Coming soon...
Soldier and Scribe: The
Autobiography of
Augustus Charles Bratnober
The Battlefield at Chickamauga Creek, near Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, where the
Wisconsin Tenth Infantry fought in September of 1863.
Personal Use Permission from: www.Corbis.com
“We were a jolly crowd then and
expected to do things up in a hurry when we got to the front.
None of us ever dreamed
of the hardships that lay before us.”
We are very pleased to announce the forthcoming publication
of Soldier and Scribe: The Autobiography of Augustus Charles Bratnober.
Privately printed more than seventy years ago, this first modern, public edition will
become available this fall for family members as well as historians, museums and
libraries.
Nearly 200 pages long, Soldier and Scribe is
the authentic, personal account of a Wisconsin Tenth Infantry Regiment soldier’s
Civil War experience and his life after the war in Hazel Green, Wisconsin and Fort
Dodge and Waterloo, Iowa. Born in Custrine, Prussia (Germany) in 1842, Augustus
recalls his earliest memories of a still semi-feudal Europe at the very beginning of
the book:
“There were two galleries on three sides of the church…
These galleries were divided off into stalls, and over the railing
of each stall hung a sign to denote the business of the occupants…
The ground floor had no seats. The poor laborers
worshipped down there and stood up all through the service”
Soon after immigrating to America with his family, however,
Augustus is swept up into the American Civil War as an eighteen-year-old volunteer.
He serves for three years and his detailed account of the Civil War comprises more
than a third of the book:
“ The guns began to throw shells at the enemy, though
we could see none with the naked eye. Soon they were
answered, however. We could see a puff of white smoke
and then would see the shell coming over…They
were the old fashioned round shells with fuse.”
In the fall of 1863, after two years at war, Augustus is
captured at the great Battle of Chickamauga near Lookout Mountain, Georgia. Promoted
to Sergeant by this time, his account of this battle is still referred to by scholars
today as a primary source document on the heroic stand of the Wisconsin Tenth
Infantry during the devastating engagement:
“We were only a handful of my company left. I had sent
one man in search of water and he never showed up again…
There were about fifteen men left at dark…It became
evident to us that we were holding an important point
that the enemy was determined to take.”
Finally, overwhelmed by a vast Confederate army, Augustus
and his surviving comrades are captured and taken prisoner to the notorious Libby
Prison, a converted tobacco warehouse in Richmond, Virginia. Here he spends nine
grueling months that may have been more challenging than the war itself:
“There was a freight car full of us when we were
sent to Richmond, all in about the same shape,
slow on foot, very pale and thin and very ragged.
I am sure our own mothers would not have known us.”
But Augustus survives and returns to Hazel Green, Wisconsin
weighing just one hundred and thirteen pounds. Here he gradually regains his health
and resumes the family trade of harness-making, soon marrying and moving further west
to Fort Dodge and then Waterloo, Iowa. Augustus spends most of his life in Waterloo,
and describes daily life there in great detail:
“I arrived (in Waterloo) in good season in the morning of
July 1st, 1868. There was then the firm of Thompson,
Hardy & Co. in business there, running a general
store on the east side. This was the first brick building
on that side…There were about 2800 people in the place
and it was not yet incorporated as a city.”
After working in the butchering business and the cattle
trade in Waterloo, Augustus builds a successful lumber business with this son “CP” in
the late 1880s and he begins to travel West to purchase timber in Washington and to
explore a land which is still largely frontier. In 1910 Augustus and his wife Ida
move to Los Angeles to live their remaining years together in a city that Augustus
observes is getting much too big in 1912.
Written in a simple and straightforward manner, Soldier and
Scribe, is nevertheless an authentic, personal account of the Civil War as well as
the last of the pioneer days in Wisconsin and Iowa. Beautifully produced and designed
in 7 X 11 hardback with a full color dust jacket and six photographs inside—we are
happy to announce that the book will soon be ready for family members and other
interested parties.
Please come back to this page soon for complete details on
release date, price and availability. Or write to:
John@Bratnober.com
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