The people of Delaware.
1840. In the revolutionary war,… Captain Caldwell [of Delaware], had a company recruited from Kent and Sussex called by the rest “Caldwell’s game cocks,” and the regiment after a time in Carolina was nicknamed from this “the blue hen’s chickens” and “the blue chickens” as the fun and fancy of their comrades preferred the phrase. But after they had been distinguished in the south the name of the Blue Hen was applied to the state…. The whigs of the revolution never ceased to boast of the Blue Hen and her chickens.—Niles’ National Register, lviii. May 9, p. 154/3.
1840. A writer in the Delaware Journal over the signature of the old revolutionary appellation of “The Blue Hen’s Chickens,”… says, &c.—Id., lix. Dec. 5, p. 210/1.
1844. [At the Whig Convention in Baltimore,] The Blue Hen’s Chickens, was the name of a club from Kent county, having with them a significant banner, representing a chicken coop.—Id., lxvi. May 18, p. 183/2. See also p. 185/3.
1856. Yes, sir, the blue hen’s chickens, the descendants of the cocks which crowed and fought so bravely in the times which tried men’s souls; and game ones at that.—Mr. Cullen of Delaware, House of Repr., July 12: Cong. Globe, p. 1056, Appendix.
1861. Blue Hen’s Chickens to the front! Forward! March!—Delaware Inquirer, May 5 (Bartlett).
