Wellington's Right Hand by Joanna Hill
From the shadow of Wellington, comes a compelling portrait of one of history's forgotten heroes. One of the most unlikely soldiers of his day, Rowland, Viscount Hill was imaginative, intelligent and brave. Frequently leading from the front in some of the Napoleonic Wars' most deadly battles, Hill was given his own 'detached' corps with which he fought his way through Spain, Portugal and France, winning unlikely victories such as at the Battle of St Pierre, where he defeated Marechal Soult by holding the French at bay for almost a whole day with a force less than half their number. He became so indispensible to Wellington that when the great man was asked to let Hill leave the Peninsula to lead an army elsewhere, he retorted: 'Would you cut off my right hand?' Away from the battlefield Lord Hill had the courage to stand up to George IV and William IV and feuded with Lord Grey. Wellington's Right Hand traces the career of a man who fought some of the most famous battles in military history, including Corunna, Talavera, Bussaco, Almaraz, Vitoria and Waterloo. Based on the Hill papers and a wide range of primary and secondary sources, this work will have great appeal for students of the period and Napoleonic enthusiasts alike.Writer and historian Joanna Hill is the great, great, great niece of Rowland Hill and as such has gained unique access to the Hill family archives. In April 2005, she published her first book on the Hill family, The Hills of Hawkstone and Attingham; the Rise, Shine and Decline of a Shropshire Family.
Serendipity has sometimes led her life in the footsteps of her illustrious ancestor. While working at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University’s post graduate department for the history of art and archaeology, she spent three very hot seasons excavating in the Nile Delta of Egypt, a few kilometres from the site of one of the General’s very first battles, at Aboukir in 1801. She currently lives with her husband (and an international champion Skye terrier, Dougal) in a 13th-century hilltop bastide village in South West France. This is just a short distance north of St Pierre d’Irube at the foot of the Pyrenees, where Rowland Hill won his very own general action in the closing stages of the Peninsular War in December 1813. When the victorious British cavalry rode home through France from Toulouse to the channel ports in May the following year, they must have passed by.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780752459172 |
| ISBN 10 | 0752459171 |
| Title | Wellington's Right Hand |
| Author | Joanna Hill |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | The History Press Ltd |
| Year published | 2011-01-28 |
| Number of pages | 256 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |