For those of you who might be interested, I have put together a little gazetteer. These were words and phrases-- some, very familiar and even today rather generic-- in very common usage during the 1870's. Don't hold your breath:
VOCABULARYAaron’s rod—An epithet for any force that engulfs everything around it.
Aceldama—(1) another name for the original potter’s field outside Jerusalem; (2) any scene of great carnage, death & horror.
Alibi Ike—A weasely character that can always find excuses for what he did wrong.
aparejo (also seen spelled apparero & aparajo)—a packsaddle used to carry ammunition on a mule. Similar to a “sawbuck.”
Beecher’s Bibles—Sharps rifles. Antislavery people in MA, including clergyman Henry Ward Beecher, shipped rifles to Kansas to the free-state forces, in boxes marked “Bibles.”
boloney bulls—Bulls & old steers too tough for choice cuts.
Booze—Hard liquor.
bored for the simples—An exclamation of surprise or vexation; essentially meaning trepanning, having one’s skull drilled to cure lunacy.
boughten (store-boughten)—Obsolete pp of to buy.
buck-private—A private in the army.
buffalo: to be buffaloed; he has me buffaloed; I’ve got him buffaloed—To confuse, bewilder, render incapable of effective action.
Bukharo—buckaroo after 1889. A cowboy. The word buckra was a SE regionalism & was probably not used in the West until after the Civil War. Black cavalrymen brought the word West where it interacted w/ vaquero-bukharo, eventually forming buckaroo.
bugs (bug house)—Crazy; insane asylum.
Bushwacker—In early XIX Am. A settler. Post-Civil War. one who strikes from ambush.
Cakewalk—A fancy strutting contest developed among American Negroes, ultimately with a cake as first prize.
card shark—One who manipulates the deck dishonestly; an especially skilled but honest player. Shark in XIX American slang, also signified a pickpocket, a sly rather than a violent snatcher.
Casabianca—The last of anything. Benteen used the word in describing the rear elements he commanded as the column moved up the Rosebud.
Case—The last card of a given value, i.e., case ace; last one of anything.
Catawampus—Diagonally askew.
Cayuse—The Cayuse Indians; tough range horse bred by the Cayuse. A mean & crusty person; ornery cayuse.
Coffee-coolers—Lazy people; dogging it. Taking the easy way.
Cuss—A guy. Esp. in tough cuss, a hard-to-handle guy.
Cutbanks—The perpendicular banks of a river or ravine, formed by the erosion of bluffs or flat land above that has fallen into the ravine or river.
dally welter—In roping, to coil the lariat around the pommel after an animal has been roped. A plains cowboy’s term of contempt for southwestern cowboys (also Caliphoney cowboys). Plains cowboys also called them, “bread-eaters,” “spur draggers,” & “two-fingered” dally welters.
Dander—Temper.
Dead—As dead as a duck drowned in a thunderstorm.
dirt farmer—A small farmer who sweats his living from the soil. Prob. the sodbusters who moved in on the cattle barons.
dog tent—A 2-man tent, we call “pup” tents today.
Doggone—An exclamation of minor vexation or of intense approval.
double in brass—To function in an additional skilled capacity; circus jargon.
Doughboy—Libby Custer claimed an army version (1867): “... small round doughnut served to sailors on shipboard... . Early in the Civil War... applied to the large globular brass buttons on the infantry uniform... .” Termed also “applied by Spaniards... to army personnel, ” i.e., dobie-boy, probably because their blue uniforms were always dusty, as if covered with adobe.
Dragoon—An early blunderbuss < dragon.
Druthers—Preference.
Dummkopf—Ger., blockhead, a stupid person.
dust (bite the dust)—To die.
Elixir—A cure-all.
emery bag, emery ball, emery strawberry—A pincushion filled w/ emery powder, for keeping pins & needles clean.
fancy Dan—A flashy dude.
field corn—Livestock food, as distinct from sweet corn.
finagle (< fainague)—To manage by trickery; sharp practice. To cheat at cards.
forty acres and a mule—Mid-XIX century, the basic farm unit.
fur: make the fur fly—To have a violent fight.
