The Struggle for the Life of the Republic (review)

Charles Dana Miller was a grain merchant in Newark, Ohio, when the war started. A strong Unionist, he enlisted in October 1861 at the age of twenty-five. Due to his administrative experience, he was appointed as the First Sergeant of C Company 76th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. By the time of his discharge on November 19, 1864, Miller was a captain serving as the acting assistant inspector general of the 1st Brigade, First Division, 15th Army Corps, with his brevet major promotion coming after the war was over. Sometime after the war, Miller decided to write a narrative of his experiences during the war, which were not easily available to the general public until now.

Miller's memoirs add to our increasing knowledge of the trials faced by the individual soldier during the war and, as such, are a valuable contribution to our historical knowledge. However, the book, as edited, has some problems. First, the endnotes are far too extensive. The notes for Chapter 6 cover two pages of small print while the chapter itself is only a little over two pages long of much larger print. Second, any errors in the memoirs are discussed in the endnotes, and as very few general readers will ever look at them, errors in Miller's memoirs may become fact to them. Third, there are only three maps in the entire book. Three maps are far too few to explain to the general reader where all of the events were occurring. Miller's memoirs have a lot to say about the experiences of a junior officer in the war, but they could have been packaged much better.

The biggest disappointment with the book is that it could have been made into a superb historical source. In Appendix B three of Miller's letters that he wrote home are included with the implication that many others were written but not included. The book could have been a superb historical source if Miller's postwar memoirs were compared to his wartime letters. A collection of wartime letters and postwar memoirs is an opportunity that does not happen frequently. Perhaps another researcher will take advantage of this opportunity. If so, it will be interesting to learn if and how Miller's perception of the war changed with time.