"from a hole in the ground" antedating

[Jonathan Lighter]

Speaking of Civil War-era locutions, here's a colorful and significant antedating. If I remember correctly, this too is from a court-martial record (but it may have been a letter or personal journal):

  1866 in Andrew E. Masich _The Civil War in Arizona_ (Norman: U. of Okla. Press, 2006) 101: So drunk that he did not know his ass from a hole in the ground.

  JL

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