Wall Tent Specs.

[FTrooper]

Anyone get them? I am looking for the dimensions for the wall tents. I have them SOMEWHERE in my records boxes packed away, but kind of need the answer ASAP!

Chris Fischer
Fort McKavett
&
F-Troop

[Silas]

Re: Wall Tent Specs.

Anyone get them? I am looking for the demensions for the wall tents used by Company Officers.

This is the authentic campaigner forum. On campaign, line officers didn't possess wall tents. As noted in some mad bugger's article about tent allowances in the Civil War :

The U.S. Regulations state:

43. In an active campaign, troops must be prepared to bivouac on the march, the allowance of tents being limited as follows: [ ] For the Colonel, Field, and Staff of a full regiment, three wall tents; and for every other commissioned officer, one shelter tent each. For every two non-commissioned officers, soldiers, officers servants, and other camp followers, one shelter tent. One hospital tent will be allowed office purposes at Corps headquarters, and one wall tent at those of a Division or a Brigade. All tents beyond this allowance will be left at the Depot.(6)

This means that only field officers plus their staff are entitled to reside in wall tents. "Shelter tents only are allowed only to company officers and men[.]"(7) Company officers received a complete shelter tent (meaning two shelter halves), and each enlisted man received one shelter half which was approximately five and one half feet square.(8)
=============

6. Paragraph 43, U.S. Army Regulations (1861) as amended in Appendix B (25 June 1863). (Hereinafter, Appendix B.) The same regulations are also found in orders issued by the U.S. War Department in 1862 as General Orders, No. 160 from General Halleck's War Department dated 18 October 1862. Series III, Vol. 2, p. 671. These general orders were included in an appendix to oral testimony given during General McDowell's Court of Inquiry following the debacle of Second Bull Run.

7. Appendix B, para. 10.

8. Under General Orders No. 60, Quartermaster General's Office, December 12, 1864, corrected, February 1, 1865, the length as measured along the foot or top is five feet, six inches. The width as measured along the seam is five feet, five inches.

[FTrooper]

Re: Wall Tent Specs.

Thank you for your commentary, but it still leaves the question unanswered.

Let me rephrase the question then (and lets assume I am talking about 1861). What were the dimensions of the regulation US Army wall tent and fly during the civil war (not the hospital tent).

Chris Fischer
Fort McKavett
&
F-Troop

[Silas]

Re: Wall Tent Specs.

This will put you in the ballpark : Topographic Surveying: Including Geographic, Exploratory, and Military Mapping, with Hints on Camping, Emergency Surgery, and Photography by Herbert Michael Wilson (1900). I could not locate my sources, but I post this as an interesting book to examine. I believe you can find the info in a copy of the old, but out of print 3d Mississippi manual. Folks on this forum do own copies of it. Dog eared from age, but still usable. I jumped on you because this isn't that other forum. This is a forum where campaign is part of the title. Line officers in wall tents isn't campaign or even the norm.

I did find a period reference about the 10th Vermont before it left the state. Captains in wall tents was mentioned. The author made fun of how much junk they thought they needed :

Each officer had a trunk or large valise, usually a trunk, weighing from forty to a hundred and fifty pounds. Many of them had tables, mess kits and mess chests, camp-stools, fancy cots and patent water-proof mattresses. Each company had twenty A tents, the company officers two wall tents, and the field and staff officers one wall tent each, making in all several cords of tent poles and unestimated bales of canvas.

See, A History of the Tenth Regiment, Vermont Volunteers (1894), p. 12.

This post war description by a member of the unit reads like a description of modern reenactments I try to avoid ; however, there is an aspect which sets it apart from modern reenactments : twenty wedge tents for a hundred guys means five guys to a tent. Don't see too many "garrison campers" bivouacking in true garrison style.

[CJDaley]

Re: Wall Tent Specs.

Thank you for your commentary, but it still leaves the question unanswered.

Let me rephrase the question then (and lets assume I am talking about 1861). What were the dimensions of the regulation US Army wall tent and fly during the civil war (not the hospital tent).

