For as long
as soldiers have gone to war, which is to say as long as history has been recorded,
they have tucked away countless charms and talismans in their pockets and
uniforms before heading into battle. From love letters and photos of
sweethearts to Bibles and pendants of every known faith and creed, men at war
have carried anything and everything to give them what they needed most – hope
for another day.
Author and
novelist Tim O'Brien knew only too well the power in these trinkets and talismans.
He was 22 years old when he was drafted into the army and sent to Vietnam,
where he served in the 3rd Platoon, Company A, 5th
Battalion of the 46th Infantry Regiment from 1968 through 1970.
In his semi-autobiographical
novel The Things They Carried, he focuses
on the real and symbolic burdens American soldiers carried with them every day
in the jungle heat and tall grass. The weapons they would one day leave behind,
the scars and memories would stay at their sides for the rest of their lives.
Not long
ago I discovered an interesting memento another war veteran carried into battle.
Alonzo Miller volunteered for duty in 1863 and served in Company A, 12th
Wisconsin Infantry Regiment of Blair’s 17th Army Corps. Over the
next two years of the Civil War, he fought in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain,
the Battle of Atlanta, the Savannah Campaign, and the Campaign of the
Carolinas, wounded twice before being honorably discharged at war’s end.
Miller
carried with him a ‘Daily Miniature Diary’ for each year he served, each book
small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, or the shirt pocket of a Union infantry
soldier. He faithfully filled every inch of every page of those books,
recording the daily events in fine pencil, each word crammed together like
soldiers on parade march.
Alonzo was
25 years old in 1864. Throughout that year he described plainly but honestly a
life that any veteran of any war would understand. The endless marching (often
12 to 15 miles a day down the dirt roads of Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia),
the lousy food, the common boredom and uncommon camaraderie of life amongst
brothers in an army camp.
And, yes,
the deadly scenes of battle, such as this from a skirmish that took place on
June 15, 1864 somewhere in Georgia: “It
was awful. We jumped the breastworks, formed a line single file, and started on
doublequick for the Rebs. They fired—it was like hailstones for a while. One
was shot through the thigh, of our company. I was the third man from our
Captain and the first one that fired. It was awful, bullets came thick and
fast. I did not expect to get out alive.”
Worn down
and weary, Miller’s entry a few weeks later said simply: “If I only am spared my life, that will be all I ask.”
But what
intrigued me even more was what I found tucked away in a back pouch of his 1864
diary. It was a newspaper clipping, one column, ten inches in length, neatly
cut out and folded up, the paper itself brown and brittle as ancient parchment.
No date. No author. Not even the name of the newspaper to which it once
belonged. Right away I start thinking this is going to be some kind of life and
death wisdom, or story of faith and family, that the man obviously cherished
and carried with him always.
Well, not exactly.
Entitled A Dutchman's Complaint, it was a short piece
of satire, maybe a thousand words in length. The story is told in first person
narrative by a fifty-year-old character with the outlandish name of Gottlieb
Klobberyoss. Right away one sees the intended parody of dialect and demeanor
when Herr Klobberyoss stands in the local saloon, slurping down another drink,
when he says:
"I dinks much about da war. Und da draft, und da rebils,
and all about dese dings. I dinks about 'em more as about anyding else….De
odder day begins de draft. Dat bodders me agin…So ven I gets tired mit drinkin
on my own stoop, I goes down to Hans Butterfoos's tavern, und I drinks dere,
und I tells my opinion."
True to his
word, he goes to the tavern and drinks some more and offers more unflattering opinions
of “rebil sojers” and Confederate President “Sheff
Davis.”
The story
reaches a conclusion that is none too dramatic or humorous, at least not by this
reader. I’ve read the story several times and still can’t say what the punch line
is. Maybe there isn’t one.
But the mystery
here, the real story, is what it was about this farcical conversation that made
Alonzo Miller think it important enough to carry with him every single day,
when any one of those days could have been his last?
No one can
answer that now. Maybe he pulled it out and read it whenever the dull life of
an infantryman overtook him. Maybe it reminded him that there was still a world
of humor and life outside of war. Or maybe he just needed a chuckle now and then
- understandable enough given the circumstances surrounding him at the time.
Whatever the
reason was, it worked. Alonzo Miller’s luck held out, and after the war he went
back home to Prescott, Wisconsin, where he started up a small farm, married,
and raised a daughter. Whether or not a pious and penitent man, he also served
for many years as the janitor of the local Methodist church. He ended up living
for another fifty years before passing away peacefully in 1917 at the age of 78.
His
daughter, Mary Angeline, would live the rest of her life in Prescott and never
marry. Upon her death in 1938 she had her estate settled by a woman named Fay
Stolt – my paternal grandmother. Fay would eventually pass along Alonzo’s
diaries to my father. Because of those diaries Clarence Stolt became a bonafide
Civil War history buff, collecting the personal papers of Alonzo Miller and
presenting lectures about his life to several Wisconsin civic organizations. After
his death I became the caretaker of Alonzo Miller’s war diaries, and now I’m
doing my part to carry on the legacy.
Because while
the men who once wrote and read the words on that tiny scrap of paper are long
gone and forgotten, it is the story that still remains. The tale of A Dutchman’s Complaint has outlived that
war and the men who fought it by a century and a half.
Maybe that
makes this a funny little war story after all.
Alonzo Miller
