[Ads-l] Early use of "civil war" to refer to the American one

[Mark Mandel]

And foresightful.

Mark

On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 9:19 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> I don't know where this belongs, if anywhere.  It must be a very
> early use of "civil war" to refer to the American one, being just 11
> days after the firing on Fort Sumter.
>
> It's not quite "American Civil War", for which it would antedate the
> OED3's 1861 Times 3 May (under "American").
>
> For "civil war" (under "civil, adj., n., and adv."), the earliest
> quotation referring to the American one is 1941, suggesting that the
> OED3 was not at all interested in early instances.
> -----
>
> "Friday of last week will hereafter be set down as a dark day in our
> history---as the day in which the Civil War was begun.  It was the
> 12th of April ...".
>
> Vermont Chronicle, (Bellows Falls, VT) Tuesday, April 23, 1861; pg.
> 66; Issue 17; col E. [Citing the N. Y. Evangelist.]
>
> Joel
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org