This is another topic for discussion but...You'll never convince me that all common tents were hand sewn, never. I know there's no surviving example, in any form. I site common sense. There's a long list of things the Army is machine sewing, especially items with straight seams, including shelter tent halfs. I will site the way most manufacturering was done. Raw materials went in one end or on the top floor and came out the other, or bottom floor, packed for shipping. Hand sewing, in large amounts would seriously bottle neck this process. I will site costs charged by contractors. Hand sewing is very labor intensive. The prices charged to the army vary little per yard of material when compared to the cost of shelter tents (Quick! Somebody find me a list of costs where shelter half's and "A" tents are on the same document. Use 7 x shelter halfs = 1 common tent, visualise it. 4 for the roof and 1 and one half for the ends give or take. Mostly take). Contractors were in this thing for profits! With the ammount of tentage and fly's that would be needed for an army to go into camp for an extended period of time, like Camp Curtian, around Washington City and in the winter, you'll never convince me there were a bunch of ladies sitting around tables, sewing that amount of canvas by hand. With the amount of double seams needed and the actual size, I just think it would have been physically impossible to produce the amount of tents needed in the time allowed for all of the new men coming into the army and for that first winter camp in '62. Ask someone you know who's made one, how long it takes to make a shelter half. Then, do some math. Now, me, down off my soap box.

Tent costs are a little tricky.  If you look at p. 269, SIII/V5 of the OR (Exhibit 8 to Meigs' annual report for 1865), the average cost of a common tent was $19.84 vs. $8.10 for a shelter tent.  

But costs had sky-rocketed in that last year.  A report to Congress on QM contracts for the same period showed a contract in late '63 that paid 80 cents for a shelter tent and $2.87 for common tents.  Later in 1863, shelter tents were nearly $3 each.  By August, 1864, contracts with Lewis, Boardman & Wharton of Philadelphia set a price of $10.49 for a shelter tent.  There are by then few or no contracts for common tents -- the OR exhibit shows only 1,400 purchased in all of FY65.

So, as far as I can tell, there's a ratio of 2.5-3.5/1 for the cost of shelter tents to common tents.  Poles and pegs are separate, so the shelter tent, for one officer or two men, is definitely a deal over the common tent.

But labor wasn't the big issue -- materials were.  After all, generations of armies had gone to war in hand-sewn tents.  For the cost of a sewing machine and repairs, you could get a lot of hours from FOB Irish seamstresses.  Meigs' report and others of the time specifically mention the cost of cotton and the effect on tentage.

A good way to think of the relative cost of material and labor in the 1860s vs. now is to think of the cost of lined vs. unlined sack coats.  Today the unlined is more because of the labor of flat-felling seams.  Back in the day, lined were consistently more than unlined.

Still, labor costs did go up.  Using the sack coat example, the difference between lined and unlined, from '63 to '65, appears to have shrunk from about 40% to 20% (look at the chart on the last page of the 2007 "School of the Clerk" for the actual numbers).

For comparison, a quick glance at 1861 contracts in Philadelphia and Indianapolis shows common tents going for $11 or $12 and Sibleys for $37.50.  There seems to have been a phenomenon of some items being more expensive at the start of the war, then dropping as manufacturing and competition got going, and then rising again with inflation and materials costs.

But getting back to your actual point, my own gut feeling is that early in the war much of the sewing actually was by hand (in '61 for example the WD actually tried to keep up the practice of buying fabric and sewing services separately), but that machines came more into play as time went by -- including knitting machines, if we go by the introduction of knitted shirts and sack coats.  

--Last edited by Michael Schaffner on 2007-05-15 12:00:01 --

For your information, some QM specs for the Common Tent:

Height: 6'10"
Length: 6' 10"
Width: 8'4"

To be made from cotton duck 28 1/2" wide, weighing ten ounces per linear yard.

Pertinent to this discussion: Stitches of equal length, no less than 2 1/2 per inch.

Sod cloth: 9 inches wide, made from 7 ounce cotton duck

I took this information from an old C.J. Daley post on the A-C Forum

In the Sutler thread, Grumpy Dave extolled the virtues of the Blockade Runner's Wedge Tent, while I suggested the Yakima tent.
Here is some information about both tents, taken from their Web Sites:

The Blockade Runner: (Their large 6' tent. They also make a 9'tent and a "huge" Wedge tent.)
Height: 6'4"
Length: 6'
Width: 8'

Price: $170 dollars. A sod cloth is $50.00 dollars extra

Yakima
Height: 6'9"
Length: 7'2" (Note, mine is just seven feet long.)
Width: 7'10"

Price: 150 dollars. No provision for a sod cloth.

