John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry Archives

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Currently viewing the tag: "John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry"

Civil War Letters

Posted by Grant Barrett on November 20, 2017 · Add Comment

Private Voices, also known as the Corpus of American Civil War Letters, is an online archive of thousands of letters written by soldiers during the U.S. Civil War. Because the soldiers lacked formal education and wrote “by ear,” the collection is a treasure trove of pronunciation and dialect from that time and place. One phrase [...]

John Brown’s Slew Foot

Posted by grantbarrett on March 6, 2015 · 1 Comment

“I’ll be John Brown’s slew foot,” a euphemism for “I’ll be damned,” makes reference to the abolitionist riot leader John Brown, who was said to be damned after he was hanged. Slew in this sense means “twisted.” This is part of a complete episode.

I’ll be John Brown

Posted by grantbarrett on November 2, 2013 · Add Comment

The exclamations “I’ll be John Brown!” and “I’ll be John Browned!” have a sticky history, going back to view that the abolitionist John Brown was doing something damnable by arming a slave revolt. This is part of a complete episode.

Sockdologizing

Posted by grantbarrett on October 25, 2008 · Add Comment

They were the last words Abraham Lincoln heard before John Wilkes Booth assassinated him: “Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside-out, old gal—you sockdologizing old man-trap!” Booth knew that this line from the play Our American Cousin would get a big laugh, so he chose that moment to pull the trigger. A [...]

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Civil War Letters

John Brown’s Slew Foot

I’ll be John Brown

Sockdologizing