VOLUNTEER AND INTELLIGENT SOLDIER’S COMPANION 1803

A British soldier’s users manual from the early Napoleonic period. This concise book covers a wide range of military matters, including the formation of companies, battalions and regiments; drill; firing; care of colours; exercises, manoevres and even military funerals. What gives this fascinating volume added authenticity is that it is the work of an anonymous private soldier who, mindful of the dangers of a Napoleonic cross-Channel invasion, then at its height, dedicates his book to Lord Charles Hope, Scottish Lord Advocate, MP for Edinburgh and Lieutenant-Colonel of the 1st Royal Edin burgh Volunteers, with the stirring words: ‘In these times of alarm, may every Briton, animated by your soldierlike example, with firmness and alacrity, hasten to the unfurled standard of his native country’. An instructive and invaluable book for military enthusiasts. The text is accompanied by thirty copperplate illustrations and diagrams.