Remember, the QM specs were:

Height: 6'10"
Length: 6'10"
Width: 8'4"

The Blockade Runner sells pole kits, while Yakima does not. I made my poles to QM specs. Eight sided poles with galvanized iron wrapped around the ends with a steel rod in the ends of the uprights.

One more factoid, Grumpy, using the same Meigs report, p. 286, exhibit no. 14 stating the highest and lowest costs paid for certain items during the war:

Lowest Cost:
Common tents, $9.87
Shelter tents, $1.93

Highest Cost:
Common tents, $25.00
Shelter tents, $10.74

Interestingly, the "lowest cost" tents run considerably more than twice as much as in the contract I cited earlier, leading me to wonder whether one of the numbers is in error, or if the contractor couldn't deliver at the lower rate, or some other complication arose.

As I said, it can get tricky.  Still, your basic point about relative costs holds.

Grumpy,
I would think that comparing shelter tents to common tents would be akin to comparing apples to oranges. They are both similar yet vastly different. The specifications for a common tent allowed for some very long running stitches something like 2 or 2 1/2 to an inch. Shelter halves that were not machine sewn, were sewn with a back stitch which is much stronger and time consuming to make. The vast majority of the time in making a shelter half is in the button holes. Also, I find that setting up a double or overlapping seam on a machine more time consuming than to do so by hand. I have even laid in a running stitch to hold everything in place before running it through the machine.
One other thing to add into the mix is that those doing the sewing were much more adept at it than most of us are today. I'm not sure how much that might add to the weight of the discussion but it is I think jermaine.
Dave Myrick

While looking for information on Sibley Tents I came across this article by Mark Wilson "The Extensive Side of Nineteenth-Century Military Economy: The Tent Industry in the Northern United States during the Civil War" in Oxford's Enterprise & Society Journal. It has a fair amount of info that may relate to this discussion here.  

--Last edited by azreenactor on 2007-05-21 10:38:04 --

Troy,

Welcome to the Forum. Wow, 44 pages of information on tent making during the Civil War. Everything you wanted to know, but were afraid to ask!

Thanks for the link.  

Fantastic article, Troy -- thanks!

The info about tents is great in itself, including the increasing use of low-skilled labor and machines.  I also liked the chart on p. 317 showing the numbers of different types of tents made during the war, as well as the info on p. 330 about how many were unissued at war's end.  

It would be interesting to compare the actual ratio of shelter tents to wall tents to that found at the typical reenactment.  

Probably most enlightening -- for everyone, whatever their interest -- is the chart on p. 310 that shows military expenditures for the entire war broken down by department.  It really underscores the impact of bonuses (pay is the largest category) and the scope of QM operations compared to food and weaponry.  (BTW, I think the "Other" category of $148M would include building construction and rental, just in case anyone wondered.)

Thanks again, Troy.

One thing that surprised me was the production of Common Tents in 1863, the highest number of any year in the War. They were produced right along with a huge number of Dog Tents.

Another interesting thing was that the Sibley Tents were also called "Bell" Tents. A lot of the issue records for the 4th. Texas survived the War, and they show many "Bell Tent" being issued. We were never exactly sure what kind of tents they were discribing before.    

You learn something new every day!  

Someone mentioned the cost but the cost of labor also went up during the war.  Inflation you know.

Interesting the Northern ecomony expanded significantly during the war.  Exports of non-agricultural domestic goods went up and westward expansion continued.

So there was a labor shortage.

The question would be was there a sewing machine strong enough to punch through the canvas?

There were commercial sewing machines that that could sew cloth and even a button hole sewing machine was patented (could do 1000 button holes a day).

Since there are no examples of machine sewn tents available I suspect that there wan't a machine capable of doing the jub.

They certainly would have tried as a labor (read cost) saving device.

[cit]Bob 125th NYSVI wrote :
The question would be was there a sewing machine strong enough to punch through the canvas?  [cit]

Bob,

They had sewing machines that would sew shoes together. In fact, shoes with sewn soles were the Government standard. Sewing canvas would have been no real problem.

Quote :

Bill wrote :Bob, They had sewing machines that would sew shoes together. In fact, shoes with sewn soles were the Government standard. Sewing canvas would have been no real problem.

True but then why no examples of machine sewn tents.  A lot of the material we view today is from the late war/never issued period and it seems to me if machine sewn tents were going to pop up it woul dbe from this period.

But I think they were still handsewing sails during this time period, maybe there were enough excess sail-makers available (with the importance of steam increasing) that machine sewing wasn't economical.

Quote :

Bob 125th NYSVI wrote :   True but then why no examples of machine sewn tents.

Bob,

In the case of the Common tents, there are no examples period. At least none that have been found.    

--Last edited by Bill on 2007-06-22 13:08:29 --