Adventures in the Rifle Brigade in the Peninsula, France and the Netherlands, from 1809 to 1815

Adventures in the Rifle Brigade is probably the best-known and most popular of the many memoirs written by the men who served under Wellington in the Peninsular War and Waterloo Campaign. The author, John Kincaid (1787-1862), served as an officer in what was then the 95th Foot, the most famous of Wellington’s regiments, which was ‘first in the field and last out’. Kincaid fought in most of the great campaigns in the Iberian peninsula between 1809 and 1814 and at Waterloo in 1815. Originally published in 1830, this book is history at its best: informative, enlightening and perceptive, hard fact mixed with humour, a vivid description of life on campaign with one of the most famous regiments in the British army. It is, furthermore, highly readable and engaging: a contemporary review noted that Kincaid’s book ‘has one fault, the rarest fault in books, it is too short’.