Imagine Bill Mauldin at the Battle of Waterloo, and you will get some idea of this book. These are the letters -- in the form of a frank and amusing diary -- written by a private in Wellington's army who fought through the Napoleonic Wars. Recently discovered at the home of Wheeler's great-granddaughter, they constitute the only firsthand report of campaign life in the era of flashing swords and light cavalry charges, when battles could still be won on the playing fields of Eton and warfare still had glamour. Private Wheeler's record covers the years 1809 to 1828 and includes the ill-fated Walcheren Expedition, the Peninsular Campaign and the Battle of Waterloo (which he calls simply "the three day's fight"). With his regiment he was responsible for keeping order during the coronation of Louis XVIII -- "an old bloated poltroon, the Sir John Falstaff of France" -- and he later did foreign service in the Grecian islands where he describes the barbarous habits of the natives with obvious enjoyment. Though these letters have lain undisturbed for over a hundred years, they remain as fresh as the day they were written. No commanding general putting together his battle reports, no retired colonel writing his memoirs, no historian reconstructing past events could possibly give the reader such a sense of actual participation. Wheeler would sit down to write about battles even before the cannon had cooled. He could describe the horrors of the battlefield and the amusements of camp life with equal relish. He was a master of the anecdote and it is easy to see why he "spent many happy hours sitting by the fire smoking my pipe and listening to the marvelous tales of my comrades," for he was undoubtedly doing the talking. The manuscript has been carefully annotated by Captain Liddell Hart, the British military historian, who has checked the authenticity of this record. His brief recapitulation of the Battle of Waterloo, which is included here, is a small masterpiece of military exposition. -- Dust jacket.