OT: War of 1812

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu May 27 19:43:46 UTC 2010


At 3:37 PM -0400 5/27/10, Laurence Horn wrote:
>At 3:13 PM -0400 5/27/10, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>I think that I was in the '50's, before I even knew that the U.S. had
>>tried to invade Canada. I knew that there had been some battle on the
>>Great Lakes that gave birth to some saying that I can't recall, at the
>>moment.
>
>I was thinking either "Don't fire till you see the whites of their
>eyes" or "I have not yet begun to fight", but maybe those were both
>from the Revolutionary War.  "In 1814 we took a little trip, along
>with Col. Jackson down the mighty Mississip?"  No, that was actually
>after the war was over, and it's not exactly a saying.  "Damn the
>torpedoes, full speed ahead"?

No, I see on checking that that was a Civil War quote (from
Farragut), and about the Battle of Mobile Bay, not in the Great
Lakes.  I did find two *about* the War of 1812, although likely not
the one Wilson was trying to dredge up:

Very little is known about the War of 1812 because the Americans lost it.
--Eric Nicol

The only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky.
--Solomon Short

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