While working on research about John Pelham for the new book Glorious Courage, there were lots of questions. Certainly some big questions, but sometimes little nagging details. Like the word “spoon” or “spoony.” If I was going to try to decipher any of Pelham’s romances or supposed romances, I had to understand his language. Most of the clues are pretty straightforward, but these words—while it’s easy to guess the jist—were a little more complex to get the specifics.
So…I invite you to be unserious and a little silly for a moment and to join me on the journey to decipher some West Point and 19th century slang and put it in context.
During the Civil War, Pelham commanded the Stuart Horse Artillery from 1861 until his death in 1863, using mobile firepower tactics on numerous battlefields and winning recognition for his artillery skill. He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point from 1856 until 1861, nearly completing the five-year course before deciding to resign and return to seceded Alabama. Many of Pelham’s letters have been lost, but some of his writings from West Point to his family remain.
John Pelham
Throughout Pelham’s life, memory, and historiography, it has been popular to make him a romantic figure. While primary sources leave large gaps and plenty of mystery for discovering who John Pelham loved and if he was serious about any romantic relationships, there’s certainly the question of the being “spoony” in his West Point letters. It doesn’t take fictional speculations to wonder…what did he mean?
So let’s investigate…
Exhibit A: 1858 Letter
John Pelham wrote this in a letter to his brother in September 1858, just after returning from a summer West Point furlough and probably doing some flirting at home in Alabama:
“Remember the best weapon for conquering women is flattery. Don’t talk to them about History or Grammar, nor the Philosophy of Socrates or Zeno, but talk to them about the Moon, spoons, the Starry Heavens, and moonlight walks. . . .”[i] (emphasis added)
I’m a woman, and I wouldn’t classify literal spoons as a very romantic thing to talk about. Does he literally mean spoons like one eats with? Or is it slang for something else? Is it that cuddling, intimate position of holding someone?
Hmm…it might be easy to brush aside, but then another variation appears in another letter written a few years later.
Exhibit B: 1860 Letter
John Pelham wrote this in a letter to his mother in January 1860 while at West Point:
“I passed a very pleasant time last Saturday afternoon. I mention it because it is such an uncommon thing for me to call on ladies—in fact it is the first time I have done so since I left camp. I felt very awkward, particularly when I started—for about twenty Cadets commenced hollowing ‘Look here fellows Pelham has turn lady’s man—he is going to make calls—John is getting spoony—he is going to the Hotel’ etc., etc. directly another crowd took it up and then another & another, until there was at least 100 or 150 hollowing at me. They never hollowed at anybody else, they think as a matter of course everybody but myself can go—in fact there were three other Cadets going to call on ladies at the hotel with me, but no one said anything to them,—they thought they had a right to go. And didn’t I have a right? Yes, an imperative duty—for a very particular friend from Newburg had been on the Point almost a week and I had not called on her.”[ii] (emphasis added)
So, there’s something about spoons or being spoony that was considered romantic. But how much romance are we talking about here? PG, PG-13, R rated?
Exhibit C: 1828 Webster’s Diction
Spoon
A small domestic utensil, with a bowl or concave part and a handle, for dipping liquids; as a tea spoon; a table spoon
An instrument consisting of a bowl or hollow iron and a long handle, used for taking earth out of holes dug for setting posts.[iii]
Okay, boring and not particularly helpful. But this did rule out a proper definition for something romantic that had longstanding in American vocabulary. So, this is something slang and something in a romantic context.
Exhibit D: The Hotel at West Point
Maybe it would give more context clues to learn about the hotel. The fact that Pelham was writing to his mother and describing a mannerly, social visit is pretty good proof he wasn’t going somewhere too seedy. But let’s try to confirm.
