- Paperback: 208 pages
- Publisher: Collins; New edition edition (6 May 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0004145372
- ISBN-13: 978-0004145372
- Product Dimensions: 25.6 x 18.8 x 1.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 482,580 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Product Description
Based on original accounts taken from the diaries, journals, and letters of veterans of the British Army from 1808-1815, this is a fascinating reconstruction of what life was really like for a British soldier during the wars against Napoleon.
Created from first-hand written accounts and contemporary military manuals of the time, this remarkable text presents a fascinating insight into the nitty-gritty of everyday life for the British soldier during the Peninsular war and leading up to the Battle of Waterloo.
With photographs of original items of equipment and of modern day re-enactment groups, Marching with Sharpe reveals what it was really like for ordinary soldiers and their camp followers.
Find out how the rifle developed from the musket; what kit the soldiers carried; how they kept dry in the mountains of Spain; what they ate; how the infantry faced charging cavalry and what the battlefield was like after ‘victory’.
Re-enactment is a growing ‘family’ activity, so there were plenty of troops and ‘camp followers’ to help the author illustrate the lives of the men and indeed the women and children who accompanied the regiments on campaign.
From the Author
In Marching with Sharpe, the words of the soldiers of the Duke of Wellington's army tell their own story, the soldiers' story. The photographs of re-enactors give it sight.
Patrick O'Brian (The Aubrey/Maturian Series) called the technique "Stitching Passages," where the author combines first hand recollections of participants and eye-witnesses into a coherent tale, forming a bridge to their thoughts, feelings, and experiences -- with their turn of a phrase, lilt in the tone, and complete with every unique twist on the syntax of the English language.
Hopefully, you will feel you are there around the fire after a long, hard day in the Peninsula, getting to know these men who, against all the odds, defeated the might of Napoleonic France; describing in their own terms their joys, their jokes, their fun, their fashions, their food, their feats; the obstacles they overcame, the tragedies of their failures, and … their victories.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
B. J. Bluth’s Marching With Sharpe is a unique piece of historical writing. Part docu-drama, part material history and part historical recreation, the book follows the life and times of the soldiers in Wellington’s army as the British drove Napoleon’s generals from Spain, defeating them in France in 1815. The book is inspired by the mythical Rifleman Richard Sharpe, the creation of writer Bernard Cornwell, and Bluth expands Cornwell’s focus on Sharpe to include the very ordinary and often neglected parts of soldiering in the early nineteenth century.
We learn about details of which we don’t even know we are ignorant: not just tactics, weaponry, and kits, but reading material officers requested for the field, one with over thirty titles, including Shakespeare, a book on hydrology, and Adye’s pocket Bombardier. We learn not just the actual path of the army’s march but the daily life of marching itself – rests, favorite trees, and games played at the end of day. If you want to relive an actual military campaign Bluth gives the details that bring it to life.
Two other features of the book are also remarkable. The book is filled with photographs of modern recreations of Wellington’s marches and battles in the pursuit of Napoleon’s armies. These bright modern photographs make the battle seem a present day event but ample reproductions of military artifacts and written material of the period locate the whole experience in the early 1800’s.
Furthermore, Bluth uses actual words of the participants and "stitches" them together to form a coherent and eloquent narrative of soldiering. This is truly what the introduction claims, a record of "what solders thought, experienced and saw."
You want to know how many mules an army of 15,000 men need in order to carry supplies? The amazing answer is 3,500 – along with 1,600 horses, and at times 2,000 slaughter bullocks! Why no carts? Carts obstructed narrow roads and put troops in danger. You can make a harrowing visit to the infirmary where amputations go on all the time, and you learn that French and British troops were placed in the same field hospitals.
This kind of recreation, backed with solid historical facts, makes the real thing even more real. Bluth supplies detailed bibliographies for each chapter and valuable maps, chronologies, and index.
Save yourself the danger and grief, go Marching with Sharpe.
We learn about details of which we don’t even know we are ignorant: not just tactics, weaponry, and kits, but reading material officers requested for the field, one with over thirty titles, including Shakespeare, a book on hydrology, and Adye’s pocket Bombardier. We learn not just the actual path of the army’s march but the daily life of marching itself – rests, favorite trees, and games played at the end of day. If you want to relive an actual military campaign Bluth gives the details that bring it to life.
Two other features of the book are also remarkable. The book is filled with photographs of modern recreations of Wellington’s marches and battles in the pursuit of Napoleon’s armies. These bright modern photographs make the battle seem a present day event but ample reproductions of military artifacts and written material of the period locate the whole experience in the early 1800’s.
Furthermore, Bluth uses actual words of the participants and "stitches" them together to form a coherent and eloquent narrative of soldiering. This is truly what the introduction claims, a record of "what solders thought, experienced and saw."
You want to know how many mules an army of 15,000 men need in order to carry supplies? The amazing answer is 3,500 – along with 1,600 horses, and at times 2,000 slaughter bullocks! Why no carts? Carts obstructed narrow roads and put troops in danger. You can make a harrowing visit to the infirmary where amputations go on all the time, and you learn that French and British troops were placed in the same field hospitals.
This kind of recreation, backed with solid historical facts, makes the real thing even more real. Bluth supplies detailed bibliographies for each chapter and valuable maps, chronologies, and index.
Save yourself the danger and grief, go Marching with Sharpe.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Marching with Sharpe is the most interesting book on a soldier's life that I have ever had the pleasure of reading! Dr. Bluth's book not only includes and explains the political struggles of the era, it also lets us live the lives of the Rifle Corps under the Duke of Wellington, until the defeat of Napoleon. The use of journals, diaries, letters, pictures and advertisements as well as historical events is fascinating to the historian as well as the casual reader. It is well written as well as informative. A difficult book to put down. I look forward to giving a copy to my daughter-in-law, a history teacher.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Marching with Sharpe, is the most fascinating book on a soldier's life that I have ever had the pleasure of reading! Dr. Bluth's book not only includes and explains the political struggles of the era, it also lets us live the lives of the Rifle Corps under the Duke of Wellington, until the final defeat of Napoleon. The use of journals, diaries, letters, pictures, advertisements and other materials, as well as historical events is as fascinating to the historian as well as the casual reader. It is interesting as well as infomative. A difficult book to put down. I look forward to giving a copy to my daughter-in-law, a history teacher in Santa Barbara.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Marching With Sharpe
Having got this book out of the Library a number of times I decided it was about time I owned my own copy. Read more
Published 18 months ago by JConn
Marching with Sharpe
I have read this book numerous times, when the book first came out, I was part of the re-inactment group that helped with the pictorial part of the book, it was great to see how... Read more
Published on 5 Oct 2003
Making History Come Alive
Marching with Sharpe is the most fascinating book on a soldier's life that I have ever had the pleasure of reading! Dr. Read more
Published on 16 Jun 2003 by shelley o. smith
The life of the ordinary infantryman in a forgotten war
Dr. B.J. Bluth has taken a neat approach to history. She allows the reader to understand the daily life of the common soldier. Read more
Published on 12 May 2003 by Stephen P Ruff
Service under Wellington, a soldier's view.
Dr. Bluth has written a spellbinding story about the experiences and events in a soldier's life, almost 200 years ago. Read more
Published on 4 April 2003 by shelley o. smith
Marching with Sharpe
This book is just what family historians have been waiting for, anyone researching family members that served in Wellingtons Army will be able to put flesh on the bones of their... Read more
Published on 7 Mar 2002
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