Diary of a Napoleonic Footsoldier (16 page)

The circumstances having thus placed historical responsibilities for the Walter manuscript upon its discoverer, the first concern has been to apply tests of historical validity in so far as handicaps of distance and lapse of time would permit. On the point of authorship, family tradition affirmed that the Jakob Walter of Ellwangen in Württemberg, who wrote the paternal letter of February 17, 1856, to his son Albert, in America, was the same Jakob Walter who wrote the accounts of his Napoleonic war experiences. This tradition was presumably confirmed by the script and style and internal evidence of the papers themselves. A proper chance for supplementing this evidence seemed to be offered by the wish of the Kansas descendants to reestablish communication with German kindred. Through the German Embassy at Washington and the Army Archives at Stuttgart the identity of the soldier Jakob Walter was established, and incidental reference was made to his having received an 1812 service medal. The last of the kindred whose age and situation might have afforded knowledge of personal details had recently died. The Ellwangen city officials from their records
could supply little but family-registry information, which largely confirms, and slightly amplifies, the data found in family letters at Lecompton.

Despite certain discrepancies in our data it can be assumed that Jakob Walter was born in 1788 in the village of Rosenberg near Ellwangen. In one version of the 1806 campaign his age is given as nineteen, but our letter of 1856 gives his birthday as May 21, 1788. In the registry record September 28, 1788, is given for his birth; August 3, 1864, for his death. His parentage is recorded: Johann Walter of Rosenberg and Eva Dietz of Bartenstein. His wife, to whom he was married on February 11, 1817, was born on May 22, 1799, and died on April 28, 1873. There were ten children from this union, five of whom were living in 1856 when the letter of that year was written. In 1858 a daughter died, and in 1861 a son. The registry does not record the deaths of the two sons who had emigrated to America or the death of the last surviving daughter in Ellwangen. All the evidence agrees that Jakob Walter was trained as a stonemason, and in 1856 he was still working at his trade as a contracting builder or overseer. He was a strong Catholic and his narrative implies that he had at least a parochial schooling. However, on this question as on almost all personal matters other than military experiences actual information is lacking.

The sons who emigrated to the United States were Franz Patritz, born in 1831, and Albert, four years younger. Franz emigrated in 1849 and was for a time at New Orleans. In 1854, at Lima, Ohio, he took out naturalization papers. Then in the spring of 1856 he settled
in Douglas County, Kansas, at the territorial capital of Lecompton. He made a visit to the homeland in 1857, and during his visit married the daughter of the mayor of a village near Ellwangen. This event happened on February 22, 1858, and the fact that the day was Washington’s birthday was mentioned in the wedding sermon. That same year he returned with his wife to Kansas, where on January 14, 1898, at Lecompton, his death occurred. It was on the return of Franz Walter in 1858 from Ellwangen, according to family tradition, that the accounts of the father’s campaigns were brought to Kansas, as were also the parental portraits, one of which, representing the veteran at the age of fifty, is reproduced in this publication.

Regarding the manuscript itself, questions arise which might be dealt with more satisfactorily if we knew more definitely the circumstances of the bringing of the Jakob Walter manuscript to Kansas. Inferences, however, do warrant fairly certain dicta regarding the “original” character of the Walter chronicle. It is a document of some 200 pages, about eight by six inches in size. It is handwritten and a number of exacting studies of the script, involving a comparison with available signed letters, indicate that Jakob Walter was the writer throughout. He apparently used a letter paper of ordinary rag stock without watermarks, mostly handruled with pencil. The document was not bound or fastened together as a whole; instead it was organized as some eight or nine units, composed of a variant number of double sheets, each unit sewed in simple notebook fashion by the author. Naturally this arrangement disregards the division of the story into three campaign episodes, told as units, and having separate
titles, but not deemed sufficiently distinct to require starting each campaign on a fresh page. Actually all the units save one, when put together, constitute a complete story as here published. The additional unit of 48 pages seems to be the starting of a second draft or “revised version” of the chronicle, covering the first and most of the second campaign, written somewhat more precisely and with some variations in the choice of details. It was not deemed practicable to publish it here; but its existence is mentioned because its presence with the other version suggests that Franz probably was given all his father had written of formal recollections. It also has pertinence to the question why and how Jakob Walter wrote his story.

