With the Thirty-Second in the Peninsular and Other Campaigns: the Experiences of a British Infantry Officer Throughout the Napoleonic Wars

A British infantry officer of Wellington's Army

Harry Ross-Lewin is yet another of that small band of British soldiers of the Napoleonic era who wrote a memoir of his military service and in so doing left for posterity an invaluable volume of source material including his experiences of camp, campaign and battlefield, as well insightful perspectives on the campaigns of which he was part. Like Wellington himself, Ross-Lewin came from a family of Anglo-Irish aristocrats. It was then perhaps inevitable he would enter the militia and subsequently transfer into the regular army. This was time of great military adventure and opportunity. Ross-Lewin saw the siege and fall of Copenhagen, took part in the battles Roleia and Vimiera, the assault on Flushing and the storming of the Salamanca forts where he was severely wounded. His Peninsular War continued with the unsuccessful siege of Burgos and the retreat that followed, Badajos and the battle of Orthes as the campaign rolled through the Pyrenees to its conclusion in Southern France and Napoleon's abdication. The 32nd were called to battle once again for the Belgian Campaign of 1815 as Napoleon sought to regain the imperial crown as part of Kempt's 8th Brigade. The brigade was heavily engaged at both Quatre Bras and Waterloo itself sustaining over 1300 casualties. This is a riveting and essential first hand account of the sharp end of Napoleonic warfare and no enthusiast of the period will wish it to be absent from their library. Available in softcover and hardback with dust jacket.