Columbia Rifles Home Page

"How to Cuss Like a Soldier: The Basics of Civil War Profanity"

by John Eric Tobey

"9 words out of every 10 that a soldier utters are either Profane or Vulgar."
- From a soldier's letter

Author's Note: While definitely antique in its content, the following article contains language that is still considered offensive by some. Such readers are advised to avoid reading this article if such language will offend them.

I get a kick out of the way that some people in the hobby of living history like to portray the past based on extremes: "Troops piled their packs before battle." "No, they didn't! They always wore them into battle." "Northern soldiers fought to end slavery." "No, Federal troops didn't give a hoot about the slavery issue." And so on. One of my favorite "polarized" issues, however, involves the soldiers' use of profanity. According to our modern-day "Victorianists", profanity was so detested by Civil War-era society that its usage in a living history context is totally incorrect, and they have arguments that seem to back this up. In the other corner of the ring we have the proponents of an "earthier" portrayal who assert that combat soldiers are inherently profane and that loud swearing, while offensive to some, is perfectly justifiable from an historical standpoint. The pro-cussers also have documentation to back up their view. Ignoring the issues that relate to how ethical it is to be profane in a modern-day public program, this article will look at two purely historical points on this topic: 1. How much profanity was there in the ranks of the Civil War armies, and, 2. Exactly what is would be "correct" Civil War profanity?

The Ideal: Profanity Was Not an Accepted Thing
Today's "Victorianists" are right about one thing: "decent folk" in the 1860s had little tolerance for foul language. Here is a quote by a sergeant in the 158th Pennsylvania, who was a husband, father, and presumably a member of "decent" society:

"i am doing my part in having our copney honerable I dont allow swaring"

Here is more evidence of intolerance to profanity, this time at a higher level, from a newspaper in one of the training-camp towns in the late summer of 1861:

"No swearing-Gen. Van Valkenburg keeps his boys at the barracks in good order. Swearing is allowed at the cost of one dollar per 'swear' and any soldier taking spirituous liquors upon the ground is liable to a fine of 75 cents. This is as it should be. Men cannot be good soldiers unless they are gentlemen."

This last statement: "Men cannot be good soldiers unless they are gentlemen", illustrates the naïve Victorian ideal of military integrity. The "one dollar per swear" rule was actually an Army-wide regulation, and not this particular officer's personal law. Another quote, this one by an ex-preacher-turned-soldier who was comparing his ex-middle-class pards with some of the other soldiers:

"I fear we are reduced to the condition of not having a single unprincipled fellow in our present mess of noncoms,-a very dire calamity to a party of campaigners. Rogers is a man of character and dignity, an ex town-official; round-faced Sergt. Brown is far too exemplary to grumble much... Hannum never swears....while Grosvenor, the teacher, has walked in virtue so long before his pupils, he is much too far gone ever to be developed into your proper, easy-conscienced 'soger boy'."

And another, this one by a Pennsylvania soldier after almost three years of war:

"Some of the boys vex the chaplain much with their swearing but I can honestly say that such words have seldom passed my lips despite enduring plenty of hardships. I know you would expect me to do this without a cross word."

Reality: The Air Was as Blue as the Uniforms
Despite the "official" cultural attitude and the declarations of some virtuous non-cussers, there was plenty of swearing going on. We do not have to look hard for evidence of this:

"Perhaps you don't know that 9 words out of every 10 that a soldier utters are either Profane or Vulgar, yet I have always tried to keep my letters as free as possible from them..."

The quote above was from a Massachusetts soldier in 1862 and was quoted in the opening passage of this article. Here is another one from the high-minded ex-preacher quoted earlier:

"Tom Barker fairly blued the air about him with vocal brimstone and sulphur-a most accomplished and full-lunged blasphemer."

