U.S. Army Service
At the age of 17, Henry was admitted to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He graduated in 1838 and was commissioned as second lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Dragoons.
He fought Seminole Indians in Florida, 1840–1841; participated in the Military Occupation of Texas, 1845–1846; and fought in the Mexican-American War, 1847–1848. Sibley was on frontier duty in Texas from 1850–1855. Sibley was a creative military man. In the 1850s, he invented the "Sibley tent", which was widely used by the Union Army during the American Civil War and for a short while afterward. The United Kingdom also adopted the design of the Sibley tent. He also invented the "Sibley stove" (also known as the Sibley tent stove), to heat the tent. The Army used tent stoves of this design until the advent of World War II.
From 1855–1857, Sibley was part of the forces trying to control conflict in Bleeding Kansas, where hundreds of new settlers arrived to vote on the question of slavery, provoked by the 1854 Kansas–Nebraska Act. He took part in the Utah War, 1857–1860, and was in active service in New Mexico 1860–1861. After the outbreak of the American Civil War, Sibley resigned on May 13, 1861, the day of his promotion to Major in the 1st Dragoons. Native to Louisiana, he had southern sympathies and joined the Confederate States Army (CSA).
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