Military Slang of the Revolutionary War Era

Military Slang of the Revolutionary War Era

Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation collection.

There is nothing new about military slang. Soldiers, like other groups of people who have interests and associations that are not shared by society as a whole, develop their own special terminology. Here are some examples of American and British military slang that date to the period of the American Revolution.

“Yankee Peas” (British army term) – Buckshot. American troops, particularly militia, sometimes loaded their muskets with a few buckshot as well as a standard musket ball to inflict more casualties at close range.

“Grab” (British army term) – To loot a civilian house while the homeowner was still in residence.

“Lob” (British army term) – To loot a civilian house after the homeowner had fled.

“Georgia Parole” (American militia term) – To shoot an enemy soldier rather than take him prisoner. In the South much of the fighting took place between rival Patriot and Loyalist militias. Sometimes this conflict became very bitter and personal, with little attempt being made to take enemy prisoners.

“Crackers” (a term used by both British and Americans) – Poor frontiersmen in the southern colonies who served as irregular militia. British Army Colonel Archibald Campbell described Crackers this way: “irregulars from the upper country under the denomination of crackers, a race of men whose motions were too voluntary to be under restraint and whose scouting disposition (was) in quest of pillage.”