Barracks then, it will be observed, served to shelter some of the troops. To such as are not familiar with these structures, I will simply say that they were generally a long one-storied building not unlike a bowling-alley in proportions, having the entrance at one end, a broad aisle running through the centre, and a double row of bunks, one above the other, on either side. They were calculated to hold one company of a hundred men. Some of these buildings are still to be seen at Readville, Mass., near the old campgrounds. But while barracks were desirable quarters in the cooler weather of this latitude, and sheltered many regiments during their stay in the State, a still larger number found shelter in tents prior to their departure for the field. These tents were of various patterns, but the principal varieties used were the Sibley, the A or Wedge Tent, and the Hospital or Wall Tent.
SIBLEY TENTS.
The Sibley tent was invented by Henry Sibley, in 1857. He was a graduate of the United States military academy at West Point, and accompanied Capt. John C. Fremont on one of his exploring expeditions. He evidently got his idea from the Tepee or Tepar,—the Indian wigwam, of poles covered with skins, and having a fire in the centre,—which he saw on the plains. When the Rebellion broke out, Sibley cast in his fortune with the South. He afterwards attained the rank of brigadier-general, but performed no services so likely to hand down his name as the invention of this tent. It has recently been stated that Sibley was not the actual inventor, the credit being assigned to some private soldier in his command. On account of its resemblance to a huge bell, it has sometimes been called a Bell Tent. It is eighteen feet in diameter and twelve feet high, and is supported by a single pole, which rests on an iron tripod. This pole is the exact radius of the circle covered by the tent. By means of the tripod the tent can be tightened or slackened at pleasure. At the top is a circular opening, perhaps a foot in diameter, which serves the double purpose of ventilation and of passing a stove-pipe through in cool weather. This stove-pipe connected with a cone-shaped stove suited to this shape of tent, which stood beneath the tripod. A small piece of canvas, called a cap, to which were attached two long guys, covered the opening at the top in stormy weather. It was not an unusual sight in the service to see the top of one of these tents in a blaze caused by some one having drawn the cap too near an over-heated stove-pipe. A chain depended from the fork of the tripod, with a hook, on which a kettle could be hung; when the stove was wanting the fire was built on the ground.
These tents are comfortably capacious for a dozen men. In cold or rainy weather, when every opening is closed, they are most unwholesome tenements, and to enter one of them of a rainy morning from the outer air, and encounter the night’s accumulation of nauseating exhalations from the bodies of twelve men (differing widely in their habits of personal cleanliness) was an experience which no old soldier has ever been known to recall with any great enthusiasm. Of course the air was of the vilest sort, and it is surprising to see how men endured it as they did. In the daytime these tents were ventilated by lifting them up at the bottom. Sibley tents went out of field service in 1862, partly because they were too expensive, but principally on account of being so cumbrous. They increased the amount of impedimenta too largely, for they required many wagons for their transportation, and so were afterwards used only in camps of instruction. I believe they are still used to some extent by the militia of the various States. I remember having seen these tents raised on a stockade four feet high by some regiments during the war, and thus arranged they made very spacious and comfortable winter quarters. When thus raised they accommodated twenty men. The camp for convalescents near Alexandria, Va., comprised this variety of tent stockaded.
A, OR WEDGE TENTS.
The A or Wedge tents are yet quite common. The origin of this tent is not known, so far as I can learn. It seems to be about as old as history itself. A German historian, who wrote in 1751, represents the Amalekites as using them. Nothing simpler for a shelter could suggest itself to campers than some sort of awning stretched over a horizontal pole or bar. The setting-up of branches on an incline against a low horizontal branch of a tree to form a rude shelter may have been its earliest suggestion. But, whatever its origin, it is now a canvas tent stretched over a horizontal bar, perhaps six feet long, which is supported on two upright posts of about the same length. It covers, when pitched, an area nearly seven feet square. The name of these tents is undoubtedly derived from the fact of the ends having the proportions of the Roman letter A, and because of their resemblance to a wedge.
SPOONING TOGETHER.