Heaven in a Hand Basket (1863)

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Oh, all right.


(AMERICAN CIVIL WAR: LETTERS AND DIARIES)

Chesnut, Mary Boykin Miller, 1823-1886. "Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut, July, 1863"
[Page 224 | Paragraph | Section | Document]
nothing; they are large enough and do not pinch anywhere. I have absolutely a respectable pair of shoes!! Uncle William says the men who went into the war to save their negroes are abjectly wretched. Neither side now cares a fig for these beloved negroes, and would send them all to heaven in a hand-basket, as Custis Lee says, to win in the fight. General Lee and Mr. Davis want the negroes put into the army. Mr. Chesnut and Major Venable discussed the subject one night, but would they fight on our side or desert to the enemy? They don't go to the enemy, because they are comfortable


Fred Shapiro writes:

I have previously pointed to a 1926 citation in Whiting, Modern Proverbs
and Proverbial Phrases, as the earliest known usage of "going to hell in a
handbasket" (DARE has a first use in the 1940s, I believe).

Ben Zimmer has posted an earlier citation on alt.usage.english, from a
Making of America search:

Author: Ayer, I. Winslow.
Title: The great north-western conspiracy in all its
startling details.
Publication date: 1865.

He referred to the suspension of the habeas corpus,
and said many of our best men were at that moment
"rotting in Lincoln's bastiles;" that it was our
duty to wage a war against them, and open their
doors; that when the Democrats got into power they
would impeach and probably hang him, and all who
were thus incarcerated should be set at liberty;
that thousands of our best men were prisoners in
Camp Douglas, and if once at liberty would "send
abolitionists to hell in a hand basket;" he said
the meanest of those prisoners was purity itself
compared to "Lincoln's hirelings."

Zimmer also posts a ProQuest-derived citation for "heaven in a handbasket"
much earlier than the previous earliest one known:

Which Will Garfield Do?
Washington Post, Nov 16, 1880. p. 2
He feels that but for the almost superhuman efforts
the Stalwarts, like Grant, Conkling, Cameron and Logan,
made after the disaster in Maine, he would have had no
more chance of election than of going to heaven in a
hand-basket, and he will not quarrel with them.

Fred Shapiro