The Letters of Private Wheeler: An eyewitness in action at the Battle of Waterloo

Description

'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.

Private William Wheeler was a soldier in the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. He served from 1809 until he was invalided out in 1828, then a sergeant. Living on his army pension, he turned his letters home into a journal, which was preserved by the family down the generations, until, in 1948, a visitor to the house saw it and thought it should be published. B H Liddell Hart was a British soldier, strategist and military historian. He wrote a series of acclaimed military history books including A HISTORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR, A HISTORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR and THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL.

They are simply marvellous. Wheeler was a naive writer of real power - a natural story-teller, a provider of portraits, someone whose gift was to bring everything he wrote about to life * TES * 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 have already become a minor classic ... deftly edited, they are clear and telling in the accounts they give of a soldier's day-to-day life, a mixture of danger, boredom, discomfort and occasional delight * GOOD BOOK GUIDE *