How to use RS-232 sheild as software serial port?

Using Arduino General Electronics
1

I would like to be able to use a USB port at the same time as an RS-232 port with my Arduino Uno board. I unwittingly bought a shield that (I think?) overrides the USB port when it is mounted to the Arduino board:

Would anyone be able to give me any advice on how to connect the hardware so that I can have two serial ports accessible from my Arduino Uno? The format I was thinking was (Arduino => RS-232 Sheild):

GND => GND
5V => 5V
Digital Pin 2 => 232RXD
Digital Pin 3 => 232TXD

The accompanying code for initializing the serial port which I've written:

const int rxpin = 2; // pin used to receive
const int txpin = 3; // pin used to send
SoftwareSerial Serial_rs232(rxpin, txpin); // new serial port

Any ideas as to why this may or may not be a good method of using the hardware I have available for the purpose I had in mind?

2

Why do you need a shield? Just connect pins 2/3/GND to your serial device.

3

The only way to get this shield using pins other than 0 & 1 is to break out a soldering iron and do some modifications or mount the shield on something like breadboard and run wires to different pins on the Arduino.