This is our Research Page where we will show you the work that has gone into our reproductions. We plan to document and photograph all original artifacts and specifications that we use as models. Right now we are featuring some documentation on shelter halves. If you have any ideas for items we should reproduce (especially if you have an original), please contact us at: usarsenal@aol.com.
Updated on: 08/22/99
A Word About Our Tents
Our reproduction shelter halves are based on original surviving halves, General Order No. 60 from the Quartermaster General, specifications from war-time contracts, and other research data from historians, collectors, museums.
Some of these artifacts are seen in Echoes of Glory, Arms and Equipment of the Union, pg. 214.
(From the collection of the Stamatelos Bros. of Cambridge, MA). The major difference our shelter halves make from the originals
are the dimensions which comply with G.O. 60 or earlier war contracts and account for shrinkage.
We now have a pattern for an "even-earlier-war" 3-piece shelter half. Due to our on-going research we have found that this style of shelter-half tent was produced and used before the "H.S. McComb" halves (that had previously been called an "early-war" model).
Though this tent was most likely manufactured before the issue of G.O. 60, it probably was made only as early as the Summer of 1864.
This effort was undertaken with the generous help of the most knowledgable people in the field, most notably Mr. Frederick Gaede, a member of the Company of Military Historians.
We have recently found a supplier for accurate, affordable reproduction bone buttons and will be using them on our halves but, for an extra fee, we can still supply you with antique bone buttons.
Buttons are not supplied with our kits so that "do-it-yourselfers" may add
their own bone (or tin) buttons. We also supply an optional central reinforce and
loop with our kits in case customers prefer to emulate a "late-war" version.
The following description was written by Kevin "Pat" McDermott on February
1988 and published in the 5th NH Volunteers
newsletter "Charge Bayonets" (There were other publications that featured it but that's where it was first published!).
This was part of a larger article detailing the construction of this tent (A & B).
The Stamatelos Collection:
Stamatelos A and B were used together as a complete tent. Mr. Stamatelos remembers
these having been used by a Sergeant in a
Massachusetts regiment, but as of this writing has not been able to find the
documentation in his records. They are the products of the same contractor,
H.S. McComb of Wilmington, Delaware and are so marked, twice on each half at the
foot edge of both widths of cloth. Interestingly, the stamps are (on) the earlier
pattern, of a light twilled cotton drill, the reinforces of the same
material. Tent loops are present, of a hard shiny finished stout rope, knotted at each
end. Stamatelos C is the latter pattern and belonged to Corp. Sewall L.
Heywood of Co. "E", 5th Maine Inf'y. He joined the regiment on July 15, 1861, and
was mustered out on August 15, 1864. The tent half has no markings at all and is
constructed of a heavier, tabby weave cotton canvas of approximately 60
threads per inch, much like the canvas used for knapsacks. The central reinforce is
smaller than those at the corners, also a deviation. In all other
constructional details it conforms to G.O. 60. Tent loops are present of a very light
hempen twine.
G.O. No. 60
General Order No. 60, Quartermaster General's Office, December 12, 1864,
corrected February 1, 1865.
Description of Shelter Tent Dimensions of each half tent when finished:
Length (measuring along foot or top): 5 feet 6 inches
Width (measured along seam): 5 feet 5 inches
To be made of cotton duck 33 ½ inches wide, clear of all imperfections, and
weighing eight ounces to the linear yard.
To be made in a workmanlike manner in every respect, with strong,
well-worked button holes, made of waxed thread of sufficient size and strength to make
them durable. All other holes to have good strong grommets well-worked in them
with waxed thread or twine.
Top Buttons - Nine metallic (tinned, galvanized or zinc) buttons, in a line
parallel to and four inches from, the upper edge or head of each tent, at
intervals of eight inches from centre to centre, the extreme buttons being
one inch from the side edges or ends of each tent.
End buttons - Seven metallic (tinned, galvanized or zinc) buttons, in a line
parallel to, and four inches from, each side3 edge or end of the half tent,
at intervals of eight inches from centre to centre, the first button of the row
being three inches from the lower edge or foot of the half tent.
Buttonholes on each tent, twenty-three in number, along the upper and side
edges, at a distance of a half inch therefrom, opposite the buttons of their
own half, and corresponding in position to the buttons on the other half tent.
Three loops to each half tent, at lower corners and foot of seam, of
six-thread Manila line, small, soft, and pliable.
Guylines, one with each half tent, six feet ten inches long, of six-thread
Manila line, small, soft, and pliable.
The pole and rope holes must be placed so as to correspond when the half
tents are put together.
The corner and stay pieces to be made of the same material as the tent, and
to be four inches square.
If the tent be sewed by machine, it must be a lock-stitch machine. No force
should be used to bring the tent to it's required measurements.
