The French government used its Bulletins of the Grand Army to report official versions of the course of military campaigns. In a rare admission of problems, Bulletin no. 29 reported the French losses in Russia.
Adrien-Jean-Baptiste-François Bourgogne (1785–1867) was the son of a cloth merchant from northern France. He fought in Poland in 1806; in Austria, Spain, and Portugal in 1809–11; and in Russia in 1812–13. His memoirs were first published in 1857. In…
Fighting under the name Alexander Durov, Nadezhda Durova was the daughter of a Russian officer who dressed as a man to join the Russian army in 1806. Although it became known that she was a woman, she was allowed to serve until 1816 when she retired…
This account, probably by Thomas Howell, a soldier of the Highland Light Infantry regiment, offers a firsthand account of the skirmishes between British/Portuguese forces and the French armies. Little is known about Howell except that he was born in…
The “French” armies included units from many allied states. Excerpted below is the memoir of an ordinary foot soldier in Napoleon’s army. Jakob Walter came from Württemburg, one of the medium-size German states allied with Napoleon. He fought against…
Rainsford paints a glowing portrait of the abilities and accomplishments of L’Ouverture, the most noted leader of the rebellion and one of the key founders of the nation of Haiti.
Rainsford’s sympathy for the revolt in Haiti did not seem to extend to the influence of ideas imported from revolutionary France, which appear to have been at the heart of Ogé’s rebellion.
