Andrew Johnson: "Guilty of Treeson"

[elektratig]

Via Fark, a news article reporting on the discovery of Civil War-era graffiti at Andrew Johnson's house.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...war_graffiti_1

[hoosier]

Very interesting story.

Poor Andy couldn't get a break. He was hated by both sides.

[rin1]

...treeson?

[hoosier]

That's just a phonetic spelling. I've read my own great-grandfather's diary from his Civil War days, and he did the same sort of thing many times.

When they were raising soldiers for the Civil War, they were a lot more interested in how well the recruits could shoot than how well they could spell.

[gary]

Hoosier is rite and some soldiers were quite eloquent while others had only a 6th grade education. When you read original letters, journals or memoirs (or modern transcriptions of them) you'll come across many spelling & grammatical errors. My favorite is Pvt. McJudkin's memoirs published as The Bloody 85th.

By the way, the English aristocracy did the same thing during the Revolution. They didn't have Webster's or Spell Checker like we due.