Eyewitness To The Peninsular War And The Battle Of Waterloo

The journals of the Honourable James Stanhope are among the most remarkable eyewitness accounts of the Peninsular War and the Battle of Waterloo, and yet they have never been published before. The long fight against the French in Portugal and Spain, the campaign in Holland, then the Battle of Waterloo James Stanhope lived through all these extraordinary events and recorded them in vivid detail.Stanhope served as an aide de camp to the major commanders of the day Wellington, General Graham, Lord Paget, the Duke of York among them. And he described his experiences and observations in a lucid and candid prose that makes his journals of great historical value and of compelling interest to us today. His writing gives a graphic inside view of the military and political situation of the time as it was perceived at the top levels of the British army, and he depicts the daily experience of campaigning during the Napoleonic Wars in an unforgettable way.

Voices from the Napoleonic Wars reveals in telling detail the harsh lives of soldiers at the turn of the eighteenth century and in the early years of the nineteenth - the poor food and brutal discipline they endured, along with the forced marches and bloody, hand-to-hand combat. Contemporaries were mesmerised by Napoleon, and with good reason: in 1812, he had an unprecedented million men and more under arms. His new model army of volunteers and conscripts at epic battles such as Austerlitz, Salamanca, Borodino, Jena and, of course, Waterloo marked the beginning of modern warfare, the road to the Sommes and Stalingrad. The citizen-in-arms of Napoleon's Grande Armée and other armies of the time gave rise to a distinct body of soldiers' personal memoirs. The personal accounts that Jon E. Lewis has selected from these memoirs, as well as from letters and diaries, include those of Rifleman Harris fighting in the Peninsular Wars, and Captain Alexander Cavalie Mercer of the Royal Horse Artillery at Waterloo. They cover the land campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars (1739-1802), the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) and the War of 1812 (1812-1815), in North America. This was the age of cavalry charges, of horse-drawn artillery, of muskets and hand-to-hand combat with sabres and bayonets. It was an era in which inspirational leadership and patriotic common cause counted for much at close quarters on chaotic and bloody battlefields. The men who wrote these accounts were directly involved in the sweeping campaigns and climactic battles that set Europe and America alight at the turn of the eighteenth century and in the years that followed. Alongside recollections of the ferocity of hard-fought battles are the equally telling details of the common soldier's daily life - short rations, forced marches in the searing heat of the Iberian summer and the bitter cold of the Russian winter, debilitating illnesses and crippling wounds, looting and the lash, but also the compensations of hard-won comradeship in the face of ever-present death. Collectively, these personal accounts give us the most vivid picture of warfare 200 and more years ago, in the evocative language of those who knew it at first hand - the men and officers of the British, French and American armies. They let us know exactly what it was like to be an infantryman, a cavalryman, an artilleryman of the time.

The British army during the Napoleonic Wars is often studied using English sources and the British view of their French opponents has been covered in exhaustive detail. However, the French view of the British has been less often studied and is frequently misunderstood. This book, based on hundreds of letters, memoirs, and reports of French officers and soldiers of the Napoleonic armies, adds to the existing literature by exploring the British army from the French side of the battle line.Each chapter looks at a specific campaign involving the French and the British. Extensive quotes from the French soldiers who were there are complemented by detailed notes describing the context of the war and the career of the eyewitness.Throughout the emphasis is on the voices of the lower ranks, the conscripts and the noncommissioned and junior officers. They describe in their own words the full range of warfare during the period not only land battles but battles at sea, including the Nile and Trafalgar and accounts of captivity in England are included too.This original and revealing material gives a fascinating insight into the attitudes and concerns of the French soldiers of the period and their views about their British enemy.

