December 3, 1864---"The whole shebang!"

DECEMBER 3, 1864:        

William Tecumseh Sherman continues marching. Today, his left wing reaches Camp Lawton P.O.W. Camp, expecting to liberate its 10,229 Union prisoners. Instead, the camp is deserted, the men having been moved elsewhere. In retaliation, Sherman burns the town of Millen. 

Camp Lawton had been holding the overflow from Andersonville (Camp Sumter). If anything, conditions at Camp Lawton were physically worse for the men, who were not even provided with tents. Instead, the men were forced to build very crude shelters out of bundles of brush tied together with twine. These “shebangs” as they were called, provided essentially no protection from the elements. The expression, “That’s the whole shebang” is derived from the experience of men at Camp Lawton. 

As General Schofield’s men prepare to settle into Winter Quarters at Nashville, the first of many wires arrives from Washington demanding that he pursue and destroy John Bell Hood C.S.A.’s shattered Army of Tennessee. Schofield’s choice to hunker down behind the lines (seemingly in safety and comfort) is not put in a good light when Hood announces that his 17,000 men have “trapped” 60,000 Union troops inside Nashville. In reality, Schofield’s men do need to reprovision and refit, and Hood is capable of nothing more than ordering Nathan Bedford Forrest to continue his incessant hit-and-run raids.