In addition to these, there are plenty of court-martial reports and other reminisces of cussing. Let's face it: from within the camps of Billy Yank, there emanated plenty of hair-raising expletives, despite the counter-effects of the pious Victorian ideals with which they lived. With the high-minded ideals of Victorian America, and so many "virtuous" men in the ranks, how could there be so much rotten talk? Well, there is the issue of stress, which undoubtedly caused even the most virtuous soldier to let loose with a four-letter word from time to time. Hard marches, bloody battles, incompetent officers, and villainous comrades all earned some rather hard language. In fact, according to one soldier from New Hampshire, "Virginia weather, and mud, is responsible for nine tenths of the profanity in the army." Another soldier whose correspondence was otherwise totally devoid of vulgar language, once wrote the following to his mother:

"there was a lot [of substitutes] came in and among them was a man-no it wasn't a man it was a god damned shitass that belonged to this regiment when we came out and he deserted and came as a substitute and before he knew where he was he found himself in his old company street."

This was strong language for a young man of good upbringing to use to his own mother! The same letter expressed anger at not getting leave to go home and being generally homesick. The environment for cussing was also "right": the army had no women and no children, and there was nothing to deter trashy talk except the soldier's own scruples and the chaplain. Another large contributor toward the relatively profane nature of the army was the moral qualities of the men in the ranks. We know that the "culture of the time" dictated that a man who valued his place in society would act decent no matter what the situation; military service was not considered an extenuating circumstance. The fact is that there were plenty of men in the ranks who were uncultured and not a part of "decent" society. Unlike our typical reenacting clubs that are full of middle-class professionals and upstanding citizens, the typical Civil War company contained a fair share of really tough customers. Certain whole sections of the North were settled by coarse people. There is, for example, a whole town in northern Pennsylvania called Millerton that was locally renowned for being populated with rough and unprincipled folks. The town supplied a fair number of men to the Union cause and the accounts of some of them are worth noting. One soldier/townsman named Garret Miller, who was despised by his own family for his wild antics (he once shot up the headstones in his hometown cemetery with his army carbine), was described by a comrade in his unit, the 7th Pennsylvania Cavalry:

"Capt was scolding Garit miller on acount of his swaring i never herd a man who cuss like him i want you to no that i dont use language the Bible says i cant ther is sevral men who swar all the time but not me...Garit & [?] Tillinghast call the major well i cant write what they call him they cuss everything from Dan to Beersheba One thing for sure Pa them Millerton boys are a hard sett "

A Mississippi soldier wrote the following:

"One of my greatest annoyances is my proximity to one tent of the Co. next [to] me, Co. F, in which are 9 or 10 of the most vile, obscene blackguards that could be raked up this side [of] the bad place, outside of a jail or penitentiary...there is one uninterrupted flow of the dirtiest talk I ever heard in my life...those fellows have 'had no raising'."

Despite the its negative effects, certain officers had a penchant for swearing too. Here is a recollection of a soldier from the 61st New York:

"I saw Hancock and Caldwell ride by. Hancock was mad about something, and he was shaking his fist under Caldwell's nose, and God-damning him at the top of his capacity. Hancock was a brave and capable general, but he was demonstratively passionate, and vilely abusive with his tongue. Junius Gaskell of my company was for months his private orderly, and he saw the polish and the rough of him. Gaskell has told me that he would get mad at his own brother, who was assistant adjutant general of the division, and blaspheme at him and call him the conventional name a man uses, when he wants to say a mean thing of the other fellow based on the alleged status of his mother."

Officers normally had to exercise more discretion with their oaths. The negative references to foul-mouthed officers are numerous, and two comments pretty much sum up the general expectations of an officer's or NCO's deportment:

"Nothing does more to improve the appearance & behavior of soldiers than politeness among officers. Next after cowardice few things are more deleterious than rowdyism & buffoonery among officers."

"The Lieut was sent out on picket again. The Col is exasperated with his swearing and blasphemy in front of the men and says he can go out there and swear at the trees until his manners return. Corpl Tomson was reduced to the ranks for the same thing. The boys think this a fine thing in both cases. The officers set the example and such talk is not favorable to discipline."

