Swearing

When I wrote the first draft of I Shall Be Near To You, there was almost no swearing in the book at all. But over the course of the many rounds of revision, one of my editors pointed out that the men seemed awfully “tame” for soldiers.

It became clear to me that one of the major adjustments a woman disguising as a man might have to make was getting used to the way a group of men might talk to each other when they thought there were no ladies present. It was also clear from my research about the women that many of them adopted “male” mannerisms (chewing tobacco, drinking, playing cards, spitting, and swearing) in attempt to create a more convincing disguise. In fact, the real Rosetta wrote home on two separate occasions about what we might consider “vices”– once she reveals to her mother that “I use all the tobacco I want. I think it will keep off from catching diseases.” Later she mentions that “there is a good many temptations in the army. I got led away into this world So bad that I sinned a good deal. But I now believe that God Spirit has been aworking with me and ’til that I was aComing back to Him again and I hope and pray that I shall never be led away like it again.” I wanted to show what some of these tensions might be as I wrote about the fictional Rosetta.

I also consulted the book The Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell: Sex in the Civil War. There I learned about the pornagraphic postcards (carte de visites) that soldiers often received in their mail–the inspiration for the one Edward’s brother sends in the novel. That same book also includes stories soldiers wrote in their letters (to friends, usually) about visiting brothels. It was from these accounts that I gleaned some of the popular (and vulgar) phrases used to describe various sexual activities, and from which all of the vulgarities in the book were inspired. I basically compiled a list of all the phrases which would make your ears burn and then, like the Shakespearean insult game, I mixed and matched. And while many people think of “the f-bomb” as a fairly modern word, it has been in existence (in publication!) since the 1500’s, according to Meriam-Webster; while there are no documented uses of the word in any Civil War correspondence, it is almost certain that it was a word the soldiers would have used.