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In 19th-century America, bully was loosely associated with New York’s Bowery-a neighborhood infamous for its rough-and-tumble saloons, bawdy concert halls, and countless brothels. Indeed, both bully and bully-rook were used as terms of endearment between male friends in William Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. In a postwar illustration, a group of bully boys stands on a street corner in New York City. A HISTORY OF THE NEW YORK FIRE DEPARTMENTS (1887)
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The word is found similarly used in the dramatists of the Elizabethan period, and those of the Restoration.” OUR FIREMEN. Shanly’s poem later appeared in an 1866 anthology, which concisely defined bully for its readers: “he use of ‘bully,’ as an expression of encouragement and approval among our roughs and Bowery boys. “HA!,” he thought, “Bully for me again, when my turn for picket is over / And now for a smoke, as I lie, with the moonlight in the clover.” Although “but a rough at best,” the boy’s thoughts drifted homeward to the city’s Bowery neighborhood as the pipe smoke wafted upward and dissipated into the night air. In “The Brier-Wood Pipe,” a young soldier stood watch near camp. It was a hard life, only infrequently punctuated with small pleasures and moments of respite.įrom his desk in New York City, the Irish-born poet Charles Dawson Shanly captured this sentiment. Soldiering, as the boys soon learned, was far from a bully time. The song’s opening stanza concludes with a catchy, commendatory phrase: “Bully boys, hey! Bully boys, ho!” It probably encouraged more than one southern youth to pick up a gun and go “join the cavalry!” McClellan’s Army of the Potomac and raid on Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in 1862. Stuart’s Confederate troops, this song immortalized the daring ride around George B. “If you want to have a good time, join the cavalry!” Detailing the early war exploits of J.E.B.