"If I owned Texas and Hell..." (1866)

[Jonathan Lighter]

That was a pretty strong statement for an American public figure in 1866, even for non-Texans.  Nearly fifty years later, Confederate General Basil Duke included this passage in his Reminiscences (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1911), p. 294:

  "A battle incident was thus preserved [in a soldier's song]:

  "'The Fourteenth Louisiana,
  They charged 'em with a yell,
  They bagged them "Bucktail Rangers,"
  --------- --------- --------- ---------- ---------- '

  "The profanity of the last line, if reproduced, would shock every well-regulated mind, and all feeling of admiration for the bravery of the Fourteenth Louisiana would be lost in one of compassion for the dreadful fate of the 'Bucktail Rangers.' "

  Presumably, the Louisianans did not "send them all to Texas."

  JL

Sam Clements <SClements at NEO.RR.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Sam Clements
Subject: Re: "If I owned Texas and Hell..." (1866)
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Indeed, there is an 1866 cite in N'Archive saying Sheridan said "If I owned
hell and Texas, I would rent Texas and live at the other place."

Sam Clements

----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2006 4:30 PM
Subject: "If I owned Texas and Hell..." (1866)


INewspaperAchive is still not working for me to check this)
...
...
...
_http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/texas/entry/if_i_owned_texas_and_hell_i_w
ould_rent_texas_and_live_in_hell_philip_sherid/_
(http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/texas/entry/if_i_owned_texas_and_hell_i_would_rent_texas_and_live_in_h
ell_philip_sherid/)

"If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent Texas and live in Hell” is a famous
statement of U.S. General Philip Henry Sheridan in 1866.

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