What is the difference???

[High-Private]

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could tell me the difference between a shebang and a tent fly? Both are large pieces if fabric that are erected in some fashion to act as a shelter. I am gathering the components to make a CS tent fly of about 8' x 10' and I am just curious about the differences.


Thanks,

Kevin Coyle
4th Texas Recruit

[Stonewall_Greyfox]

Re: What is the difference???

Luke Gilly posted this over in another thread.

Just thought I would post this and get the blood flowing again for ATB.

This comes from the remembrance of John. H. Worsham of the 21st VA Company F. http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/worsham/worsham.html#wor149

"It was very easy for the men to move, because by this time we had learned to live without tents. The only shelter the men had was oil or rubber cloths and cotton flies. The latter were pieces of cotton about four by six feet in size, hemmed around the borders. Button holes were worked around these borders and buttons sewed on at certain places; they were so arranged that three of them buttoned together made a very comfortable shelter for three men. We were dependent on the Yankees for them, as I never heard of our quartermaster issuing any. The men who could not get these, made a "shebang," by putting two forked sticks in the ground, about six feet apart, laying a pole in the forks, placing bushes with one end on the ground, the other inclined to the pole, enclosing in this way one side and the ends, and leaving the other side open. This would accommodate three or four men."

This would imply that in Worsham's mind, a shebang is what some of us might call a "lean-to", being primarily constructed from brush. Whereas the erection of cotton, rubber or oilcloth flies would be termed something different.

Paul B.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: What is the difference???

Hallo!

IMHO...

A "shebang" is a "informal" shelter (non shelter halves tent or wedge tent, etc.,) made from whatever what was on-hand or could be found to make a shelter out of.

Curt

[AZReenactor]

etymology - Shebang

Kevin,

A shebang (aka shanty, hovel, hut, shed, shelter, home, etc) is merely a shelter of some sort, frequently ersatz in nature. A fly is a large piece of cloth intended to go over a tent to prevent driving rain from soaking through, but which can also be set up independently.

Your confusion may be caused by the fact that a fly can actually be used to construct a right nice shebang.

The word itself is associated with and was likely popularized during the westward migration of the 49ers in the 1850s. The best origin of the word I've found is that it came from the shed where the shebander (or port authority) conducted his business and likely entered American usage when such sheds were encountered on the trip to California by sea.

The Literary World, July 11, 1885

720. Shebang. A writer in the Literary World of the 4th Inst. makes inquiry about "shebang." In the answer given you say it "originated in the late Civil War." This is an error. It is as old as the mining operations of the West and California. "Shebander," as the dictionaries have it, was a Dutch East India merchant. The temporary pavillions or shed in which he transacted his business was called his shebang. The word became common as applied to temporary sheds and other coverings used in mining and frontier life.

Our new West: records of travel between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean by Samuel Bowles, 1869.

The fresh idiomatic phrases and "slang" words, that pour in on the ear of the traveler through our New West, and especially in its mining districts, will greatly amuse and interest him. The language seems to be finding an invigoration among these hearty and candid residents of the borders of civilization. They are not drawn, indeed, from "the well of English undefined;" but they bubble up from fresh springs, sometimes all sparkling with wit and meaning, and many of them will win their way and keep their place in the common stream of our mother tongue.

What wealth of new words and new meanings for old ones would Shakespere not have gathered up in a week's life among the miners of White Pine for instance? "You bet" is an emphatic affirmative; get up and get" an earnest command to go; "pan out," borrowed from washing sands for gold, signifies turning out or amounting to, — thus a man or a speculation "pans out" good or bad as the case may be; "weaken" is widely used to express all kinds of failing or failure; a finely dressed woman "rags out; "a humbug or cheat is a "bilk;" a loafer is a "bummer;" "shebang" is applied to any sort of a shop, house or office; "outfit" to anything new you have got; and "affidavit" comprehends everything for which no other word is handy; "bull-whacking" is driving an ox team, a business in which the present Senator Stewart of Nevada began his life in that State; "how" is adopted from the Indians as an abbreviation for "how do you do?" or "how are you?"; "peter out" stands again for failure; "bed rock" for the end or bottom of things; "show" or "color" indicates promise or prospect; the Spanish "corral" is adapted to any sort of capture or control, — as that a broker had "corralled" the stock of a certain company; a "biled shirt" is a white one; "square" anything excellent or perfect; "on it" signifies an earnest pursuit of any special end, and applied to a woman settles her character the wrong way; "you can't prove it by me," a general doubt or denial; "none of it in mine," a declination; — and so on indefinitely almost, a new phase or word coming up into society from below every little while, having its run and trial, and becoming a permanency or being banished, as it is found to stand the tests of taste and of genuine meaning, or not.

