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| A, or Wedge tents |
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[48]
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 the accommodated twenty men. The camp for convalescents near Alexandria, Va., comprised this variety of tent stockaded.
The A or Wedge tents are yet quite common.
The origin, it is 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
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