Trivia #13 Tent (4/13/2014)

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How many men were required to carry the typical Union private soldiers' field tent? what was this tent called?
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Depends on when. By 1864 private soldiers carried a shelter half
Shelter Half – The shelter half measured “…five feet two inches long by four feet eight
inches wide and is provided with a single row of button-holes on three sides and a pair of
holes for stake loops at the corners. Infantry pitched shelter tents as follows: “Two
muskets with bayonets fixed were stuck erect into the ground the width of a shelter-half
apart. A guy rope, which went with every half-shelter was stretched between the trigger
guards of the muskets, and over this as a ridge pole the tent was pitched in a
twinkling.”143

“The average weight of shelter-tent….1 ¾ pounds.” Each soldier carried a shelter half, two shelterhalf's = a two man tent.

Unless you are thinking of the Sibley tent - enough room for about a dozen men, I think about 185 pounds, carried only in quartermaster supply wagons. But I bet you mean shelter-half.
 
2 privates would carry a part of the tent and then they would come together and button the two halves.
the tent was called a shelter half also referred to a dog Tent because it was only for for dogs
 
Pup/Shelter/Dog Tents. 2 or 3 men?

Edit - Only two men, not three, were required to carry one complete tent.

Hoosier
 
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"Typical" not first but most often used
Shelter tent, aka Dog tent, aka Pup tent
required two men to carry
each carried 1/2 and they buttoned together


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Figure 3: Army tents: (Left to right), Sibley tent, wedge tent, shelter tent. Hinman, Corporal Si Klegg, 577.Expired Image Removed

http://www.libertyrifles.org/research/campaignshelters.html
Billings noted that Sibley "tents went out of field service in 1862," partly because of their expense but mostly because they were too large and cumbersome (9). Wilbur Hinman expounded upon this:
 
2 men carried the tent (one half each) and it was called dog tent.

From http://www.civilwaracademy.com/civil-war-tents.html :
Each Union soldier was given one half of a tent. It was a piece of canvas in the form of a rectangle that had to be attached to another soldiers piece of canvas that would then form two sides of the tent. These were very small two man tents. They got the nickname of dog tent because soldiers complained they were more fit for a dog than a person, especially when keeping out the elements. They just were to small but it was all they had.
 
According to learnnc.org, each union soldier was issued one tent, which were called "dog tents" by the men. So the answers are one and dog tent. I assume this is the ancestor of the modern "pup tent."

Edit - I couldn't find any place on learnnc.org where it said that one soldier carried a whole tent.

It was much more practical to have each soldier carry one half, so that he wouldn't be unduly weighed down by the weight of a whole tent. Then they could buddy up when it was actually time to pitch a tent.

Hoosier
 
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