Marching with the First Nebraska: A Civil War Diary - August Scherneckau.
Edited by James E. Potter and Edith Robbins. Translated by Edith Robbins.
(April 2009 Civil War News)

Illustrated, index, 335 pp., 2007. University of Oklahoma Press, 2800 Venture Dr., Norman, OK 73069, $34.95, plus shipping.

Reviewer: Nicholas Kurtz
Nicholas Kurtz graduated from the University of Colorado-Denver in 2001 with a B.A. in history. He loves wandering battlefields and is an aspiring author. Although he finds all aspects of the war interesting his primary interest is the Western Theater. 

Review:
Marching with the First Nebraska combines August Scherneckau’s diary and letters into an interesting story covering the unit’s less than dramatic service in the Trans-Mississippi Theater. Before Scherneckau, a German immigrant, enlisted in the regiment it had served at Fort Donelson and Shiloh. In September 1862 Scherneckau enlisted in the regiment, which was then in Missouri.

The first action Scherneckau saw was in Gen. John Davidson’s northern Arkansas campaign in December 1862-February 1863. This campaign was more about gathering forage than fighting Confederates.

But even this Scherneckau makes interesting as he explains foraging in such a way that the reader gets a better appreciation for all the work involved. Some days Scherneckau spent picking corn from fields and loading wagons and other days Scherneckau spent shucking the corn that the foragers brought in the day before.

After that excursion Scherneckau’s company was sent to St. Louis to do guard duty, in the sense as the military police. This sounds like tedious work, but when he was not doing guard duty he seems to have quite a bit of free time, much more than most soldiers in the field experienced. Scherneckau went for walks around St. Louis, visiting camps, hospitals, museums, theaters and the naval yards to see ironclads being built for river warfare.

He also was part of the force that built Fort Davidson near Pilot Knob, a site that would play such a pivotal role in the battle of Sept. 27, 1864. Scherneckau’s regiment had moved back to St. Louis by then.

Soon after this the regiment was converted to cavalry. For some strange reason the regiment was not issued carbines, only sabers and revolvers to go along with their infantry rifles. Scherneckau even mentions at one point the regiment went through cavalry inspection and then did infantry inspection.

He rightly complains about having to handle so many weapons and doing the extra inspections.

The last campaign his diary discusses would be conducted as cavalry as the regiment moved down to Little Rock, the garrisoned Batesville and Jacksonport. It was at Batesville that Scherneckau was wounded, but it did not occur in battle. He was on his way to the picket post, got lost, approached the sentry from the wrong direction and was fired upon.

In fact he had not even fired his rifle at an enemy until the end of January 1864, roughly 16 months into his service.

While he was recovering from this wound his regiment received its veteran furlough and he returned to Grand Island. These men did not serve their full furloughs as the Indian War of 1864 kicked off and the regiment was called back into service to defend their state from the Indians.

The work of protecting the wagon routes seems to be never ending and the regiment ended up staying on active duty long past the end of the war. Scherneckau mustered out in October 1865 but his comrades stayed under arms until June 1866.

Scherneckau’s diary is full of other interesting tidbits. He remarks on all he sees around him. He writes about the countryside and the cities he sees. He writes about the weather, his comrades, politics and all sorts of things.

I found a few things especially interesting, such as when Scherneckau he says the first time he used his bayonet was to kill a pig.

His opinions are also quite interesting. At one point, in responding to a rumor that the regiment would be sent to the Kansas-Missouri border to enforce law and order, which would include stopping the attacks by the Kansans as well as the Missourians, Scherneckau says, “The copperhead governor will find out that they have chosen the wrong men for this, since surely we will make common cause with the Kansas boys. We would help eradicate the border tramps, alias bushwhackers, with fire and sword.”

While Scherneckau’s diary is not filled with tales of battle it is still an interesting read because he fills his pages with plenty of details of soldier life and guard duty in the Trans-Mississippi. Scherneckau also was a keen observer of the world around him.