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- There WAS, indeed, a real "Uncle Sam", although not as we might imagine him. It was during the War of 1812 when a New York pork packer named Uncle Sam Wilson shipped a boatload of several hundred barrels of pork to U.S. troops. Each barrel was stamped "U.S." on the docks. It quickly became rumored that the "U.S." stood for "Uncle Sam" whose large pork shipment looked to be enough to feed the entire Army! It was then that "Uncle Sam" came to represent the U.S. Government itself.