I watched a video last night that was aired on "Trains & Locomotives" on RFD-TV. It was a photo charter of a 2-8-0 steam locomotive in Italy. Near the end of the video, the locomotive was shown shuffling cars in a yard without the tender. I was under the impression that steam locomotives and their tenders were semi-permanently attached with a huge drawbar that normally was only removed during shopping. Also, wouldn't that be dangerous without a water supply? I have to assume that this particular steam engine had standard couplers between it and its tender as well as a quick-connect arrangement for the water supply. Did any American steam engines use standard couplers between engine and tender?

Nope. Automatic couplers, by design, are intended to break at the knuckle in the case of overloading, as to not rip the draft gear from the frame. If tenders were joined to the locomotive using couplers and a knuckle broke, you'd be up a creek without a paddle. That's why they always used drawbars. Sounds like a tank engine with an auxiliary tender to me.

Perhaps its also worth mentioning that tank engines were much more common in Europe for tasks outside of yards or industry than in North America.

After reviewing the video again, the locomotive doing the yard shuffling was a 2-8-2t tank engine. The engine pulling the freight into the yard was a 2-8-0. They looked very similar. Unlike the US logging versions of this wheel arrangement, it was not a saddle-tanker.