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| Memoirs of a Dutch Mudsill: The "War Memories" of John Henry Otto, Captain, Company D, 21st Regiment Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry | 
 enlarge | Authors: David Gould, James B. Kennedy, John Henry Otto
Publisher: Kent State University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $39.00
Buy New: $31.24
You Save: $7.76 (20%)
New (15) Used (4) from $25.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 1527992
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 425
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.3
ISBN: 0873387996
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.7475092
EAN: 9780873387996
ASIN: 0873387996
Publication Date: July 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Product Description
John Henry Otto was born September 12, 1822, in Westphalia, Germany, and enlisted in the Prussian army sometime around 1845. According to his own account, he served in the war between Prussia and Denmark in 1848, and as a sergeant fought to suppress southern Germany. He was discharged in 1849 as a first lieutenant in the reserve but was called up again in 1850. He deserted the Prussian army and came to New York in 1853. He was a carpenter and cabinet maker in Appleton, Wisconsin, with a wife and five small children when the Civil War broke out. I n August 1862 he enlisted in the Union army, serving as third sergeant and ultimately as captain of his company. Otto was in command of his company from the Battle of Chicamauga until the close of the war and was engaged in many of the major battles and campaigns on the western front, including the Battles of Perryville and Stone's River, the Tullahoma campaign, and the Battles of Chicamauga, Lookout Mountain, and Missionary Ridge. He accompanied General Sherman in the march through Georgia and the Carolinas. Captain Otto was discharged with his regiment in June 1865.
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| Customer Reviews:
Personalizing the Civil War September 18, 2007
Memoirs of a Dutch Mudsill: The "War Memories" of John Henry Otto, Captain, Company D, 21st Regiment Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, edited by David Gould and James B. Kennedy (Kent, Ohio, 2004).
This is my favorite Civil War book. It provides the reader with as vivid a sense a book could afford of what it was like to live the daily life of a foot-soldier during the Civil War, except of course for the absolute horror that attended the battles of that conflict. We experience through the eyes of a seasoned and insightful soldier some of the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of his world. While John Henry Otto was a well-trained former Prussian soldier, he was above all a civilized and thoughtful man of good-will and humanity. He approached faults and weakness in others with humor , kindness, and realism, and he clearly saw himself as one of the many, rather than as one deserving aggrandisement.
The 21st Wisconsin was a regiment which suffered a high number of casualties during the war. It received a harsh initiation into battle, when, just one month after the regiment was formed, it was thrown into a key position at the battle of Perryville. The regiment lost heavily in that conflict, with the serious wounding of its colonel, Benjamin J. Sweet, and the deaths of many officers and men. Battle was not the only thing with which these soldiers had to contend as part of their introduction to war: they were late in receiving essential equipment such as tents and waterproof blankets, as a result of which many suffered and died from exposure, as well as from the diarrhea and foot ailments which plagued most troops. Many of the regiment, including Surgeon Samuel J. Carolin, died from the impact of these deprivations upon their health in the month following Perryville.
The battles of Stones River (Murfreesboro), Tullahoma, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Resaca, Atlanta, Savannah, and Bentonville are also depicted and the narrative concludes with the grand parade in Washington which celebrated the end of the war. Otto's memoirs are one the only detailed first-hand accounts of some aspects of these battles and they provide much needed insight into their atmospheres -- how people reacted under crisis, how they interacted, how they sustained one another.
The felicitous collaboration of David Gould, John Henry Otto's great-grandson, and James B. Kennedy, a scholar of the 21st Wisconsin Regiment, has resulted in a readable, personalized classic. They wisely avoid over-editing some of Otto's spelling, grammar, and punctuation idiosyncrasies save where understanding might be compromised, and they permit the intelligent and eloquent soldier to speak for himself. That he was eminently capable of doing so is evident from the following passage in which John Henry Otto describes camping on Lookout Mountain: "We lived now so to speak in another Climate. At such an elevation the air was allways pure and keen and nearly allways, especially at night time, a lively wind blowing." (P. 215.)
This is a unique book, one deserving of several readings and one to share with family.
Memoirs of a Dutch Mudsill August 2, 2005
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is the best Civil War account of a midwestern (Wisconsin) soldier and the day to day activities that a common soldier had to endure that I have read. It chronicles the day to day life, as well every battle from Murfreesboro, to Atlanta, to the Savannah. Written from the perspective of a common soldier rather than from the perspective of a General. It reads like a novel. Excellent!
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