Chris Fischer
Fort McKavett
&
F-Troop

Chris,
I've got that someplace. I have all the notes on the sizes, dimensions, construction details, rope specs and everything else. I may take me a few days to dig it out as it's still packed up from my move to VA, but I'll find it for you.

I had posted this once before on the AC, but it must have been before one of the big crashes.

Chris

[John E. Tobey]

Re: Wall Tent Specs.

"WALL TENT: DIMENSIONS -- length of ridge, finished, 9 feet; height 8 feet 6 inches; width, 9 feet, length of wall, 3 feet 9 inches; wall cave, 2 inches; height of door, 7 fee; length from ridge to wall, 6 feet 6 inches. To be made out of 28-1/2 inch linen or cotton duck, clear of all imperfections...to weigh 12 ounces to the yard. To be made in a workmanlike manner, not less than 2-1/2 stitches to the inch, of equal length; made with double thread 5 fold cotton twine, well waxed; the seam not less than 1 inch in width, and no slack taken in them. Grommetts must be used in all the holes, and be well worked with waxed cotton twine. Doors and stay pieces must be of teh same material as the tent. Sod cloths to be of 7 ounce linen or cotton drills, and 9 inches in width, in the clear, from the tabling, and extend from door to door. The tabling on foot of tent, when finished, will be 2-1/2 inches in width. Eave lines 9 feet, in the clear, 6 thread manilla; foot lines same, 16 inches long; door lines the same, 1-1/2 feet long. All lines to be well whipped, 1 inch from the ends, with waxed cotton twine, and properly knotted."

John Tobey

John Tobey

[John E. Tobey]

Re: Wall Tent Specs.

And the fly:

"Finished, in length, 15 feet 6 inches; width, when finished, 9 feet. To be made out of 28-1/2 inch linen or cotton duck...to weigh 10 ounces to the yard. 3 inch tabling on the ends, finished, and 1-1/2 inches on the sides, finished; 6 thread manilla under the tabling on ends. Strong grommett holes worked on the ends, of sufficient size to admit the lines also on the ridge. Stay-pieces to be of the same material as the fly...not less than 2-1/2 stitches to the inch, of equal length; made with double 5 fold cotton twine, well waxed. The seams lot less than 1 inch in width, and no slack taken in them. Eave lines, 6 thread manilla, 9 feet long, in the clear."

John Tobey

[FTrooper]

Re: Wall Tent Specs.

Thank you all VERY much. Stephen Osman forwarded me the pages from the unpublished 1865 QM manual last night, but I (and I am sure quite a biot of others) are glad its posted here...to add to it:

Description of Common Tent (that would be the A-Tent)

Height-6'10"
Lenght or Ridge-6'10"
Width-8'4"
Height of Door-5'6"
Width of Door-1 foot at bottom 9 inches at top
From top of rigde to lower edge of roof, when pitched, 8 feet 1/2 inch.

Sod Cloth-9inches in width

Also, when looking at QM tent and tent pole reges from 1865-1889, does anyone else notice that the upright poles then to be too long!?!?!?! were they counter sunk in the groun at the time of pitching??? Just a thought.

Chris Fischer
Fort McKavett
&
F-Troop

[AZReenactor]

Hospital Tent Specs?

I've come across references to the California Column using "hospital tents" in various locations and was wondering if anyone had more details on this tents size and construction.

My initial research turned up the following.

World Affairs by American Peace Society (1863)

A ' hospital tent' is a tent like an officer's, or wall tent, only more than three times as large. The space within it is equal to a good sized drawing room.

Army hygiene by Charles Alexander Gordon (1866)

The American regulation hospital tent, is 15 feet long x 14 broad x 11 high to the centre, the wall being 4 1/2. This is calculated to contain 8 or 10 sick, at 160 cubic feet; but that amount of space is considered too small.

I'm not planning on trying to put one in my knapsack, but am trying to get a better handle on the baggage train being hauled by the column.