On the basis of meager data, we follow up our inquiry as to the origins of Walter’s manuscript. Where was it written? His reference to going home in 1813 might offer a clue. Yet it is uncertain what he referred to as home. If he had living parents they are not mentioned. His unnamed brother and two sisters evidently were dear to him. The brother’s home in 1813 is unknown; the sisters, one of them married, lived at the paternal village of Rosenberg. His godfather, who had provided him with a trade, kept an inn at Ellwangen where Jakob Walter mentions staying at times. Yet would conditions at Rosenberg or at the inn have encouraged the young invalided soldier with his training as a stonemason to become an author forthwith? Would not circumstances have been more favorable after he had married, fixed his home at Ellwangen, and found his place in civil life? This opens the question of when, between 1813 and its removal to Kansas in 1858, Jakob Walter’s undated narrative was
actually written. Where the range of time is so long, naturally the possibility of arguments for various dates is large. There are reasons for noting some of these arguments, hereafter, for the light they throw upon the value of Walter’s contributions, but it seems best, at the outset, to state that it is most probable the chronicle was written at a date between 1820 and the early 1840s and not unlikely around 1830.

The argument which weighs against a dating after 1840 is the argument of the effects of advancing years on memory and facile composition. Thus, in Walter’s case, a letter written to a son in 1848 is in a cramped hand quite different from the generally easy, flowing script of his military recollections. On the other hand, the case for a dating prior to 1820 rests primarily upon the freshness of the narrative, its vivid detail, and its general reliability, especially in its geographic data, even where obscure Polish and Russian places are mentioned. These are charcteristic features of the 1812 story, and the accounts of the campaigns in 1807 and 1809 are also vivid, and, in places, surprisingly accurate. To be sure, circumspect analysis does show that the time-factor need not have affected greatly the strength of Walter’s memory for certain types of data or experiences. In any case maps and some other source material must have been used for checking assertions and spellings. Also there are some factual lapses throughout, as demonstrated in my historical annotations for each of the three campaigns, and these are most noticeable for the 1809 campaign, which was fought almost at home and only three years before the Russian campaign. Is not this surely a point bearing
upon the hypothesis of an early writing of the chronicle—a point which cannot be discounted easily? The complete silence regarding events after 1812 presents another difficulty. If Walter wrote before 1820, it was during the course of such a crowding train of events as must have affected the thinking of anyone recounting Napoleonic war-memories. The War of Liberation in Poland and Germany had begun before Walter’s return to Württemberg at the end of February 1813. When, after some weeks of critical illness from typhus, he got his final discharge, the spring campaign in Silesia, Saxony, and part of Prussia, so familiar to him, was already opening. The great events of the summer, and the fateful autumn battles around Dresden, Reichenbach, and Leipsic, were in regions he knew well. He cannot have been untouched by the events which in 1814, and again in 1815, marked the overthrow of Napoleon, and the coincident reshapings of Germany and all Europe down to 1820. The probable speed of Walter’s writing must of course be taken into account. We can hardly assume that he composed rapidly, considering that he lacked training and favoring conditions, that at the outset he had to find his place in civil life, and that he was working at a tiring trade which would afford little incentive or leisure for authorship. It is unlikely that our manuscript is the very first draft, for the revisions are relatively few and are in the nature of retouchings of an established version. It is also significant that we have both a basic version and part of a revision. Besides, our manuscript does reveal by its changes of pen, ink, and script that it was written in stints, with attendant interruptions. There is, indeed, an obvious singleness
of purpose about the narrative which may indicate a predetermined exclusion of all matter or allusions not absolutely pertinent to Walter’s own military experiences. This is admirable, but its very rigidity suggests it is the outcome of an experimental period of writing or retelling of his experiences during which his story was gradually clarified and given a definite form. The natural conclusion is that our Walter manuscript is a product from the time 1820–40, which was a period of relative quiet for men of maturing years and with some craving for the respect of their posterity. Then, while the “great era” was being seen with better perspective, personal memories of that era were taking shape and color, and Napoleonic war veterans were publishing enough to refresh memories and afford useful data and literary models for other veterans, such as Jakob Walter. Although we have no positive evidence on the point, it is a logical inference, and highly probable, that he too recounted his experiences primarily from memory. Possibly some letters or other scraps from the 1807 and 1809 campaigns had been preserved by relatives, but this seems unlikely. Letters were written home during the Russian campaign; Arthur Chuquet published a volume of such French letters. Some diaries kept during the retreat were saved. All such instances, however, so far as known, involved officers, almost all of them men of rank and culture. Walter’s is the unique example of a private soldier. It is doubtful if he wrote home during the entire 1812 campaign. He admits his kindred got word of his homecoming only by indirect report. Yet, though he had no personal papers to use, this circumstance need not exclude the chance of his having had access to other
Moscow-campaign sources. It is well known that local newspapers for some years after 1812 carried notices of various sorts and even printed accounts of incidents connected with the campaign. We know that several important survivors of the retreat were fellow-citizens of Jakob Walter for years. Surely there were reunions of veterans or other chances for comparing experiences. Maps were available; possibly even route lists were extant. In time there were published narratives of the Russian campaign; a few appeared from 1814 to 1820, but not in German. A smattering of personal recollections came out during the 1820s, the 1830s, and the 1840s, including some written in German and published in Germany, although it is doubtful whether most of them, if any of them, would have been known to Walter.

