Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a fugitive; occas. attrib.

1850		E.V. Kenealy Goethe: a New Pantomime in Poetical Works 2 (1878) 335: Chicken-hearted Maffler, Grub, / Numskull, Slanderer, base Skedaddler.
1864		in R.G. Carter Four Brothers in Blue (1978) 24 Apr. 386: I can imagine how his heart beat [...] lest he should not be with us in the fray, and be called a ‘skedaddler’.
1866		C.H. Smith Bill Arp 77: When a big battle has been fought, and the enemy got whipped, how majestic they appear as they follow up the skedaddlers.
1879		G.A. Townsend Bohemian Days Preface: Perhaps the only souvenir of refugee and ‘skedaddler’ life abroad during the war.
2001		S. King Dreamcatcher 463: The guys in the office were [...] fighting for their lives. The laddie-bucks who had come running out were, for the most part, still running. Kurtz thought about dropping his boot and grabbing his nine-millimetre. Shooting a few skedaddlers.