Second to none--the campaigns of the Coldstream Guards Daniel Mackinnon, the author of this book, was an officer of the Coldstream Guards. In 1833 he published a history of his regiment from its creation and through the wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France. This Leonaur book, a stand-alone account derived from Mackinnon's larger work focuses on his personal experiences. The regiment served in the disastrous campaign in the Low Countries under the Duke of York and saw hard fighting during the Peninsular War under Wellington. The author describes the regiment on campaign during the battles of Talavera, Busaco, Barrosa, Fuentes d'Honor, Albuera, Salamanca and Vittoria, as well as in the Pyrenees and South of France Campaign towards the close of the war. Mackinnon is perhaps best known as one of the heroic defenders of the château-farm of Hougoumont during the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. His view of these events is very personal and occasionally at odds with other accounts, though perhaps more interesting because of that. The author's text is accompanied here by the inclusion of maps and illustrations which were not present in the source book. Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.

Historian and expert witness to the great battle The author of this concise book was well qualified to undertake the task of documenting the events he witnessed. During the Peninsular War he served with the famous Light Division as an officer of the 43rd-the same regiment as William Napier. Kennedy saw much action and his description of the storming of Badajoz is the principal inspiration for that section in Napier's history. Despite his varied and interesting Peninsula War experiences Kennedy appears to have been a reluctant autobiographer and his brief account of his military services offers but a tantalising glimpse of what he might have left for posterity. Kennedy was present at Waterloo responsible-after the wounding of Alten-for much of the centre of the British line, the Third Division. In the original edition Kennedy's memoir appears at the start of his book, the Leonaur Editors have however elected to move it to the end of their edition together with a small 'stand alone' essay on proposals for the defence of Canada. His memoir-written in one long section-has also been separated into chapters about different periods of his career to make it more relevant for modern readers. The principal object of Kennedy's book is an analysis of the Battle of Waterloo. This is an excellent work, if idiosyncratically presented in numbered points and with little regard for literary nicety. Kennedy intends to convey the most information in the least possible words and his grasp of his subject is ultimately impressive. The Leonaur Editors have also re-presented this work unabridged in the interests of clarity. Available in softcover and hardcover with dust jacket.

For more than twenty years Europe had been torn apart by war. Dynasties had crumbled, new states had been created and a generation had lost its young men. When it seemed that peace might at last settle across Europe, terrible news was received Napoleon had escaped from exile and was marching upon Paris. Europe braced itself once again for war. The allied nations agreed to combine against Napoleon and in May 1815 they began to mass on Frances frontiers. The scene was set for the greatest battle the world had yet seen. Composed of more than 300 eyewitness accounts, official documents, parliamentary debates and newspaper reports, Voices From the Past tells the story of Napoleons last battles as they were experienced and reported by the men and women involved. Heroic cavalry charges, devastating artillery bombardments, terrible injuries, heart-breaking encounters, and amusing anecdotes, written by aristocratic officers and humble privates alike, fill the pages of this ambitious publication. Many of these reports have not been reproduced for almost 200 years.

Many books have been written about the British struggle against Napoleon in the Peninsula. A few recent studies have given a broader view of the ebb and flow of a long war that had a shattering impact on Spain and Portugal and marked the history of all the nations involved. But none of these books has concentrated on how these momentous events were perceived and understood by the people who experienced them. Charles Esdaile has brought together a vivid selection of contemporary accounts of every aspect of the war to create a panoramic yet minutely detailed picture of those years of turmoil. The story is told through memoirs, letters and eyewitness testimony from all sides. Instead of generals and statesmen, we mostly hear from less-well-known figures - junior officers and ordinary soldiers and civilians who recorded their immediate experience of the conflict.

'In a later age he would have become a successful war correspondent ... We have no more human account of the Peninsular War from a participant in all its battles. Vivid images - of people, landscapes, events - flows from his pen ... One of military history's great originals' John Keegan, DAILY TELEGRAPH These letters, in the form of a frank and amusing diary, were written by a private in Wellington's army who fought throughout the Napoleonic Wars. Private Wheeler's record covers the Peninsular Campaign, keeping order during the coronation of Louis XVIII (whom he called 'an old bloated poltroon') and his later posting to Corfu. Most of all, Wheeler's account of the historic Battle of Waterloo - written before the muskets of battle had cooled - reveals him to be a master of lively anecdote and mischievous characterisation.