Shelter half, Pole Height?

[GaWildcat]

The esteemed Mr. Hughes is correct - for artillery a gun tarp is quick, easy, and documented. I sent you answers to your PM as well, but as a Confederate unit, you've got a lot of options from tent flies, painted cloths, groundcloths, etc., and in a variety of materials from cotton drill, cotton duck, heavy linen (although linen usage dropped as the war progressed due to flax shortages), and hemp linen.

Esteemed? WOW thank you for the Compliment Mssr Lamoreaux!!

[Pookie]

Michael, I started a thread a while back about an "artillery shroud". I heard a reference to it. Being uneducated in the matter, and frankly, never had heard of such a thing, Ross, as usual provided the info. It sounds like an absolutely fantastic bit of gear. Versatile, able to be used as a dining fly, lowered to provide a massive shelter...... Ross was saying that he made 2 and wouldn't consider another. A tremendous amount of work! And heavy too. 54 lbs. Since we portray a mid war unit, i was thinking that if the original shroud survived it would be in pretty rough shape. Replacement gear, would have probably been whatever they could get their hands on. That is if anything was even available... this is the essence of the hobby (from our side...). Use something that they MAY have used!

Do you have any pix of your shroud? It would be great to see.

Regards,
Jerry

[Hoosier49er]

Not trying to jack your thread here, but for a really good read about how the federal artilleryman lived on campaign, check out this diary from Henry Campbell of the 18th Indiana Light Artillery: http://replica.palni.edu/cdm/compoun...e/id/417/rec/1
I especially like the reference to the "cots" improvised from flour sacks, branches and forked sticks in the ground. Going to try these out this spring.

[RJSamp]

Then there were the Iron Brigade lads who slept in hammocks....guess there were plenty of trees in the Wilderness?

[Brett]

Ross, back in my slightly more hard core campaigner days, me and a pard tried the bayoneted-rifle-as-tent-pole system, and his rifle and bayonet worked splendidly because he had an original Enfield steel bayonet. My Springfield bayonet was a cheap Indian repro, and after setting it up, the slightest bump caused the musket to fall over, bending that bayonet to about 60 degrees. If I had been asleep in the tent at the time, I would have gotten clubbed in the head with my own musket butt.

So if somebody is going to use muskets in lieu of tent poles, make sure you use original bayonets or high quality repros, at the least.

[Ross L. Lamoreaux]

Ross, back in my slightly more hard core campaigner days, me and a pard tried the bayoneted-rifle-as-tent-pole system, and his rifle and bayonet worked splendidly because he had an original Enfield steel bayonet. My Springfield bayonet was a cheap Indian repro, and after setting it up, the slightest bump caused the musket to fall over, bending that bayonet to about 60 degrees. If I had been asleep in the tent at the time, I would have gotten clubbed in the head with my own musket butt.
So if somebody is going to use muskets in lieu of tent poles, make sure you use original bayonets or high quality repros, at the least.

That is most assuredly true - I've experienced it myself. Original bayonets - doable. Indian or Paki bayonets - ugly...

[Calum]

To go off on a slight tangent, how well do the sights hold up on the repro muskets with this sort of use? And along the lines of original bayonets, it's incredible how much lighter they are then the repros - people can't believe it when I hand them one of each...

Calum

[SackCoat]

Interesting posts.

I'm assuming it was not unusual for soldiers to also use heavy branches to construct a shelter tent framework?

[flattop32355]

I would suspect any expedient at any given time would serve as a framework for shelter tents. I have yet to try the making of a raiders bunk; simple, quick to make. The modern day problem is having enough poles/saplings of the correct length available at an event site.

[Brett]

Wood of any kind became quite scarce after an army rolls through an area, especially in cold and/or wet enough weather to justify even setting up a shelter half. As long as fires were permitted, you can imagine that in no time at all every scrap of burnable wood, including fence posts and anything else readily available, was burned. From what I've read, I would suspect the common soldier would rather use the wood to boil some of the salt out of his salt pork, than use it to prop up a shelter half.

We've all been to reenactments where every scrap of wood gets burned, even the fallen branches from nearby trees. And that's just reenactors, for one weekend. We grumble and blame the event organizers for poor preparation, but it's really a very period-authentic problem!