Yes,you are correct about the numbers of Irish in the prison-especially from NYCity.My great grandfather[William Ryan]was from Ireland.
The first time that I ever heard the word "shebang" used in terms of a shelter was in Warren Wilkinson's book Mother May You Never See The Sights I Have Seen. It is a history of the 57th Massachusetts infantry. My G-G Grandfather served as a drummer boy in that Regiment. Wilkinson describes a shebang as "torn blankets and rags thrown over crude stick and brush frames."
It seems to me that they were made out of any type of material that a prisoner in one of those camps could find. In this case the prison that Wilkinson was referring to was Andersonville. I imagine that it was a pretty common term used by soldiers in those days.
Craig
Thanks-Craig--Andersonville was the worst prison ever!
I did more research on Camp Ford.Yes,most of the prisioners were from NYCity and had Irish names.I also saw that the Spiegel brothers[Chicago Catalog] were prisoners there.
(08-17-2012 02:27 PM)Laurie Verge Wrote: [ -> ]Well Herb, your great-grandfather just made me spend my lunch hour searching for the meaning of "shebang." Most of the dictionaries and other sources that I investigated made no mention of it having anything to do with a form of shelter. They refer to it meaning "the whole package" or even the opening something-or-other in the computer field. One source states that the word only dates to 1869.
One site did have a place where people could comment on what the word meant, and several people posted that they had seen it in interpretive signs at Andersonville, Georgia, and that it referred to shelters for the prisoners.
Finally, I hit a site called Wiktionary, and they made reference to a shebang being a lean-to or temporary shelter. But, they also said that it was an archaic word.
Answer to What is a Shebang?
I seem to always find this stuff when I'm looking for something else
http://www.dddnews.com/story/1164933.html
Gene,Shebang is by now is an archaic word.Look up Camp Ford-Tyler,Texas.The key is,he made it home!
Craig is correct, shebang was a common Civil War word for a shelter of some sort, usually rigged out materials at hand. I first ran into it in the mid-1950s, I think from MacKinley Kantor's Andersonville. It was used in POW camps on a regular basis, as Herb implies
FYI, There are 74 references to shebang as a prisoners' shack in Kantor's Andersonville
Thanks-Bill-Camp Ford-Tyler,Texas describes the Shebang quite well.As does my Great Grandfather's Diary.The prison was not a Hilton Hotel!