This book lays bare the truth behind the adventures of Flashman and Sharpe. It includes ten eyewitness accounts of the battles, the privations and the adventure of armed service during the French Revolutionary War, the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812 - a time of hussars, artillery, musket sword, patriotic fervour, inspired commanders, heroes and, always, bloody carnage on the field. From Austerlitz to Moscow, New Orleans to Salamanca here we find the ordinary soldier's view of the war: the battles and the campaigns that set Europe and America alight. Gathered from memoirs, letters and dairies this book includes gripping accounts of the era's greatest engagements as well as giving details of the soldier's life: short rations, long marches, pitiful wounds, pillage, lashings, armours and so often, death.