Soldiering for Glory:
Footnotes, index, 185 pp., 2007. University of South Carolina Press, 718 Devine St., Columbia, SC 29208, $24.95 plus shipping. Here is the oddest of books, the story that begs to remain untold. This is the story of the editors’ German/Polish immigrant relative, Frank Schaller, who came to America in 1855 after an unsuccessful military career that should have begun and ended with the Crimean War, where he was ignobly sidelined by dysentery. He ended up teaching at a military academy in Hillsborough, N.C., and when the Civil War came, he forced his services on the Confederates who, to their chagrin, accepted him and quickly learned of his lack of leadership ability. Schaller did not even fit the historical profile of a Confederate sympathizer: he never owned land, or farmed or held menservants, and slavery was well out of fashion in Europe years before he came to America. He had no stake in the “new” Confederate Republic. Schaller makes it plain that he is mostly after promotions and an officer’s paycheck. There is something tawdry about his bold ambitions juxtaposed against his proven lack of talent as a leader. Every setback, no matter how minor, causes a relapse of his chronic dysentery, which he constantly refers to in correspondence to his betrothed, his darling Sophie. One senses the coming of failure and futility that follows. The highlight of his military career was being shot in the foot at Shiloh in 1862. From the evidence here Schaller seems to be at least a neurotic malingerer. He walked with a limp, as might be expected, but could still ride a horse and yet never returned to active duty. His intestinal illness seemed always to prevent it. He just sat back, collected his $400 monthly salary, and hung out lazily at hotels and resorts unless he was bothering more productive people with his petty grievances and writing Richmond to request periodic extensions to his furlough. He also favored the hot mineral spring Allegheny mountain resorts in western Virginia where he could soak his foot and drink mint juleps for which the resorts there are famous. Schaller later proved no more successful as a husband or parent, abandoning his daughters to his mother-in-law, after Sophie died in childbirth. What we have here is a collection of letters lacking historical value, mostly from Colonel Schaller to Sophie, where we are subjected to his unmanly excuse making and health problems in virtually every letter. No matter how many opportunities Schaller is granted to command, he can never get along successfully with other officers, or his own men. Whenever the soldiers in his command elect officers, he is always defeated, a fact he also blames on others. The most interesting letter would have been his description of his experience at Shiloh in 1862, where his regiment unfairly takes the blame for causing Gen. I also corrected Albert Sidney Johnston to be shot out of his saddle. He never wrote that letter, though. The best parts of the book are the editors’ explanations of events between Schaller’s letters. Soldiering for Glory is a decidedly poor choice of titles considering what the book delivers to readers. A better title for the material might have been My View of the Civil War from the Chamber Pot. The problem here is that the subject of the book is not seeking glory at all. He appears to be trying to avoid active duty and stay around as long as the Confederacy will have him, while providing nothing of value in return. His lack of motivation is offensive. Schaller is an unlikable character, but lacks enough vices to make an interesting villain. He is a failure as an officer, husband and parent, a lazy hypochondriac and a footnote to history best forgotten. There may be enough material here, in the right hands, for an article-length treatise with a representative sample of his letters, but stretching it into even a short book is remarkable content mileage. The limited amount of material of any interest to history is spread much too thin. History does not record much of this wastrel for a reason. Reviewer: Craig L. Barry is former co-editor of The Watchdog Civil War magazine and author of The Civil War Musket: A Handbook for Historical Accuracy.
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