Jakob Walter (September 28, 1788 – August 3, 1864) was a German soldier and chronicler of the Napoleonic Wars. In his later years, he wrote an account of his service in the Grande Armée, including a detailed account of his participation in the campaign of 1812, Napoleon's Russian campaign against Tsar Alexander I. This, together with Joseph Abbeel's diary, form the only known records of that campaign kept by common soldiers. Early life Jakob Walter was born in the town of Rosenberg in 1788, near Kaiya's land in the German state of Württemberg, which was part of the short-lived Confederation of the Rhine founded by Napoleon and was considered a French vassal state. By trade, Walter was a stonemason. He was a Roman Catholic and seems to have been devout; in his book, he condemns the Brandenburgian peasants for not attending Mass, and at one point tells how he destroyed a book he considered heretical. Walter recorded his sins as well. Walter's faith was a common focal point of hope throughout the war. First and Second Campaigns In 1806, Walter and his brother were conscripted into the regiment of Romig and served in the campaign of 1806-1807 in Poland, as part of King Jérôme’s contribution to the Grande Armée. He returned home in 1807 and was recalled for the campaign of 1809 in Austria. After this campaign he returned to civilian life and remained a private citizen through 1810 and 1811. The Russian Campaign In 1812, Walter was recalled once again for the Grande Armée's invasion of Russia. Originally Walter's regiment was under the command of the Crown Prince of Württemberg, but for the campaign of 1812 it was transferred to the command of Marshal Ney. March to Moscow As a common soldier, Walter had a limited view of the scope of the campaigns he was involved in. By far the greater part of his time was spent on the march, and most of his memoir concerns foraging; he speaks of the difficulty of forcing peasants to show where their food was hidden. He describes the extremes of heat and cold (made worse because he abandoned his extra clothing in the hot weather, and then suffered in the cold) and notes that more soldiers died from thirst than anything else, because there was very little good water on the route. At times he survived on dough balls made from looted