A City of Tents

A City of Tents. . In November 1863, Dumont Hill looked like a city of tents. Each regiment arranged its tents according to army regulations. At one end was a guard station. The officers’ latrines, called sinks, were at the other end. In between was the baggage train, regimental officers’ tents, company officers’ tents, kitchens, enlisted men’s tents, the flag pole, stacks of arms, and the men’s sinks., The Camp of the 79th Ohio, “I will mark out beside it the form of the camps to show you how we live [illegible] and how their being and on a space 300 by 200 feet. The Reg marches in from B to A halts when Wilson gets to A. Each Co. turns right and forms on the crossed lines, stacks guns, pitches tents (We only have five to each Co), on each side of the opening toward the gun stacks. The Capt tents are in a row 1 musicians, quarter master [illegible], hospital, teamsters &c, row 2 Col, Lieut Col, Major and surgeon 3 corporals by the drill ground. We should be in front of the lines opposite the officers’ tents, but we never had but one regular camp, which was in Camp Dennison.” , Lieutenant Thomas Smith, in a letter to his wife, Maria., (captions) , The plan for regimental encampments required flat or rolling land. The topography here no doubt required changes., A Union encampment in Virginia