JULY 26, 1862:
The
Richmond Daily Dispatch entertains
its readers with a witty discourse on the origins of the Yankee term
“skedaddle” while playing on popular Southern prejudices on the subject of
education amongst the Yankees. Notice
also the wry allusion to the recent Union defeats and the now-notorious
military euphemism coined by McClellan on the occasion of his retreat from
Richmond:
“Origin of the Yankee
phrase ‘Skedaddle.’
A friend of ours says
that this phrase, apparently invented by the Yankees, in a prophetic spirit, to
describe their own predestined performances in that part of the drill which is
inaugurated by the command “right about face,” is certainly derived from
“skedase,” the future tense of the Greek verb “skedonnumi,” signifying “to
disperse. ” This verb, in some of its tenses, is frequently used by Homer to
describe that manoeuvre called by McClellan”a change of base,” or “a strategic
movement,” and known by others, not so conversant in military operations, as “a
headlong flight.”
We found some
difficulty in accounting for the manner in which the Yankee soldiers had
contrived to pick up so much Greek; but our classical friend had a solution
ready for the occasion. He thinks the phrase was not invented by the soldiers,
but by some wild college boy, who used it to express the scattering of a
company of boys engaged in some mischievous prank when a professor suddenly
appears in their midst. From the college it passed into multitude and was thus
drawn into general use. The genealogical tree of “skedaddle” is quite
respectable, if such be the proposetus. Whether it be or not, we leave to the
consideration of scholars and antiquaries. The theory has at least the merit of
being very ingenious.”
A modern reader would be generally flummoxed by the
intellectualism of this editorial. Given the fact that most soldiers were
habitual letter writers and many were diarists, the level of literacy in the
Civil War era was actually rather higher than it is nowadays.
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