Unless you are portraying a basically coarse person (this does not mean the same as "uneducated" or "unrefined"; there were plenty of dumb-as-a-stump farm boys who were decent and clean-mouthed), do not swear with impunity. If you do, expect your pards who are more "upstanding citizens" to cringe at every cuss. Limit your swearing if you have or want any rank, too, because a crass soldier would probably not have had the respect of his troops unless he was a virtual military genius. Lastly, if you're gonna swear, do it in an historical fashion. How to do this? Read on...

Cussing 101: How to Swear "Civil War-style"
Okay, so you have decided that you are going to portray a war-weary, rough-as-a-cob, ex-canal boatman or teamster with a full repertoire of profanity and a lack of moral conscience? You might as well learn how to do it right... There is a tendency for some reenactors to use "representative profanity" when portraying Civil War soldiers, such as, "You slack-jawed, yaller-livered son of a dung heap!" While this may be more acceptable in a public forum, the truth is that the original soldiers would have found this kind of cussing as humorous as we do today. Webster's dictionary defines profanity as: "showing contempt or irreverence for what is sacred; blasphemous." Or, "vulgar, coarse". Indeed, some of yesterday's profanity would hardly phase a modern day person; there was much more that was "sacred" back then, perhaps. Soldiers actually differentiated between the typical day-to-day cussing and real blasphemy. Charles B. Haydon of the 2nd Michigan wrote:

"The 1st Corporal has been swearing terribly, that is in a religious way."

With this in mind, probably the most potent swear words that Billy Yank could muster slammed the most sacred institution of the time: religion. With this, we start our "Primer on Civil War Swear Words". WARNING: Some of these are still pretty offensive, so stop now if you know it will get your pants in a bunch to read on. The numbers after the words and phrases indicate how many times it was actually observed (in this particular study) either in letters, diaries, or court-martial records.

What You Do Not See
We haven't found a single profane use of that all-purpose "F" word so commonly used today, or any of its numerous variations. With this in mind, this word is not only offensive but appears to be historically incorrect. Another thing that is not documented well are foreign-language cuss words. I am sure that there were plenty of German and Gaelic oaths blasting through the camps, but with so little documentation on the subject and so little understanding on the part of the "native born" population, the subject must await further research.

A Matter of Record: Civil War Oaths in Context
Here is a collection of oaths gleaned primarily from Court Martial records that show the various combinations of curses in their full context:
"damned big mouth son of a bitch." (R. P. Quinn, 6th United States Infantry)

"Lieutenant, you are a damned son of a bitch; you can suck my arse." (J. Ducy, 16th New York Cav.)

"Major Hogg sucks the arse of Major McGuire...god damn them." (Lt. G. Lacy, 2nd New York Heavy Artillery. He was dismissed from the service, partly because this particular statement was made within earshot of the enlisted men!)

"I will be God damned to hell if I ever do any more duty, and Jesus Christ you can't make me." (W. Chisholm, 2nd Battalion Veteran Reserve Corps)

"son of a bitch, god damned liar and damned dog...[I] would allow a nigger to shit on him." (Lt. W. Justice, 11th Illinois. He was dismissed from the service.)

"You are a damned fool, a son of a bitch and the son of a whore." (O. Lichty, 12th Iowa.)

"damned diarrhea son of a bitch." (T. Ryan, 1st Connecticut Cavalry)

"Dutch son of a bitch, a whore-master, and a Dutch bastard." (This oath was heaped on an officer of German descent by G. Carr, 2nd Battalion, Veteran Reserve Corps)

And my personal favorite-this one involves a Captain W. J. Stewart of the 16th United States Infantry, who swore in a bunch of new recruits with the following unbelievable oath:

"You do solemnly swear that you will support old Abe as long as you live, and be a good boy, God damn you?"

This, along with a history of drunkenness and embezzlement, got him a verdict of two years at hard labor.

John Tobey is a member of The Columbia Rifles.