ROUGH SKETCHES OF THE LIFE OF AN OLD SOLDIER Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Leach

This is one of the great classics of military service during the Napoleonic Wars. The full title of this tome is ＂ROUGH SKETCHES OF THE LIFE OF AN OLD SOLDIER during a service in the West Indies; at the siege of Copenhagen in 1807; in the Peninsula and the south of France in the campaigns from 1808 to 1814, with the Light division; in the Netherlands in 1815; including the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo: with a slight sketch of the three years passed by the army of occupation in France, etc.＂

This reprint is taken from the first edition (1831) of this important work, and as a first-hand account of the Light Division’s campaigns it deserves to be read by all who appreciate ’Sharpe’ - the British television drama - and the exploits of what became the most famous unit in the Peninsular War: the Light Division. Formed around the 43rd and 52nd Light Infantry and the 95th Rifles, the exploits of these three regiments are legendary. Over the next 50 months, the division would fight and win glory in almost every battle and siege of the Peninsular War.

Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Leach with this memoir gives a first-hand account of the newly formed light infantry division, at an interesting and turbulent time for the division. Leach gives here an unbroken narrative; almost every scene recounted in this work was one to which he was an eyewitness and recorded in his journal. For other scenes, the author utilised the logbooks of his brother officers.