Voices From The Penninsula: Eyewitness Accounts by Soldiers of Wellington's Army, 1808-1814

by Ian Fletcher

The Peninsular War was one of the most successful campaigns ever fought by the British Army. Between 1808, when British troops landed in Portugal, and 1814, when Wellington's Army advanced into the south of France, British soldiers were involved in countless battles and sieges against Napoleon's vaunted French veterans. Drawing on rare letters, diaries and memoirs, Ian Fletcher presents a superb insight into the daily lives of British soldiers in this momentous period and evokes such key battles and sieges as Vimiero, Talavera, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria and San Sebastian. Ian Fletcher's skillful compilation of accounts, placed in context by important background detail, make this the story of the Peninsular War in the words of the men who marched, fought and triumphed with Wellington. Although there have been many accounts of soldiering in Wellington's army, Voices from the Peninsula throws new light on the experience of Napoleonic warfare and brings to life what Wellington called 'the finest military machine in existence'.

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Allan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of accounts from the Peninsular - largely by enlisted men and junior offices giving day to day accounts

[Michael Dolan]

An excellent read. Voices from the Peninsula is a worm's eye view of the war in Spain, based on the diaries and letters of the junior officers and men who took part. The descriptions are often graphic and frequently funny such as Ensign Edmund Wheatley's account of the fighting at Bayonne. In the middle of the battle he discovered the body of one of his comrades and realised he'd just been promoted. Clonmel gets a mention in the recollections of Sgt John Cooper of the 7th Foot. A fellow Sergeant named Bishop had been seriously wounded and Spencer recalled that he had married an Irish woman in Clonmel who had accompanied her husband in Spain until she was flogged for stealing.