Elderstalk squirts?

Question

"What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is? Or, would you prosecute it in future, with elderstalk squirts, charged with rose water?"
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), U.S. president. Letter to Cuthbert Bullitt, July 28, 1862
Now what do suppose is an elderstalk squirt?
A 19th century Aqua Blaster?

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]"What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is? Or, would you prosecute it ... Letter to Cuthbert Bullitt, July 28, 1862 Now what do suppose is an elderstalk squirt? A 19th century Aqua Blaster?[/nq]
Avoiding surmise as much as possible, I'll limit myself to suggesting a look at this:

and this:
THE SQUIRTGUN UNCLE MAKED ME
(by James Whitcomb Riley; first stanza only)
Uncle Sidney, when he wuz here,
Maked me a squirtgun out o' some
Elder-bushes 'at growed out near
Where wuz the brickyard 'way out clear
To where the toll-gate come!

I guess Lincoln added the rose water to further dilute the implied force (or lack thereof) of his image.

Bob Lieblich
Res ipsa loquitur

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]"What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is? Or, would you prosecute it ... Letter to Cuthbert Bullitt, July 28, 1862 Now what do suppose is an elderstalk squirt? A 19th century Aqua Blaster?[/nq]
A shoot from an Elder filled with water, at a guess. OED knows 'elder-stick' but,
perhaps more significantly, it knows 'elder-gun, a pop-gun made of a hollow shoot of elder'. Perhaps a well-known device from Mr Lincoln's youth where store-bought toys were rare.
So, yes, a 19th Century Aqua Blaster. Presumably Mr Bullitt had expressed some reservations about the casualties of the War to that date, having recently seen the butcher's bill for Jackson's Valley Campaign and the Seven Days.

John Dean
Oxford

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]"What would you do in my position? Would you drop ... suppose is an elderstalk squirt? A 19th century Aqua Blaster?[/nq]
[nq:1]A shoot from an Elder filled with water, at a guess. OED knows 'elder-stick' but, perhaps more significantly, it knows ... of the War to that date, having recently seen the butcher's bill for Jackson's Valley Campaign and the Seven Days.[/nq]
The Dictonary of American English (1938) let me down by not having anything about elder squirts or guns. The closest I could find is that it shows that the stalk of the elder plant made a useful tube:

elder quill. A spile (spout) made of elder wood. - 1881 Harper Mag.: Formerly when the Maples were tapped with an auger, an 'elder quill' was inserted in the incision to conduct the sap into the trough below; that is, a small piece of elder wood about three inches long with the pith bored out of it, which formed a tube.

The 1913 Webster's has, for one meaning of "squirt" as a noun:
1. An instrument out of which a liquid is ejected ina small stream with force.
You don't see that use of "charged" very much these days, either. The
1913 Webster's has it as:
9. To ornament with or cause to bear; as, to chargean architectural member with a molding.
Adding rose water to something would, naturally, be an attempt to perfume it, to make it more pleasant.

Best Donna Richoux

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]"What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is? Or, would you prosecute it ... Letter to Cuthbert Bullitt, July 28, 1862 Now what do suppose is an elderstalk squirt? A 19th century Aqua Blaster?[/nq]
You may not be off by much. A "squirt" is an old term for a device that projects a jet of water (such as a soda syphon). Lincoln, having grown up in the backwoods, would surely have played with squirts made from hollow elder stalks. Thus an "elderstalk squirt, charged with rose water" would be the most innocuous of weapons, more capable of perfuming its target than damaging it.
The context of this letter is the military occupation of Louisiana. There were many lukewarm Unionists in Louisiana who opposed secession and the war and feared various consequences of the occupation, including the blockade and loss of their slaves.
Lincoln is saying that that the requests of Bullitt and Thomas Durant to spare the property of local Unionists who earlier made no effort to stand up for the Union were as preposterous as fighting a war with squirt guns.
The entire letter can be found at the Abraham Lincoln archives of the Library of Congress,
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mal:@field(DOCID+@lit(d1728600))

Chris Green

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]You don't see that use of "charged" very much these days, either. The 1913 Webster's has it as: 9. To ... a molding. Adding rose water to something would, naturally, be an attempt to perfume it, to make it more pleasant.[/nq]
To me it sounds more like this sense of "charge", from the same source: "8. To place within or upon any firearm, piece of apparatus or machinery, the quantity it is intended and fitted to hold or bear; to load; to fill; as, to charge a gun; to charge an electrical machine, etc. 'Their battering cannon charged to the mouths.' Shak."

It's probably most often used with respect to the charging of a battery.

Ray Heindl
(remove the Xs to reply to: (Email Removed))

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]"What would you do in my position? Would you drop ... suppose is an elderstalk squirt? A 19th century Aqua Blaster?[/nq]
[nq:1]Avoiding surmise as much as possible, I'll limit myself to suggesting a look at this: and this: THE SQUIRTGUN ... I guess Lincoln added the rose water to further dilute the implied force (or lack thereof) of his image.[/nq]
See also this page, from The American Boy's Handy Book by Daniel Carter Beard (1890), complete with line drawings of elder guns:

http://www.inquiry.net/outdoor/autumn/guns/elder guns.htm

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]"What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is? Or, would you prosecute it in future, with elderstalk squirts, charged with rose water?" Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), U.S. president. Letter to Cuthbert Bullitt, July 28, 1862[/nq]
Speaking of Honest Abe, I recently read across a contemporary making fun of his "pinchbeck britches and cowbelly shoes". I thought pinchbeck was dialect for "pinchback", but when I looked it up, I discovered there was a Christopher Pinchbeck, who was infamous for making cheap watches.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Speaking of Honest Abe, I recently read across a contemporary making fun of his "pinchbeck britches and cowbelly shoes". I ... but when I looked it up, I discovered there was a Christopher Pinchbeck, who was infamous for making cheap watches.[/nq]
Pinchbeck is a cheap alloy that looks like gold. An odd material for britches.
David

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Speaking of Honest Abe, I recently read across a contemporary ... a Christopher Pinchbeck, who was infamous for making cheap watches.[/nq]
[nq:1]Pinchbeck is a cheap alloy that looks like gold. An odd material for britches.[/nq]
Nonetheless, "pinchback" or "pinchback" seems to be some obscure US slang for some kind of clothing. There's a line in "The Music Man" about "a pinchback suit." Michael Quinion recently discussed "pinchbeck" in his column "World Wide Words," but he couldn't account for the US use, even though he said several people wrote him about it.

Here's his article:
http://www.quinion.com/words/weirdwords/ww-pin1.htm

I don't understand why there's a problem he says it went on to mean, in the 19th century, "inferior goods," "something that was of poor quality or a cheap imitation." That's what the US meaning appears to be.

Best Donna Richoux

Elderstalk squirts?

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