Guard-house" once = "jail / gaol"?

Tue Apr 3 03:22:10 UTC 2007

OED's primary ex. of "stockade" (1865) doesn't sound very generic:

  1865 Atlantic Monthly Mar. 286/2 ‘Is it a pen?’.. ‘Yes, yours,’ retorted one of the guard, with a grin,‘the Stockade Prison.’

  The word "bullpen" was commonly used during the Civil War. See HDAS.

  Among others, Andersonville prison (officially "Camp Sumter") was notoriously a literal, roofless "stockade."  It may have been through such associations during the Civil War that "stockade" eventually became the standard term for a military prison of any kind.

  I wonder if Andersonville was in the back of the mind of the author of the much later (ca1930) "Columbus Stockade Blues." The prison site is outside of Columbus, Ga.

  JL
hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: Guard-house" once = "jail / gaol"?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As a WAG, it could be the case that there was no need to distinguish a
guardhouse from a stockade or other actual jail until after there
developed a distinction between a slick-sleeve pulling guard duty only
because his name has happened to come up on a duty roster and a
(semi-)professional military policeman trained to maintain order and
otherwise to act as a "peace officer."

Even though "guard house" used as an informal term for a military jail
in the U.S. Army may predate WWI, this use was totally obsolete in the
post-Korea "black-shoe" Army. Otherwise, I would never have wondered
how a term that didn't exist in the military had come to be so
prevalent among civilians. Nevertheless, I blush (take my word for it)
to admit that, not until I found myself for the first time in an
actual guard house, preparing for guard duty, did it occur to me that
"guard house" was not military jargon for "jail."

-Wilson

On 4/2/07, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
> Subject: Re: Guard-house" once = "jail / gaol"?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I agree with Jon that the citations do not distinguish the two
> senses. As for a prison, might it have been used in that way only
> for military personnel?
>
> In my reading of 18th c. colonial newspapers, and a little of other
> writings of the same time and place, I do not recall
> "guard-house". There is gaol, goal, and prison, and bridewell.
>
> Joel
>
> At 4/2/2007 06:02 PM, you wrote:
> >OED distinguishes the two definitions, but the block of citations
> >(from 1592) is not very helpful. Most or all look like "a building
> >for the accommodation of a (military) guard" (def. a) rather than "a
> >building in which prisoners are detained under guard" (def. b).
> >
> > The "place of confinement" sense has been/ was common - if
> > informal - in the U.S. army since before WWI at least. I recall an
> > overseas song from the immediate post-Kipling era of about 1900
> > (you young whelps) with the words
> >
> > "Now I'm in the guard-house a-waiting my discharge.
> > To hell with the sergeant and the corporal of the guard !"
> >
> > I'm less certain about usage during the Civil War, but my
> > impression is that "guard house" was more frequent then than
> > "stockade," which suggests to me something more elaborate.
> >
> > Here's an ex. ref. to the Mexican War of 1846-48:
> >
> > 1847, in J. Jacob Oswandel _Notes of the Mexican War_ (Phila.:
> > [pvtly. ptd.], 1885) 174: Sunday, May 30, 1847.- This morning a
> > non-commissioned officer was put in the
> > guard-house for passing soldiers on spurious passes.
> >
> > I believe that this sort of "guard-house" was originally just the
> > guards' quarters enlarged to include a common cell for prisoners
> > awaiting trial. This obvious set-up could easily date back to the 16th C.
> >
> > JL
> >
> >Wilson Gray wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> >Sender: American Dialect Society
> >Poster: Wilson Gray
> >Subject: Guard-house" once = "jail / gaol"?
> >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >Jon Lighter posted;
> >
> >ex., from 1814 :
> >
> >http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/facsimiles/1810s/181407060006.html
> >
> >"_A_....The other man, I saw the blow coming, I stooped my head, and
> >in stooping
> >I fell. Ashton directly collared me; he called me a b - y sod, and
> >said he would take me to the _guard-house_.
> >"_Q._ He called you a sod; did you know what he meaned by that
> >expression - _A_. I know now; I did not at that time. He said he would
> >take me to the _guard-house_."
> >
> >I've long wondered why it is that civilians often refer to the what we
> >(ex-)GI's know as the "stockade" as the "guard(-)house." Making a WAG
> >on the basis of Jon's evidence, I'd say that, once upon a time,
> >"guard(-)house" was simply another term for "jail / gaol." In the
> >current military - rather, when I was in the military a half-century
> >ago - the guard house was the building or, sometimes, just a room, in
> >which the privates of the guard were confined, for the convenience of
> >the sergeant of the guard, when they were not actively engaged in
> >guarding: "walking their posts from flank to flank and deferring to
> >anyone above their rank." The equivalent of a civilian jail or prison
> >is / was? the stockade.
> >
> >-Wilson
> >--
> >All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> >come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> >-----
> >-Sam'l Clemens
> >
> >Dope wil get you through times of no money better than money will get
> >you through times of no dope.
> >-----
> >-Free-Wheeling Franklin
> >
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

Dope wil get you through times of no money better than money will get
you through times of no dope.
-----
-Free-Wheeling Franklin

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