"1864: ‘Dough-Boys,’ Over Here" Topic
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 Nashville  | 21 Aug 2014 11:21 a.m. PST |
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This feature looks at the first time famous names or terms appeared in The Times. Have an idea for someone or something you would like to read about? Send a suggestion in the comments section. It seems that almost every major war popularizes a new slang term for American infantryman. We associate doughboys with World War I, dogfaces with World War II and grunts with Vietnam. But in the pages of The Times, doughboy (or dough-boy) actually dates back to the Civil War. The term first appeared in the newspaper in the next-to-last paragraph of an article from Sept. 9, 1864, that also referred to rough riders, a term for cavalry more closely associated with the Spanish-American War: |
| donlowry | 21 Aug 2014 6:21 p.m. PST |
I've read somewhere that the term "doughboy" goes back to the Mexican-American War, when the dust-covered foot-sloggers might have been called "adobes." Also that the term "gringo" for a norteamericano goes back to that war also, due to the Americans' fondness for singing the then-popular tune "Green Grow the Lilacs." I don't know if either story is true, but sound as good as any. |
| John the Greater | 22 Aug 2014 6:31 a.m. PST |
donlowry: I have heard both stories, as well. So it must be true. |
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adds artillery to his soft-plastic Union forces.