Samuel
Wilson, though known as jolly, genial and generous, wasn’t called Uncle
Sam only because he was a friendly avuncular sort of man. The man some say
was the original Uncle Sam happened to be the nephew of army contractor
Elbert Anderson, who owned a store or slaughterhouse on the Hudson River
in Troy, New York, and had a contract to supply the army with salt pork
and beef during the war of 1812. Uncle Sam, a former bricklayer, and his
Uncle Ebenezer worked as army inspectors and had occasion to inspect the
meat Elbert Anderson packed in barrels with the initials E.A. – U.S.
stamped on them. According to a popular version of the story, one soldier
asked another what the initials U.S. (United States) meant and his
companion jokingly replied that they stood for Elbert Anderson’s Uncle
Sam. Some respected scholars dispute the story, but no better explanation
has been offered for how Uncle Sam became associated with the army and
eventually replaced the earlier Brother Jonathan as a symbol of the United
States government. In any case, there was a real Uncle Sam. Samuel Wilson
was born in Menotomy (now Arlington), Mass., in 1766 and died at the ripe
old age of eighty-eight in Troy, where he lies buried in the Oakwood
Cemetery next to his wife Betsy. The preceding account of the origin of
Uncle Sam was widely accepted during Wilson’s lifetime, the major
objections coming from historian Albert Matthews, who claimed that the
name evolved from the initials U.S. stamped on government property, the
Uncle Sam possible being the official who saw to it that the markings were
made. The term’s first recorded use was in the Troy Post of September 7,
1813, which would speak well for the Sam Wilson theory except that the
story says the words derive from the initials on government wagons.
Regardless of its origin, the term caught on quickly and lasted. Uncle Sam
first appeared in cartoons in 1830, but he was clean shaven and wore a
robe rather than trousers until Lincoln’s day, when he acquired his goatee
and his present attire. His costume was based on that pictured in cartoons
of the comic Yankee character Major Jack Downing created by humorist Seba
Smith, the first American homespun philosopher. Today Uncle Sam is best
known by the ubiquitous “I Want You” posters the armed forces have used
for recruiting purposes. Several years back, Walter Botts, the model who
had posed for these posters, was declared ineligible for a veteran’s
pension – by Uncle Sam.