Galluses—Suspenders.
galoot (galloot)—An awkward, oafish guy; an able-bodied lout.
galvanized Yankees—Confederate soldiers who joined the Union army—ostensibly to fight Indians—to gain their release from Yankee prisons.
good grief—A minced oath; exclamation originally of regret.
gosh/gosh oh gee/gosh a-mighty—An exclamation of surprise.
go west young man—A popular XIX Century slogan.
grapevine/grapevine telegraph—The rumor circuit. [First in use in Civil War.]
great Scott!—An exclamation of surprise. [< Ger. gruess Gott] Survival of capitalized Scott may have been side-influenced by GEN Winfield Scott, as idiom was coming into general usage.
Greenhorn—An inexperienced person. Synonymous w/ tenderfoot and pilgrim.
Growler—A keg of beer equal to about 1/8 of a barrel; used somewhat before 1888.
gum blanket—A rain poncho.
gutta-percha—A SE Asian gum tree whose sap was used in making things like buttons.
Hardshell—Unswervable in one’s point of view.
harness bull—A uniformed policeman. Bull for cop was in early XIX NYC usage.
Haversack—A canvas bag carried by a single strap over the shoulder. < Ger. Habersack < Haber, oats.
hay and grass: between hay and grass—Between youth & old age.
Hayburner—A horse. Sometimes disparaging, good for nothing but to “fuel up” on hay.
hell-bent for leather (hell for leather)—[Leather for “saddle.”] Galloping at top speed & in total disregard of danger.
high-falutin(g)/hifalutin—Affected; hoity-toity.
hind tit: suck hind tit—The least desirable position.
Hogan (Hogan’s goat)—A generic Irishman, the archetype of the shabbiest XIX Am. shanty Irish. A goat that stinks unbearably.
Hoosier—A native of Indiana.
hoot: not care a hoot—Nothing; not care at all.
horn spoon—A cow horn used by quartz prospectors to shake out the dross & isolate the ore. Called horning. By the great horn spoon/ by the sacred horn spoon A mild oath.
hornswoggle (hornswaggled)—To be deceived, cheated, made a fool out of.
horsefeathers/ cowgills/ frogswings/ snakeshooves/ beesmanes—Rot, bunk.
hotfoot it—To run fast.
Husher—A man of great physical strength [mid-XIX Century Middle Border dialect]. A man who could outwork, outdance, outrun, & outfight all comers.
Injun/ honest Injun—An Indian. In XIX Century, an intensive; for asking if someone is speaking the truth.
Jack Robinson—Dating from XVIII Century. In no time at all.
jim-dandy—Fine; swell-elegant; c. 1875. Prob. compounded of earlier fine and dandy.
John—The name ordinarily used by whites when addressing an Indian.
johnnycake/ jonakin/ jonikin—A corn meal cake, originally baked on a hot stone. Something between a taco & a tamale. < journey cake or <Shawnee cake.
Johnny-come-lately—An upstart. A green recruit.
Juking—Dancing.
kangaroo court—A vigilante committee for hanging claim jumpers after a speedy “fair” trial.
keep your shirt on—“Don’t get angry.”
kit and caboodle—All of it; everything.
Lalapalooza/ lollapalooza—An outstanding person or thing.
Lariated—Tying the horses to a picket pin with a lariat.
lily: gild the lily—To elaborate pointlessly.
Locofoco—Friction matches. A cigar-type in 1834. Politics: a Democrat, through 1900.
long green—Money; a lot of money. Prob. around 1870, since first U.S. greenbacks were not printed until 1863.
Lunger—Someone w/ TB.
Madstone—An unspecified & unidentified stone believed to have the power to draw the infection from the bite of a rabid or venomous animal.
mare’s nest—Hoax; hopelessly snarled situation.
Mauvaise Terre—The badlands.
Maverick—An unbranded range animal; an unorthodox person.
Mexican stand-off—A potentially violent confrontation from which both sides back off.
Mickey/Mickey Finn—An incapacitating substance put into an alcoholic drink. Former, generic for an Irishman.
