Skedaddle

[L Verge]

During the recent Surratt Conference, a bus tour of Mosby Country was narrated by David Goetz and Eric Buckland. The latter gentleman has a website entitled "Mosby Men" at http://www.mosbymen.com. Within that site, he gives an explanation of the origins of the term "skedaddle."

Evidently there have been a multitude of guesses linking the term to anything from Creek to Sanscrit to other old world terms. Buckland, however, attributes it to Virginia soldiers who "rund mit Siegel." In the early days when Mosby and other guerrilla partisans were making life miserable for the Union, it was customary for each side to send out companies of skirmishers to act as necessary. On one of these expeditions, Mosby's men got the worst of it, and their leader sang out, "Scatter, boys, scatter!" Everyone ran his own way and disappeared into bushes to vanish in all directions.

A few days later, a similar encounter occurred - except that the Federals were the outnumbered ones. Their German commander did not understand English very well, but he did remember "scatter, boys, scatter." However, his poor pronunciation or his excitement came out as "Ske-dad-dle, boys, ske-dad-dle!" The boys did, and supposedly the joke and the term have gone down in history, but attributed more to Mosby and the Confederates than to the U.S. Army.

This story was first printed in July of 1874 in the Richland Beacon of Rayville, Louisiana. I read it in the recent issue of the newsletter of the Stuart-Mosby Society.

[LincolnMan]

Who knew??
I don't know if it's true but I heard once that the word "okay" or "ok" came into the language as a result of Andrew Jackson coining it first.

[HerbS]

I have aways thought the word Skedaddle came from The Civil War! I have heard the word used with today's generation.Thanks-Laurie--PS. My neighbor's daughter married an English Teacher from Richmond,and he uses the word quite often!He tells me that I have to come down and explore the trenches in-"Granny's"back yard.