1862 cartoon depicting southerners loyal to the Union, men who would later be labeled as “scallywags,” being drafted into the Confederate army
26 June 2026
A scallywag is a disreputable person. The term is often associated with the post-Civil War South, where it was applied to white southerners who supported the Reconstruction policies of the Republican party, but the term is at least a generation older. It appears in a wide variety of spellings.
Like many slang terms, the origin is unknown. There are, however, a couple of plausible possibilities, albeit ones that lack strong evidence. One is that it is from the Scots scurryvaig (vagabond, lout), attested in Scotland as early as 1804, and which in turn could be from the Latin scurra vagas (wandering buffoon). The second is also from Scots, scallag (farm laborer) This one came into Scots from the Gaelic sgalag, which is attested in the earlier form scoloc from the early thirteenth century.
Researcher Nathaniel Sharpe has discovered a cluster of early uses of the American scallywag in western New York of the 1830s. The earliest is from the Ithaca Chronicle of 11 April 1832:
Cambria, Royalton, Lewiston, Newfane, and Porter, are antimasonic.—Hartland, Wilson and Lockport, masonic, the latter by an average majority of 4 votes, under the designation of the scalliwag ticket, in support of which the Jackson and Clay men with some disaffected antimasons, united.
I have not been able to independently verify this one, but there is no reason to doubt its validity.
Scallywag can be found outside western New York a few years later. From Vermont’s Burlington Sentinel of 5 April 1838:
The readers of the Vermonter, would undoubtedly infer from this, that the democrats of Vergennes were a pack of “scalliwags,” fit to be numbered with swine, but not the right sort of characters to consort with gentlemen of property and standing.
A month later, there is this story of dissension in a church congregation in the Daily Buffalonian of 14 May 1838:
This church is divided into two factions, the Cole party and the opposition. Mr. Cole’s party say he is a saint, the others content that he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Bettis, Bond, Moony, Chester & Co. are the leaders of the opposition.
While the sexton was busily engaged in sweeping the house, and dusting the seats, meditating on heaven and divine things, these scalawags, as Mr. Cole calls them, came and knocked, saying, “open unto us.” The sexton kept about his business. They went to banging away at the door, and he dropped the broom and seized his musket. They broke through and demanded the keys; he told them if they attempted to touch him he would blow them through. More valorous than Tigers, they rushed upon him, threw him down, took away the keys, kicked him out doors, locked them up, and went home swearing Mr. Cole should not preach there another Sunday.
And this from New York’s Mayville Sentinel of 28 September 1843:
This is probably the same “hopeful” who imposed upon us by getting us to print a quantity of handbills—and the same who stayed a couple of days with neighbor Gifford, of the Temperance House, and then “sloped” without paying his bill. He was a middling sized, slim built scalawag, with black eyes, and was dressed in a suit of black bombazine, and had holes in his socks. Printers will doubtless do the community a service by publishing this swindler.
Sources:
Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, 2000, s.v. scallag, n. Dictionaries of the Scots Language | Dictionars o the Scots Leid.
“From the Middlebury Argus: Vergennes Charter Election.” Burlington Sentinel (Vermont), 5 April 1838, 3/2. Newspapers.com.
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, accessed 2 June 2026, s.v. scallywag, n.
Mayville Sentinel (New York), 28 September 1843, 2/1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary Online, 1910, s.v. scallywag, n.
“Scenes at the Stone Chapel.” Daily Buffalonian (New York), 14 May 1838, 2/1. Newspapers.com.
Scottish National Dictionary, 1971, s.v. scurryvaig, n. Dictionaries of the Scots Language | Dictionars o the Scots Leid.
Sharpe, Nathaniel. “That Damned Elusive Skallewagg.” ADS-L, 7 January 2013.
Zimmer, Ben. “The Original Scalawag.” Boston Globe (Massachusetts), 10 March 2013. ProQuest Newspapers.
Image credit: Currier & Ives, 1862. Wikimedia Commons. Library of Congress. Public domain image.
