I stumbled upon this answer to where the word “deadline” came from last night. It’s a very interesting read, and a somewhat unsurprisingly morbid beginning of a word we live with and throw around all day. Despite designing, managing and laying out an entire book of Frank Leslie’s illustrations of the civil war I never came across this information. Another bit of info I was unaware of was the Douglas prison camp in Chicago. I find it deeply disappointing that the site of the Douglas camp is covered over in condos rather than the park that now sits where Andersonville was. It’s important to preserve history, not pave it over!
The most notable characteristic of the prison was a small trench dug into the ground inside the stockade 17′ (some sources say 19′) from the log fence. If any prisoner wandered across this very shallow furrow/line the guards in the previously mentioned towers (“pigeon roosts”) had standing orders to shoot to kill.
Full article (and a good read) here:
http://historyspaces.blogspot.com/2012/03/where-does-term-deadline-originate.html