Webfoot

[raggedrebel]

Webfoot

Slang term for an infantryman.

 

[donna]

According to "The Language of the Civil War" by John D. QWright page 321:

webfoot

1. A nickname for a sailor. When praising his army in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln added, "Nor must Uncle Sam's web-feet be forgotten.

2. A jocular nickname for a common infantryman, often hurled by a cavalryman.

 

[diane]

Oregon is the Webfoot State and the citizens are Webfoots, because of the rain. Oregonians don't tan - they rust! It goes back to around 1862. Legend has it that a visitor staying with a family on the Long Tom, a tributary of the Willamette River, was so disgusted with the soggy weather that he remarked all Oregon children should be equipped with webbed feet like a duck. "We have already thought of that," said the lady of the house and produced her baby - who had webbed toes!

And it hatched out a sports team - the Oregon Ducks...and some, ahem, rhyming war cries from their opponents the Oregon Beavers.

 

[gary]

How did the term webfoot get to be applied to the infantryman? Was it all because of Lincoln?