Why were WW1 soldiers called dough boys?

Answer 1

When the American army was in Mexico fighting Pancho Villa, their uniforms became covered with the local dirt. The Americans began to look like the Adobe-clay material that the Mexicans use to build their huts. An English Cavalry officer observed that the Americans looked like Adobe boys, that they had this earthy look to them. Well, the American soldiers did not like this term Adobe boys and changed it to Doughboys. William and Mary Morris, Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, give two other origins, one dating from army slang in the Civil War, the other dating from 1809 at the Battle of Talavera in Spain. (Their account is too long to reproduce here, but their book is widely available in libraries.) The Civil War origin is in the memoirs of Elizabeth Custer (wife of General George A. Custer). The Talavera origin, which the Morrises say is supported by convincing evidence, indicates that "the first doughboys ... were British riflemen fighting a century earlier [than WW I ] in the Peninsular War against the forces of Napoleon." There is no reason, of course, that all of the explanations can't be true, as far as they go: the lore and legends of army life endure.