Best Unit Nicknames

[Pollaco]

Arkansas congressman Augustus Garland's brother Rufus raised a Infantry company known as the "Hempstead Hornets''.

 

[lelliott19]

Recognizing that this is a resurrected 2017 thread…

I think it was an intended compliment to the 1st Vermont Cavalry for the Michigan brigade to refer to them as the "8th Michigan."

"Third Texas" aka 18th Georgia
Along the same lines, most people probably don't know this --- or care. In 1862, the 18th Georgia was part of Hood's Texas brigade and William Tatum Wofford was their Colonel. The other regiments of Hood's brigade were Texans - 1st, 4th, and 5th Texas plus Hampton's South Carolina Legion. Anyway, General Hood and the Texans were quite fond of the 18th Georgia and called them the "3rd Texas." Just prior to Fredericksburg, the 18th GA was transferred into Cobb's brigade and Wm T Wofford was promoted to command of Cobb's old brigade. So the nickname "3rd Texas" was likely dropped - except when Hood's Texans ran into their buddies from the 18th Georgia.

The Savannah Republican. (Savannah, Ga.), September 26, 1862, page 1.

 

[CavRTO]

Guess what:

The best evidence, however, suggests that "Hoosier" was a term of contempt and opprobrium common in the upland South and used to denote a rustic, a bumpkin, a countryman, a roughneck, a hick or an awkward, uncouth or unskilled fellow. Although the word's derogatory meaning has faded, it can still be heard in its original sense, albeit less frequently than its cousins "Cracker" and "Redneck."

From the South "Hoosier" moved north and westward with the people into the Ohio Valley, where it was applied at first to the presumably unsophisticated inhabitants of Southern Indiana. Later it expanded to include all residents of the state and gradually lost its original, potent connotation of coarseness in manners, appearance and intellect.

As for the word itself, it may derive from the Saxon word "hoo" meaning promontory or cliff or ridge or rise or hill. Jacob Piatt Dunn, a diligent scholar of the word, believes a Saxon beginning, and such a meaning survives in various place names in England. There is some sense in the notion, too, that those who applied the insult and those to whom it was applied (and who understood it) came primarily from British stock.

www.indiana.edu/~librcsd/internet/extra/hoosier.html

Guess what:

The best evidence, however, suggests that "Hoosier" was a term of contempt and opprobrium common in the upland South and used to denote a rustic, a bumpkin, a countryman, a roughneck, a hick or an awkward, uncouth or unskilled fellow. Although the word's derogatory meaning has faded, it can still be heard in its original sense, albeit less frequently than its cousins "Cracker" and "Redneck."

From the South "Hoosier" moved north and westward with the people into the Ohio Valley, where it was applied at first to the presumably unsophisticated inhabitants of Southern Indiana. Later it expanded to include all residents of the state and gradually lost its original, potent connotation of coarseness in manners, appearance and intellect.

As for the word itself, it may derive from the Saxon word "hoo" meaning promontory or cliff or ridge or rise or hill. Jacob Piatt Dunn, a diligent scholar of the word, believes a Saxon beginning, and such a meaning survives in various place names in England. There is some sense in the notion, too, that those who applied the insult and those to whom it was applied (and who understood it) came primarily from British stock.

www.indiana.edu/~librcsd/internet/extra/hoosier.html

My thought is that it applied to anyone born out of wedlock as in Hoosier Daddy.