First Person Accounts
Excerpts from the book, Hardtack & Coffee, by John Billings,
formerly of Sickles' Third and Hancock's Second Corps.
"But there was another tent, the most interesting of all, which was used
exclusively in the field, and that was Tente d'Abri - the Dog or Shelter
Tent."
"This tent was invented late in 1861 or early in 1862. I am told it was made
of
light duck at first, then of rubber, and afterwards of duck again, but I
never
saw one made of anything heavier than cotton drilling. This was the tent of
the
rank and file. It did not come into general use till after the Peninsular
Campaign. Each man was provided with a half-shelter, as a single piece was
called, which he was expected to carry on the march if he wanted a tent to
sleep
under."
References to shelter halves from the letters of Pvt. Wilbur Fisk, 2nd VT Volunteer Infantry
"We put up our miniature tents this time on an improved plan, by elevating the ridge pole and leaving one side nearly open. We formed them in a sort of a circle, and built up a rousing fire in the midst. We were thoroughly drenched to the skin, but still it rained."
"The tents we use in this campaign are nothing more than pieces of flax cloth, about a yard and a half square, with buttons and buttonholes on three sides, and can be carried in our knapsacks. Two of these buttoned together and suspended over a pole or held up by two bayonets makes a tent somewhat resembling a certain description of a hen coop with the ends open. Any number of these can be buttoned together, if we choose."
Camp near Cloud's Mill
March 20, 1862
"So piling up all the knapsacks I can beg or borrow for a seat and writing desk under our excellent shelter-tent (or sunshade as they should be called, for being elevated a number of feet from the base to admit the cool air on all sides, while at the same time protecting our heads from the burning rays of the sun, they seem, by virtue of office, to merit that title),..I find it by no means invulnerable against the powerful caloric batteries of the sun, not withstanding we have constructed quite an abattis of boughs, freshly imported from the woods, and an extra armor of blankets over the tent."
Across the Chickahominy, Va.
June 15, 1862
"They have built them huts of logs and mud, using their shelter-tents for roofs. They are built, generally, with four half-tents together, and occupied by four."
Camp near White Oak Church, Va.
March 14, 1863
"The art of building up comfortable quarters, like every other art, improves greatly by practice. Certainly we have never fixed up our "shanties" in a way more pleasant and comfortable than we have them now. Our shelter tents we fasten to poles and stakes several feet from the ground on all sides. We build our "bunks" to the same height under them. Here we have a place to sleep clean from the ground, and where the air can circulate freely under and all around us. We have a roof to cover us, and, if we wish, we can close up the ends of the tent and curtain the space from the eaves to the ground. Plenty of old material for doing this can be picked up in the camps of those regiments that are going home, and the boys are not slow in finding it. Thus it can be seen we have all the advantages of a good wall tent, minus a great many of its disadvantages."
Camp near White Oak Church, Va.
May 24, 1863
"I would like to introduce the reader in to our camp this morning that he might see what pleasant houses we can improvise at short notice and very little expense. If you can imagine a pole or rail, whichever happens to be the handiest, elevated a little higher than one's head and held horizontally by two crotches, or by being strapped to two other rails that are perpendicular, which are inserted in the ground, one at each end, you have an idea of the first starting point in putting up a tent. The principal difficulty in all this is to get an ax or hatchet to cut a pole or sharpen the stake that is to be driven into the ground; but sometimes a big jack-knife will answer the purpose. The next thing is to throw our tent, which is nothing more nor less than two pieces of cotton or linen cloth, about five feet square buttoned together, over this ridge-pole and fasten the lower edge, or eaves, to small stakes as near the ground as we have calculated to have the tent come. The boys generally prefer from two to three feet. Here then is a tent for two men. Others can join on to the ends indefinitely, thus making a continual line of tents and have it all one. Along the centre of this we can build our bunks, running lengthwise, if we have tents sufficient, at a convenient height from the ground, making us a good seat or lounge in the day-time, and a bed for the night, or we can build them crosswise, if we prefer, and thus economize the room. Being open all around, the tent has the freest circulation of air, and we escape the unhealthy damp of living on the ground. Some of the boys fix themselves up stands for writing-desks, and cupboards for their cups, plates, and fragments of rations. Many other conveniences are constructed as necessity demands, or ingenuity invents. Generally we provide ourselves with all the proudest aristocrat needs to ask for, while the whole establishment would be costly at five dollars."
Camp near Warrenton, Va.
Aug. 10, 1863
"We had plenty of shelter tents when the last detachment of men went home, and when we have these we can very easily provide the rest. We covered our tents all over with evergreen or other boughs, raised up on poles and fastened to posts, and this, extending in front over our door, makes a very cool bower."
2nd VT Regt. Camp in the Field
June 30, 1865
