal base point, for map-making and other purposes, through the mid-point of the White House. A plaque at the upper entrance to the park from 16th Street takes official note of an 1816 meridian marker which stood on the proposed meridian. "


This was November 1862. We have requisition records and Mark Hess is perusing them for an snswer on 9 men per what kind of tent. We do know they were issued Grimsley Saddles, not McClellan's. They moved to Camp California (Fairfax, VA) on December 13th.  

The 8th had Sibley's at Camp Kane, St. Charles, IL. One of our members think's they were camping in a Double Bell tent at Camp Illinois/Camp California. Essentially an A shaped tent with two rounded ends on it. Stay tuned, our 'records' issuer is at a soccer tournie this weekend, he will be digging up the answer.  

--Last edited by RJSamp on 2007-09-23 13:39:57 --

RJ,

The term "Bell Tent" hasd always intrigued me. In Europe and 18th Century America, a Bell tent was as you discribed, an "A" tent with a front or back extension to store gear. In 19th Century America, I believe Bell Tent was just another name for the Sibley Tent. I've come to this conclusion from reading any number of requisition, issue, and production records. I can find no evidence that the Federal Government produced or purchased any of the European style Bell Tents. Of course, that's not to say that various State Governments may have purchased such tents, but I have never been able to find information on that subject, one way or the other.

I became very interested in this subject, because my Home Unit, the 4th. Texas Infantry kept getting issued "Bell Tents" clear into 1864 and I wondered what the heck they were actually receiving.    

Bill: I will send you a picture of the Bell tent, it's a French design.....think of an A sideways...the Bells are to the right and left on the ends (where the A's are). There is a door in front which is on one side of the common tent.

(>===<)
___D____

hey, not bad. So the A's are on the ends ><, with the Bells ()replacing the flat A. The gabled sides of the A === now become the front/back and you enter through a Door "D".

Remember my flat front porch diatribe a few years ago? The picture that we were examining had a couple of Bell tents in it....and fly's over most of the tents, not in the company street as a porch.

There are also Conical Tents...kind of like pyramids or 10 foot high Sibleys'.....but smaller....the Engineer's had a bunch of them at Wilson's Leak in 2000....to go along with their Hospital Fly (which was absolutely HUGE....32' square and sitting on a couple three of 14-18' posts? )  

--Last edited by rjsamp on 2007-09-24 17:04:22 --