[79] Niles' Register, XXI, 199. See also XXI, 38, 197.
[80] Sketches, p. 165. In her Southern Tour, published in 1831, Mrs. Royall wrote: "Besides the collector [at the custom house, New Orleans], they have . . . 44 clerks, gaugers, inspectors, &c. Most of these were as shabby a set of gawks, as ever disgraced Uncle Sam" (p. 32).
[81] This singular expression, now obsolete or obsolescent, was common in the first half of the nineteenth century. It was originally the slang of the boatmen on the Mississippi and other Western rivers. See C. Schultz, Jr., Travels (1810), II, 145, 146. The Salem Gazette of June 12, 1812, a few days before war was declared with England, printed the following: "Curious Terms of Defiance, New-Orleans April 24. 'Half horse half alligator'—has hitherto been the boast of our up-country boatmen, when quarreling. The present season however has made a complete change. A few days ago two of them quarreled in a boat at Natchez, when one of them jumping ashore declared with a horrid oath that he was a steamboat. His opponent immediately followed him, swearing he was an earthquake and would shake him to pieces—and in fact almost literally executed his threat." The Salem Gazette added "It is these monsters of the western wilds that are forcing the people of the Atlantic shores into an unnecessary and ruinous war" (p. 4-1).
[82] New York Mirror, February 19, 1831, VIII, 260, 261. The indefatigable Paulding contributed to the United States and Democratic Review for April, 1851, an article called "Uncle Sam and his 'B'hoys,'" from which the following is extracted: "Uncle Sam talks 'big' sometimes, like his old dad, Squire Bull, who was reckoned the greatest bragger of his day, till Uncle Sam grew up and disputed the point with him" (XXVIII, 299).
[83] Tour to the North and Down East, p. 202. Uncle Sam had previously figured in the Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834), p. 86.
[84] The Rambler in America, I, 160.
[85] Journal of a Residence and Tour in the United States, II, 301.
[86] Letters from the Frontiers (1868), p. 335. See also p. 354. This is the first use of the term by an army officer that I have noted.
[87] Bentley's Miscellany, IV, 43, 294.
[88] Diary in America, II, 42, 43.