subs. (American).—A nickname applied to different sections of the American nation: first to the Indian; then to the Dutch colonist (see Irving, Knickerbocker); lastly, during the Civil War, to certain Northern Democrats who sympathised with the South. [Properly the Trigonocephalus contortrix.]
1864. WALT WHITMAN, Diary, 10 April [in The Century Magazine, Oct., 1888]. Exciting times in Congress. The COPPERHEADS are getting furious, and want to recognize the Southern Confederacy.
1872. Daily Telegraph, 29 Aug. Should he [Mr. Greeley] be elected, he will owe his victory to … the COPPERHEAD ring of the Democratic party.
1881. W. D. HOWELLS, Dr. Breen’s Practice, ix. He lived to cast a dying vote for General Jackson, and his son, the first Dr. Mulbridge, survived to illustrate the magnanimity of his fellow-townsmen during the first year of the civil war, as a tolerated COPPERHEAD.
1888. Chicago Daily Inter Ocean, 2 March. Gay was executed, I think, in November, 1862, at Indianapolis. He was … a virulent COPPERHEAD.
