Trifles from My Portfolio: the Adventures of a Young Medical Officer of H.M. 66th Regt. in Portugal, Spain and India 1811-1817

To Spain, Portugal and India on campaign with the British Army



The author of this interesting Peninsular War account was a medical man attached to the 66th Regiment of Foot-the Berkshire Regiment. Walter Henry originally wrote his memoirs as two substantial volumes which covered all of his twenty nine year career in the army and which prominently featured a long account-filling most of the second volume-about his time in Canada. From Henry's perspective he was, of course, writing his memoirs irrespective of where he found himself, whereas from the perspective of posterity he has become one of the few voices which remain to us concerning pivotal periods of history and warfare. The Leonaur editors believe that readers prefer books concentrating on, where possible, a single subject area and so they have taken the decision to remove the latter part of Henry's writings from this edition. We trust readers will agree that this makes for a far more focussed and accessible text. We join Henry as a very young 'medico,' complete with a hat sporting an enormous black feather, as he embarks on his adventures in Portugal and Spain and takes us entertainingly through the Peninsular campaign, over the Pyrenees and into the South of France and the close of the Napoleonic Wars. Henry was not present at Waterloo, instead he received orders that sent him to India where he experienced-and as a consequence has left us a valuable and rare first hand account of-the war in Nepal against the formidable Ghurkhas who would one day become such a stalwart component of the British Army. This edition of Walter Henry's military adventures concludes as he is about to board ship which will take him to Canada after a stay on St Helena, at that time the final prison of Napoleon. This book has also been published under the title Events of Military Life.

Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.