So, you’re a spectator visiting a reenactment. Things are looking pretty cool. You’re in a pretty period looking camp, with all the men living in cramped little tents and with their weapons all stacked neatly in a line at the head of the company street. The men of the company you’re walking past are just finishing up their mid-day meal of unpleasant salt pork and unbreakable hardtack. Suddenly, bugles begin blowing across the camps and the company falls into formation. The men take their rifles from the stacks and stand at attention, preparing to head off to combat. In your eyes, things are looking pretty freakin’ cool. “Wow, this must be exactly what it was like!” … And then two privates in the front rank of the company strike up the following banter:

“Dude, you see that staff officer walking over there? So, yeah, he’s got a daughter our age, and I’m friends with her on Facebook. Sooooooooo hawt, man.”

“I believe it, man.”

“Dude, dude, dude! Look, there she is! In the lilac hoop skirt!”

“Daaaaaaaamn, bro. She looks like Jennifer Lawrence, and I ain’t gonna lie, that corset she’s got on is definitely a plus one. You think she’d stitch up that hole in my shirt sleeve? Honestly, if that chick can do a mean back-stitch, I’m gonna be all over that.”

Yup, your nice period moment where everything seemed exactly like it must have been back in 1864. Gone. Yeah, you’re suddenly right back in 2014 and strikingly aware that all these guys standing in line with guns are not Federal soldiers, but just a bunch of sweaty, smelly modern guys with a weird hobby who didn’t feel like taking up golfing. If this ever happens to you, I AM SO SORRY, and I sincerely apologize for the dinguses (yes, dingus, it’s a great word) who committed the act. Most of us in the reenacting community try our best to keep things as period accurate as possible, even in our conversations.

When we try to keep our terminology and discussion topics in a period appropriate manner, we call this “doing first-person.” First-person refers to not necessarily being at an event to be a historical interpreter as we may sometimes do, but instead being a walking museum. We do this not only for the benefit of visitors so they can get a better feel for the era, but also for our own sake so we can better immerse ourselves in the setting and get what we term a “period moment.” These moments are something that all reenactors strive for. They’re points at an event where everything is just so realistic to the period that you actually stop for a second and think, “My God… This is what it was like…” And you feel as if you’re really there. These tend to be some pretty powerful moments for us personally because we put so much time, work, research, and passion into the history of this era. Doing first-person is always one of the most effective ways to cause a period moment.

In order for we reenactors to do first-person, we have to do a fair amount of research to find out what people in the 1860s actually talked like and talked about. To be honest, it can be a pretty cool anthropological study to do this. Often times, we read through letters, diaries, or other first-person accounts of the era to get a feel for the dialect of the times. We also do all we can to adapt proper accents to the origin of the particular unit we’re portraying. (For the 20th Maine, we’d adapt a New England accent, but not quite as strong as we know it today. For the 29th New York, a regiment made up largely of German immigrants, we may do what we can to use a German accent or maybe work some German into our discussions. For a Southern regiment, like the 14th South Carolina, you bet we’re going to use quite a sloooooooow drawwwwwwwl.) As far as actual terminology, things can be a little different from how we talk today and a lot of the colloquialisms used can sound pretty quaint – as they should! For instance, some period terms might include swapping “between” for “betwixt,” “guys” for “pards” or “fellas,” “played out” for “tired,” or “skedaddle” for “run away.” A typical conversation in a Civil War camp might sound a little like this:

“Hey, you boys hear about First Sergeant Jones over in Company E? I hear tell he’s come down with an ugly spell of the Kentucky quicksteps. Hear he’s feelin’ right mean as of late.”

“I confess, I ain’t very much surprised, considerin’ the brass went n’ put camp downstream of the sinks. Jones had it comin’ anyway. Ol’ feller was crazier’n a shithouse rat n’ was always fit to be tied ’bout somethin’.”

“I’m just glad it ain’t me. I got a fair share of troubles as it is. Went n’ picked up the rheumatiz last winter in my knee. Cain’t hardly get it to bend on some cold mornings.”

As you can see, slang was pretty different back then. (I personally love to study profanity of the era. Though I included a little in that example, I won’t go into detail on it here.) Talking like this in period topics can really add to the feel of the event, both for spectators and for reenactors. In the next post, we’ll talk about acting as far as how we reenactors act out on the field of battle!

 

 

Also, as a little bonus for you, I run a Facebook page that’s pretty popular within the hobby called “The Best of Reenactor Memes.” Here’s a couple memes for you just because why not.