“monkey & parrot”—A quarrelsome or argumentative time. Having a tough or difficult time of it. Went out of general use, probably around 1915. [Benteen used this phrase in some of his descriptions of the difficulties on Reno Hill.]
Mosey—To amble
muck-a-muck/high muck-a-muck/muckety-muck/high muckety-muck—Mock title of dignity for a pompous person.
Mugwump—Early Mass. Chief, big man. After 1884, a political turncoat. Whenever used, it doesn’t seem to be complimentary.
nailed to the counter—Exposed as a fraud. [Common in XIX Am. journalism.]
novaculite—A dense, extremely hard, siliceous stone used for whetstones and hones.
O.K.—Approval, consent. [After Martin Van Buren, from Old Kinderhook, N.Y.]
Parfleche—Undepilated rawhide, esp. buffalo hide used for heavy robes & moccasin soles. (Indispensable to accurate historical narration.)
Pixilated—In a bewildered state; whimsically incoherent or bemused.
Puss—A pejorative term for the face, originally for the mouth.
Remuda—A herd; in this case, spare horses & mules.
ranahan/rannie—A ranch hand, a cowboy. Variant form: ranchan.
(The) Rebellion—The Civil War.
Reds—Indians
rock-ribbed—Firm; immovable.
Roustabouts—Manual laborers
Ruction—A riot, a to-do. [Early XIX, following the Irish Insurrection of 1798.]
saddle tramp—A homeless cowboy wanderer.
Salt River: up Salt River—Gone forever.
Sam Hill—A common XIX Century minced oath: Sam Hill for damned hell.
sawbuck—A packsaddle used to carry supplies on a mule or horse. Similar to an apparero.
Score—Twenty.
Scott: great Scott!—An exclamation of surprise, astonishment. Assumed to be an Am. (XIX) rendering of the greetings exchanged by German immigrants.
Sez—Phonetic spelling of says.
Shanty—Shack or hovel. shanty Irish Am. XIX derogatory term for Irish immigrants.
Shavetail—U.S. Army. A 2LT.
shindig/shindy—A boisterous social gathering; from XIX Irish immigrants.
Shinplaster—Worthless paper money; orig. Confederate money.
Shoddy—adj. trashy, worthless. During Civil War, n. used to designate an inferior woolen yarn made from fibers taken from worn-out fabrics & reprocessed (Shelby Foote), then later the name of the resultant cloth.
Simoleon—A dollar.
Skedaddle—To light out in a hurry; to break & run from battle.
sly-boots—A cunning person.
smart aleck/smart alec/smart Alec—A wise guy.
snake in the grass—A concealed enemy; a friend who betrays.
Snollygoster—A shyster; a devious & disreputable person.
sod buster—A farmer of the western plains. [Post-Civil War Am., under 140-acre allowance of Homestead Act of 1/1/63.]
soft soap—Flattery.
soup and fish—White-tie dinner clothes.
soup strainer—A moustache, especially a bushy one that hangs down over the mouth.
stakes: pull up stakes—To move on.
stink pot—Chamber pot.
Sunday: knock (someone) six ways to Sunday—To beat up thoroughly.
tinker/not worth a tinker’s dam—One who mends pots.
Tony—Swank; stylish; elegant. high-toned a cultivated elegance, good breeding, and an opulence made possible only by daddy’s dirty money.
turkey shoot—A firefight resulting in heavy enemy kill w/ negligible losses to one’s own side.
Umpteen—An indefinite large number.
Vamoose—To leave on the run.
vidette (also, vedette)—Mounted pickets (guards)
vittles—Human food.
white eye—A white person.
whole hog, to go (the)—To go all out.
winked out—Collapsed, went bankrupt, fell apart.
Wrangler—Cowboy, horse handler.
PHRASES
“You’re about half a bubble off of plumb.”
Shank’s mare
By thunder
Not by a jugful
“Somebody sit on the Bull-dozer!” & “Give that calf more rope!”—Epithets thrown at Custer (in the dark) during his hazing of the troops the first night out fighting a prairie fire.
“He went off on his own hook”—Benteen and Reno used this phrase in describing Weir’s move without permission.
Best wishes,
Fred.
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they
