Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

The August 27 show featured an inquiry by a West Point graduate whose son, a combat veteran, made reference to having "seen the elephant." He wondered about the origins of the phrase and what it had to do with combat.

I can offer a couple of clues. One comes from a Captain under whom a great-grandfather of mine served during the Civil War. In a letter from Bloomington, Ind. dated May 17, 1863, the Captain, John McCrea, says, "That part of the 33rd that was captured has seen the 'Elephant' and tasted the sweets of 'Libby Prison' [located in Richmond, Va.] but as you know officers and men have got back, been exchanged, and most of them are at Indianapolis, waiting to be paid, and reorganized." This does not seem to be a reference to combat, since it refers only to captives, but it does suggest that seeing the "Elephant" is nothing you'd find delightful.

Years ago I also read in a secondary source that PT Barnum once induced people into his museum by asking, "Have you Seen the Elephant?" When they got there all they saw were some large elephant bones. (An actual elephant, the famous Jumbo, did not come into Barnum's care until much later, in 1882.) Thus, "seeing the elephant" came to be a catch-phrase of the time that meant something like, "I experienced the let-down; I saw the truth; I'm wise to the reality."