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Author’s Note
Thank you for reading Sleeping with the Enemy. If you enjoyed Laura and Geoffrey’s story, please consider signing up for my newsletter: http://www.jackiebarbosa.com/newsletter. I promise not to bombard your inbox, since I’m barely able to find the time to send out newsletters in advance of new releases, let alone on a monthly basis. Also, in October 2020, I’ll be releasing a Christmas-themed short story, My True Love Gave to Me, that explains how Walter and Artemisia ended up with all those kids, and all of my newsletter subscribers will be entitled to a free copy.
When I first conceived the idea for this book and decided I had to write it, I really had no idea what I was getting into. It just seemed like a great setup for a historical romance set in the Regency period. Except, of course, that I had to familiarize myself with a war that rarely gets mentioned in Regency novels, despite the fact that Great Britain was one of the parties to it, and that is the War of 1812.
If you grew up in the United States like I did, you may remember the War of 1812 from your high school history as the one we fought with England because they had a nasty habit of kidnapping American sailors and forcing them into service in the Royal Navy, and/or as the one where the British burned down the capitol and Dolly Madison saved the paintings from the White House before she and President James Madison fled. Oh, and perhaps you remember that Francis Scott Key penned the words to the national anthem during the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1814. If that’s as far as your knowledge of this particular war goes, I’m not surprised, because all in all, it doesn’t get a lot of coverage in U.S. history books. And probably for good reason, because the more I’ve learned about the War of 1812, the less just the cause appears.
The impressment of American sailors was certainly a problem, but I doubt the U.S. would have declared war on Britain if that had been the sole grievance. Restrictions on trade as a result of Great Britain’s ongoing wars on the European continent and a desire to expand American territory were much more powerful factors. The Republicans of the time (not the same as our modern Republicans) felt the British were not adhering to the treaty that ended the Revolutionary War, which ceded to the U.S. all territory east of the Mississippi. In their minds, this meant everything that was then colonial Canada rightly belonged to America—despite the fact that the Mississippi begins at Lake Itasca in Minnesota, and therefore nothing north of that point can be said to be east of it!
In addition, one reason the U.S. was keen to expand into Canada was the belief that the British were inciting Native American tribes in their territory to attack white Americans. Whether this was true or not is a matter of debate, but I think it’s fair to say that indigenous people had every right to fight back against the colonization of their land. I can’t summon a great deal of sympathy for the American perspective here.
Oh, also? Andrew Jackson cut his teeth as a general during the War of 1812. Yeah, fuck that guy.
So, yes, I suspect my prejudice against this particular war came through in my characters’ actions and attitudes.
A few things specifically about the Battle of Plattsburgh. First, it did really take place on Sunday, September 11, 1814, and the British really did manage to lose despite vastly outnumbering the Americans. It’s also true that most of the residents of Plattsburgh proper vacated the town in the days leading up to the battle because they had absolutely no confidence in the young Brigadier General Alexander Macomb—he was only thirty at the time—and were sure the city would fall to the British. Knowing he was seriously outmanned, Macomb had his men move trees and build fake roads in the days leading up to the battle. When the British finally attacked on land, they became entangled in the false road maze, couldn’t easily turn around because there were so many of them, and were thus easily ambushed by the much less numerous American forces.
What isn’t, as far as I know, true is that Macomb knew he had time to build all these structures because he had a British informant. That is completely a product of my imagination, although in some ways, it helps explain how Macomb was so successful. The existence of a British informant might also explain how fifty American soldiers executed the night raid on the night of September 9 that Martin Shelley mentions in his testimony in the book.
(By the way, here’s a link to a brief biography of Macomb that includes the official portrait painted of him in 1828: https://armyhistory.org/major-general-alexander-macomb/. Tell me that man isn’t an eye-trap, just like Susanna said!)
Now, onto an even less pleasant subject than war that I wound up learning about as a result of this book: slavery. I suspect many of us take it as an article of faith that all the northern states were “free” and only southern states were slaveholding up until the Civil War, but it just ain’t so. As mentioned in the text of the book, slavery wasn’t fully abolished in New York state until 1817, and its abolition was only complete on July 4, 1827, when the indentured servitude of all those who had formerly been enslaved ended. The cruelty of imposing this long wait for freedom on Black Americans—and the thought of how many of those who’d hoped to one day be free had died in servitude—makes me both sad and angry.
Another tidbit: The canal system that includes both the Erie and Champlain canals was, in fact, constructed in the period mentioned. The Champlain Canal was finished first in 1823, with the more famous Erie Canal opening in 1825. These canals quickly became the shipping method of choice in the first half of the 19th century because it was cheaper, faster, and safer than any overland option then available. Geoffrey would have been very wise to get in on the ground floor, so to speak, when the canals were still under construction.
And last, but not least, cider. Throughout the colonial period and into the 19th century, hard cider (the alcoholic variety, not the kind your mom made hot with cinnamon for you around Halloween) was the drink of choice, even for children. Generally speaking, cider was consumed watered-down, just as wine was consumed watered down in ancient Greek and Roman times (the Romans considered you uncivilized if you drank your wine straight!). Although many people would have had their own apple orchards and would have produced cider for their own use, commercial cider operations would have existed to supply city residents with this essential beverage, so Laura’s decision to convert her land to orchard makes financial sense. That said, I’m sure I significantly shortcut the time it would have taken her expanded orchard to become productive, since I suspect it would take more than 5-7 years for newly planted trees to mature. I hope readers more in the know than I on this subject will cut me some slack for the sake of fictional timelines.
Finally, I want to express my gratitude to my beta readers and my editor, all of whom helped make this book so much better than it would otherwise have been. Thanks first to Erin Satie, who prevented me from making a major technical error by pointing out to me that women were not allowed to testify in court either for or against their husbands (except in cases of spousal abuse) until 1853. The original draft of this book had Laura testifying, and that simply would not do. Next, but no less, I don’t know what I would do without Joanne Renaud, who’s the best catcher of anachronistic language—and dress—I have ever encountered. She allowed me to keep a couple on “the rule of funny” and I admit to refusing to take one out despite her advice because I had no good period expression to replace it with. My three other readers—Dee Carney, Eve Pendle, Regina Reed, and Carrie Lomax—all provided important feedback and insights that also made their way into the book, and I’m extraordinarily grateful to them as well. And last but not least, a heartfelt thanks to my editor, Rhonda Merwarth, who patiently allowed me to reschedule my copy edits twice and then fought her way bravely through all the excess “that’s,” unintentional word repetitions, and other errors that managed
to slip through all the previous revisions. I couldn’t do it without her!
Thanks again for reading, and remember: love is the greatest power in the universe!
-- Jackie
Sleeping with the Enemy: Lords of Lancashire, Book 4 Page 26
