Tentage

[BlackHillsScout]

What's your favorite tent for the time period? I have used a canvas tarp for just myself or shelter halves.
I am thinking of getting a miner for high winds and ease of setup for my wife and I.

[Books OToole]

It depends on your needs/usage.  I have a 10 X 10 Pyramid, a 9 X 9 Wall tent and two common/wedge tents.  For long term camping it is hard to beat the wall tent.  For one person (or two going light) the pyramid is great, quick and easy to set up.

Books

[BlackHillsScout]

The 10x10 is what I was thinking, I wish I would have had one on our trip this summer as we followed along the trails to and from Missouri, would have been cool to set up along the way. Would of been a great picture in the foreground of chimney rock.

Do you know of what time frame a stove was used in a wall tent? I know there was provisions for the conical stove in the Sibley in the '50's.

During the civil war there were accounts of digging down a few feet below the wedge tent to create walls and then building a fireplace and chimney on the end, pretty good idea.

[Tsalagidave]

I like the Sibley.  It was patented in 1856. I imagine the stove was patented about the same time as it dates to the War of Secession, but I haven't seen the patent info on that.  If I had a conical stove, I'd be sure to dig an airway below it to feed the combustion but all that is wagon transport stuff or will fit on a pack mule sans the stove.

My wife is not a fan of period camping so that allows me to be as nasty as I want to be.  If I can trim some mountain goose or a comparable nest over which to throw my blanket with clothing laid out upon it and a sheet separating me, wrapped up with my oilcloth on top. Another is to make a conical sapling or branch shelter shingled with evergreen or oilcloths, but with the same sleeping arrangement below.  I followed the advice of the Prairie Traveller (written 1859) and it actually works out nicely.  DC Beard also wrote on constructing a similar shelter.