Company J

[blue_zouave]

This item was in my reenacting group's newsletter this month:

By 1630 the letter J was generally separated from I in English, but Latin, which has no J, was still making its mark in scholarly endeavors. As late as 1818, J was treated by dictionaries as an I consonant, the Oxford English Dictionary listing the word "jay" under the letter I, along with "insult" and "injury."

And so, for 18th Century lawyers, there was no exhibit J. For the 19th Century US Army, there was no J company, and for Washington D.C., there is no J Street.

Source - Robert Arnebeck, Washington Post Sunday Magazine, September 7, 1986.

[rallyround]

Huh...that's pretty interesting. I had heard some other talk about why there was no J company, but it made no sense!

[connyankee]

But Zou, there exists official records, regimental and national, that folks enlisted on both sides in a Company "J". I know that I'm confused. I would bet that they were too

Regards,
CY

[blue_zouave]

Connyankee, betcha that they enlisted in the volunteers and not the regulars!

Do those official records have the soldiers staying in Co. J, or do they get put in another company pretty soon?

The Co. J post was an addition to a discussion we had a few weeks ago, but I couldn't find the thread until after I posted the new message, of course. I think the original thread was called Stumper Question.

NOT a member of Co. J,
Zou
IRONHEADS!

[rivrrat]

This was so interesting that I looked at my GG Uncle Warren's Regiment 35th Ill. Vol. Inf. which was enrolled 7/3/1861 and accepted into Federal service 8/28/1861. Sure enough enrolled 10 companies A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I and K no J.

[unionblue]

I was also informed that the letter 'j' and 'i' looked so much alike that it tended to cause confusion so 'j' was dropped from military formations to avoid it. The confusion, I mean.

Unionblue

[gary]

Ditto Neil Hamilton's post.