Significantly the Walter manuscripts show evidences of the insertion of place names, distances, etc., after the original writing. The underlining of many names, especially of Polish and Russian towns, suggests also that words so marked had been filled in, or at least verified. From careful inspection our document seems to be not an initial draft but a meticulous copy. Certainly it is written with remarkable care, and alterations are relatively few. That it evidently was not deemed definitive, our partially finished “revised” version demonstrates. But the revisions do not change our initial assumption that Walter wrote primarily from memory.

What, then, of Jakob Walter’s memories? The question forthwith shifts our point of attention. We turn from a critical inquiry regarding the origins of our document—the issues of authorship and sources, of time,
place, and method of writing—to an analysis of its content; from a consideration of its authenticity to an examination of its reliability. Our procedure may well be by a comparison of the accounts of Walter’s three campaigns. On a first reading there may seem to be little difference in the historicity of these accounts. Certainly one would hardly expect that the difference of but three to six years would cause a marked variation in the dependability of one’s memories. The natural assumption, then, is that if there are marked differences in the quality of the three stories, this must be owing to factors other than the mere differences in elapsed time. Walter’s actual age during each campaign must be considered in connection with the fact that the difference of interests, and thus of experiences, at each particular age must result in different sorts of memories. In this connection one must bear in mind the influence of strong, abnormal experiences in the rapid maturing of youth. Thus Walter himself, writing as if from the vantage point of more than just six years, speaks of the youthful irresponsibility of 1806. The story of 1809 reflects a sort of mocking recklessness. The strange combination of piety and casual
sauve qui peut
indiscipline of 1812 is something quite different still. There are other general differences in the accounts, due perchance to the less observant age of Walter during the earlier campaigns and to his greater indifference at the time, or perhaps to an intentional subordination of the earlier part of his military service to the more vital experiences of 1812.

If we turn to the issue of factual accuracy we shall find that a comparative test for the three campaigns yields
surprising results, which incidentally bear little or no relationship to factors likely to guide us in dating the Walter narrative. Broadly speaking, the 1812 story, which we are best able to check because of the mass of other evidence, best meets the tests of good history. It hangs together best, and has most factual detail and fewest errors. That is not strange, of course, as it was Walter’s last campaign, although his story of it affords no sure clues as to how recent it had been. What
is
strange is that the story of 1809 is least satisfactory historically. It is least coherent and its recital of events is most tangled and inexact. Yet it gives more fresh evidence, apparently not elsewhere available, than does the 1812 narrative, and its details are sometimes more precise and important. It is also significant that it deals with an episode regarding which secondary works are generally silent. Also such personal memoirs as are most abundant for 1812 are here lacking, and available official materials are relatively meager. For testing purposes, therefore, dependence has had to be placed upon a type of evidence less available for the 1812 critique, that is, newspapers and local monographs. For testing the 1806–7 narrative, available sources were newspapers, personal (official) correspondence, some memoir material, and some special studies. Such material has shown that, in part, Walter’s recollections for this time are quite confused, but to a considerable extent are more vivid, more detailed, and surer than those of his two later campaigns. As further demonstration that the historicity of Walter’s memories is not clearly relative to the closeness of events may be cited types of detail almost equally dependable for each of his campaigns.
Particularly is this the case for the campaigns of 1807 and 1809. Citation of typical examples from the Russian campaign, however, may contribute to the appreciation of that most vital portion of the Jakob Walter manuscript.