Morris Schaff graduated from West Point in the Class of 1862, and some of his early cadet years overlapped with the end of Pelham’s years. Schaff later wrote about his memories of West Point and included this description of the hotel:
“The hotel, a stone and brick structure, stands within a ragged hedge on the north side of the Point, and on the very brink of its bluff. It was built by the government, and was intended primarily for the accomodation of distinguished foreign guests and for the members of the board of visitors appointed yearly by the President to attend the annual examinations in June, and to report to Congress on the state of discipline and course of instruction. At this time and through the summer months it has a large patronage of cultivated and light-hearted people from all over the country. The views from its broad, elevated porch are beautiful in all directions; and that to the north, with the river breaking between Crow Nest and Storm King, the eye traveling on over Newburgh eleven miles away to the distant Shawangunk Mountains, is matchless.”[iv]
Exhibit E: Henry O. Flipper’s West Point Slang List
There is a list of 19th century West Point cadet slang words and phrases in Henry O. Flipper’s autobiography, The Colored Cadet at West Point. Flipper became the first African American cadet to graduate, taking his place in the ranks of the Class of 1877. Though he was at the military academy more than a decade after Pelham, a couple of definitions help to clear up Pelham’s writing:
“One scarcely appreciates cadet life — if such appreciation is possible — till he becomes a yearling. It is not till in yearling camp that a cadet begins to “spoon.” Not till then is he permitted to attend the hops [dances], and of course he has but little opportunity to cultivate female society, nor is he expected to do so till then….”[vi]
Well, those definitions fit and are close enough to Pelham’s West Point years to probably be still accurate to the late 1850s. I think we can draw a conclusion, but here’s some more to consider.
Exhibit F: Secondary Source
I went down some real rabbit trails with Pelham research these last few years because I wanted to get context right. There’s a lot about Pelham that can be put through a mid-20th century lens or a 21st century interpretation, and the conclusions may be different than what was meant in written or social context of the 1860s. (Example: Just because someone likes to dance doesn’t mean every dance was romantic in the 1860s. I’ll spare you my working theory on Gone With Wind and Old Hollywood transforming our modern ideas of historical dances and manners.) So, I ended up reading some books on historic courtships and romance. Yeah, the ones with lists of citations…not so much bodice ripping.
In Ellen K. Rothman’s Hands and Hearts: A History of Courtship in America, the word spoon or spooning comes up a few times. For example:
In 1885, a young man who was courting “entered in his line-a-day diary: ‘Talks on relations’ followed by a small drawing of two spoons crossed. Two days later, he noted, ‘Swore off—confessions—solemn lectures.’”[vii]
“Alfred Kinsey recognized that older generations [pre-1900] had engaged in ‘flirting, flirtage, courting, bundling, spooning, mugging, smooching, larking, sparking, and other activities which were simply petting under another name.’”[viii]
From Mort Kunstler’s painting “Moonlight and Magnolias” – this is spooning?
“Spooning was a more old-fashioned term for kissing than petting, which included all forms of erotic behavior short of intercourse.”[ix]
Well, okay, I think we get the idea. But before you go writing Pelham as a bodice-ripping gallant, let’s notice something. In Pelham’s letter to his mother, there might be an annoyance in his tone. Note these sentences:
They never hollowed at anybody else, they think as a matter of course everybody but myself can go—in fact there were three other Cadets going to call on ladies at the hotel with me, but no one said anything to them,—they thought they had a right to go. And didn’t I have a right? Yes, an imperative duty….
Pelham was annoyed that he got called “spoony”? I think we can infer that he wasn’t against “spoons” (sweethearts) or however far he enjoying taking “spooning” physically, but he did not like his romantic life to be overly talked about. Or the cadets to be making something “spoony” that he saw as a social call. And this reminds me how there’s a historian’s duty to not over-romanticize someone’s life or actions or create something that contextually wasn’t there.
Sure, most of us like a good love story. (And there are some heart-stopping ones out there in Civil War history with swoon-worthy primary sources!) But let’s not make love stories where the details just aren’t clear…otherwise it’s kind of like we’re the “hollowing crowd” of cadets, mocking the poor guy being socialable.
Conclusion:
In the 1858 letter, Pelham was suggesting to talk to women about “the Moon,” being a sweetheart or kissing, (aka: spoons) “the Starry Heavens, and moonlight walks.” In the 1860 letter, Pelham seemed irritated that cadets thought he was “going kissing” or into a flirtation when paying a social call at the hotel.
Maybe you already knew all that? But I hope it’s a reminder about tracking down the meaning of words and thinking contextually about primary sources!
P.S. And maybe Pelham was right? Please don’t talk to me about literal spoons. But moonlight walks, forgetting history and grammar for a time, and “getting spoony”—well….
Read more in one of the newest books in the Emerging Civil War Series—Glorious Courage: John Pelham in the Civil War by Sarah Kay Bierle (May 2025). (I promise it’s not “a kissing book”!)
Sources:
[i] Jacksonville Public Library, Pelham Collection, Folder 3, September 1858 letter to Charles Pelham, published in newspaper.
[ii] John Pelham to Martha Pelham, January 25, 1860, Jacksonville Public Library, Folder 3.
