A a government handout; a broken promise. As Union general William T. Sherman marched through Georgia and other parts of the confederacy during the Civil War, he promised freed slaves the gift of forty acres of South Carolina and Georgia farmland and an army mule with which to work the soil. Following the war, however, President Johnson rescinded Sherman's order, and the appropriated land was restored to its owners. While most citizens adopted the phrase as a metaphor for either any form of government handout (or a trifling salary or bonus from their employer), African-Americans who remembered the expression's history used it as a rueful reminder of a offer that was reneged upon.

A churchyard burial area. The phrase is a translation of the German word, Gottesacker, “God's field” where the souls of the faithful are sown. The phrase also been used for the dedication of a portion of a farm field or a garden plot to growing food that will be given to the needy. The phrase should not be confused with Erskine Caldwell's 1933 novel, God's Little Acre.