Trivia 8-30-16 Gross!

[Trivia Master]

Who did both Northern and Southern soldiers call the "graybacks"?

credit: @Stony

 

[Copperhead-mi]

Lice.

 

[Chattahooch33]

Lice

 

[ErnieMac]

Body lice.

 

[1stMN]

Ewwww!

Answer: Lice

Source: http://home.freeuk.com/gazkhan/lice.htm

 

[Reb]

Grey Backs - lice, aka Bragg's bodyguards

 

[hughes]

paper money of the CSA

Edit - See edit to post # 42.

Hoosier

 

[truthckr]

"Graybacks": A slang term for lice, or occasionally an offensive "Yankee" slang term for Confederate soldiers

lice

 

[kholland]

body lice

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Lice.

And now I feel itchy.

 

[Brenal]

Lice.

Now lay me down to sleep,
While grey-backs o'er my body creep,
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord their jaws to break.


http://civilwartalk.com/threads/a-question-about-lice.

 

[Stony]

Credit for question.

 

[MajGenl.Meade]

I think that's a lousy question but then again, it's Lice of you to ask.

This website is the most precious one could imagine, though I'm sure it barely scratches the surface:
http://home.freeuk.com/gazkhan/lice.htm

Pubic louse

The statistics of those who died during the Civil War, not from injury but from disease are unbelievable. About 250,000 Union troops died of disease and about 194,000 Confederate. Despite this only about 2,500 Union troops caught typhus, about a thousand of whom died; figures for Confederate casualties while unknown are assumed to be similar.


Among the troops humorous names were given to what must have been something that was a most unpleasant aspects of their lives: Bragg's body guards; cooties; crums; grey backs; pants rabbits; seam squirrels; Tennessee travellers; blue bellies; rebels; tigers; Zouaves; vermin and big fat fellows.


There were other lice-related terms entered the military vocabulary i.e."skirmishing or fighting under the black flag" referred to the practice of lice picking. Discarding infested clothing was called "paroling the lice or giving the vermin a parole". Another was to turn the garment inside out this was "executing a flanking movement."

 

[Frums]

Confederate paper money was called the Greybacks compared to US paper money being Greenbacks.

Edit - See edit to post # 42.

Hoosier

 

[MRB1863]

"Graybacks" was the common name for Pediculus humanus corporis and Pediculus vestimenti--body lice. Per Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary

 

[SD_CivilWarTvlr]

This was the common name given by the soldiers for body lice

 

[Legion Para]

 

[Wallyfish]

Answer is lice.

Source. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~poindexterfamily/CivilWar.html

 

[UCVRelics]

LICE

 

[Northern Light]

Body Lice, and yes, very gross!