Across the Continent A Summer's Journey to the Rocky Mountains, the Mormons, and the Pacific States, with Speaker Colfax. by Samuel Bowles, 1866.

Some of the vernacular of the mountains is sufficiently
original and amusing to be reported, also. A "square" meal is the common term for a first rate one; "shebang" means any kind of an establishment, store, house, shop, shanty; "outfit" has a wider range, your handkerchief, your suit of clothes, the cut of your hair, your team, your whole possessions, or the most infinitesimal part or item thereof; and "affidavit" signifies anything else that these other terms do not cover.

Nineteen Months a Prisoner of War: Narrative of Lieutenant G.E. Sabre, Second Rhode Island Cavalry, 1865.

November 10th, Thursday. — We are rapidly assuming the appearance of a winter encampment. More substantial "shebangs" than have answered the purpose of shelter during the summer are being erected. The messes are each reduced five or six less in number, and work in common, carrying logs from the woods, a half mile distant. The sides of the winter "shebangs" are solid and secure, but the rooms, made of strips and brush, much expose the interior to the weather. Each " shebang" is provided with a chimney of wood, " cobbled," and lined with clay-mud. All the crannies are filled in the same way, making every thing very close. Each place has one door, but no windows. However, by the time everybody is accommodated, we will have, if not the most beautiful, at all events, under the circumstances, the most comfortable quarters now in a Southern prison-camp.

The Freewill Baptist Quarterly. July 1865.

These four tents constituted what the soldiers generally, and especially those of the Teutonic persuasion, persisted in calling a shebang; in front of which floated a flag inscribed " U. S. Christian Commission."

[McKim]

Re: What is the difference???

This description was given by James Williamson of Mosby's Rangers;

Many of the men put up little shelters, or "shebangs," as they were called. These were made of poles, covered with brush or cornstalks; and when the floor was spread with dry leaves and covered with blankets, afforded a comfortable lodging place.

I have read similar descriptions as given by both Confederate and Federal.

[Horace]

Re: What is the difference???

I would echo the idea that a shebang is improvised-I always think of them being made of brush on poles-and a fly is issued. There doesn't seem to be a concensus on CS fly dimensions. I wonder if there was then either. Here are a couple of sources

http://www.lazyjacks.org.uk/tenting2.htm

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10410&highlight=tent+fly+dimensions&page=2

One cites 9' x 12', the other 9' x 15'. The AC thread leads to more threads on the subject. Four grommets on each short end seems to be consistent. Does anyone have anything authoritative on fly dimensions?

[High-Private]

Re: What is the difference???

Hi,

Thank you for the input, it is very helpful.


Kevin Coyle
4th Texas Recruit

[redleg141]

Re: What is the difference???

I received my Confederate single back from Missouri Boot and shoe recently and can say with confidence that it is great workmanship. I highly recommend them.

Eric Stiller

[lukegilly13]

Re: What is the difference???

In the construction of one of these duct flies....how many seems would be in it? In other words....what was the common widths that duct and/or drill was created in the period?

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: What is the difference???

Hallo!

Tis complicated... and i not sure a short post can do justice to the question.

In brief and to over-generalize...

The "standard" textile trade for drill was 28 1/2 inches.
Cotton duck was "standardized" at 28 1/2 and 30 inches wide,
And cotton "sail cloth" was 33 1/2. Cotton Duck became specified as 33 1/2 in October 1863

This gets messy in say shelter halves where to get the required dimensions (before shrinkage) one needed two width panels and a "spacer" if using 28 1/2versus 33 1/2.

So, for tents of a particualr size, it would depend upon the size of the tent or fly versus the material width used ot make it.

Curt

[lukegilly13]

Re: What is the difference???

Curt,
Thanks for the info....what i'm getting at is that most folks purchase cotton duck at 58inches wide.....If one was going to construct a large fly (or even a small fly for that matter) you would basically split this in half before cutting it into the size you want panels. This would give you two pieces at 29inches....then you'd actually have to trim this to get the desired width of panels? In other words, to purchase 2 yards of duck at 58inches wide, seam the edges, and put grommets in the corners would not be correct do to the width of the solid piece of farbic....right?

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: What is the difference???

Hallo!

As I understand what you wrote... correct.

(The problem with cutting a wider width in half is that you lose one selvage edge and create an incorrect raw edge that needs "hemmed" or otherwise taken care of.)

Curt