CS tent fly construction

[High-Private]

Hi,

I know that CS tent flies has been discussed on this forum before and I have searched the archives and read through them. My question is in regard to the actual contruction. Would the seams and edges been sewn by machine and the grommet holes done by hand or would the entire fly have been done by hand? Since sewing machines were around, I would imagine that it would have been more efficient to use the machine whenever possible. I have also read the past posts about dimensions and they all seem to reference the US regulations pertaining to flies for walls and other large tents. Would they have been made smaller? I read on another forum that someone was making them 7'10" x 9'6" or so. That would handle about 3 - 4 men were as the larger ones mentioned in the US regs could handle many more.

As always thank you all for your time and information.



Kevin Coyle
4th Texas Recruit

[Ross L. Lamoreaux]

Re: CS tent fly construction

I've never seen or handled a Confederate tent fly, but I have knowledge of the Federal tentage manufacturing. Dependant upon what type of material was used for CS tent flies, be that cotton duck, heavy drilling, etc., I feel that the majority would have been handsewn as there Federal counterparts were. Research from the CMH, Fred Gaede, and others has shown that even tents such as the common tents and wall tents were still being mostly handsewn. There are no concrete reasons given, but my thoughts are because that was the way they were used to doing them for years and years at the Schuykill Arsenal and more importantly, with all of the reinforcements and panels in a tent or fly, the material would often be 4-6 layers thick and most machine sewing needles would be hard pressed to sew those kinds of seams. This process changed with the use of blue line duck which was a little lighter than some of the other cotton ducks used, and you will find mid to late war shelter halves being constructed by machine with handsewn grommets and buttonholes, but again, there were less reinforcements than a tent. Again speculation on my part, but I think due to the lack of industrialization for the CS government and procurement agents, you would probably have found the majority of their canvas goods handsewn as well. I've never seen any flies with metal grommets, not to say there weren't any, just that I've never seen any in images, but I do know that the most common grommet on tents and flies were corded grommets, meaning that within the stitching around the hole, extra cord or rope fibers were looped around the hole while the stitches were wrapped around the cord and the hole, reinforcing it at the same time. The cord made a natural washer-like ring within the stitching, and in conjuction with the extra cloth reinforcment on the fly or tent, this made for quite a strong hole. I've handsewn several common tents and tent flies the last few years, and they are not difficult to sew by hand, just very time consuming.

[High-Private]

Re: CS tent fly construction

Ross,

When you were makign them, what were the dimensions? Did they follow the US regs that folks have posted or were they smaller?

Thanks,
Kevin Coyle

[Ross L. Lamoreaux]

Re: CS tent fly construction

I made a couple to the US regs but the majority were something in the neighborhood of 12 X 9 so a mess could carry them. I had no period reference or original to go by that size, so they were pure conjecture pieces, but that seemed to work out well for a mess of 4, 6 guys in a pinch.