Facebook X YouTube Instagram TikTok NetGalley
Google Books previews are unavailable because you have chosen to turn off third party cookies for enhanced content. Visit our cookies page to review your cookie settings.

A Scot at War with Wellington (Hardback)

The Memoir of Captain James Stirling of the Black Watch

Colour Books Military > Pre-WWI > Napoleonic > Peninsular War P&S History > By Century > 19th Century World History > UK & Ireland > Scotland

By Gareth Glover
Imprint: Pen & Sword Military
Pages: 288
Illustrations: 16 colour illustrations
ISBN: 9781399041515
Published: 18th November 2024

in_stock

£28.00 was £35.00

You save £7.00 (20%)


You'll be £28.00 closer to your next £10.00 credit when you purchase A Scot at War with Wellington. What's this?
+£4.99 UK Delivery or free UK delivery if order is over £40
(click here for international delivery rates)

Need a currency converter? Check XE.com for live rates

Other formats available Price
A Scot at War with Wellington ePub (11.3 MB) Add to Basket £19.99


For such a famous regiment as the 42nd Regiment of Foot (The Black Watch), the number of published memoirs is surprisingly low. The discovery of the three hand-written journals in the collection of the National Library of Scotland covering the period from August 1808, when the regiment left Gibraltar for Lisbon until the end of 1813, are therefore of significant importance in our understanding of the actions of this regiment during the Peninsular War.

James Stirling became an Ensign by purchase in the 42nd Foot on 14 August 1805 at the age of thirteen, vice Ensign Thomas Munro. He then rose to the rank of Lieutenant without purchase on 27 August 1807. Stirling served in the Peninsula with 42nd Foot from September 1808 to January 1809, then at Walcheren and again in the Peninsula from May 1812 to August 1813 (from October 1812 as Aide de Camp to his father Major General James Stirling). On his father's retirement from active service, he joined the Portuguese Army from 9 November 1813 as a Brevet Captain in the 11th Line Regiment, remaining with them until 13 October 1814. He then became a Captain in the 42nd by purchase on 11 May 1815. He saw action at Walcheren, Corunna, Salamanca, Burgos, the Pyrenees, Orthez and Toulouse. He retired from the army in 1817 and died on 20 January 1818 aged only 25 years old.

These absorbing and revealing journals cover Captain James Stirling’s entire period of active service with the 42nd Foot, as well as the time he served with the Portuguese forces until the end of 1813, his sudden death preventing him from completing the record of his service with the Portuguese Army in 1814. Author Gareth Glover provides explanatory notes throughout to add extra context to Stirling’s commentary, making this book accessible for both the historian and enthusiast.

Any Napoleonic memoirs edited by Gareth Glover can be relied upon to contain interesting primary source material, supported by informative biographical details of the original author and explanatory footnotes on the military-historical background, and this book is no exception.

Captain James Stirling’s memoirs cover his service in the 42nd in the Corunna and Walcheren campaigns, and in the Peninsula from April 1812 to October 1813. In that month he transferred into the Portuguese 11th Line Regiment, giving him a step up to Brevet Captain, so the book includes some details of his service with that regiment at the Battle of Nivelle.

He became a Captain by purchase in the 42nd on 11th May 1815 but did not serve in the Waterloo Campaign and died on 20th January 1818 aged only twenty-five.

His journals, written up from notes made in pocketbooks, are thus untainted by reading Sir William Napier’s History of the War in the Peninsula and are a valuable addition to the relatively few Black Watch memoirs.

Eight pages of plates include modern colour photographs of Colonel James Stirling’s gravestone and his son’s epitaph inscribed on its rear; a portrait of Colonel Stirling; the Black Watch at Corunna by Harry Payne; the Black Watch in camp, 1815; and a map of the Peninsula, annotated by James Stirling to show his marches.

A one-page bibliography and an index conclude the book.

If you collect British memoirs of the Peninsular campaigns, you will definitely wish to add this volume to your library.

Miniature Wargames, Arthur Harman
 Gareth Glover

About Gareth Glover

Gareth Glover is a former Royal Navy officer and military historian who has made a special study of the Napoleonic Wars for the last thirty years. In addition to writing many articles on aspects of the subject in magazines and journals, his books include From Corunna to Waterloo, Eyewitness to the Peninsular War and the Battle of Waterloo, An Eloquent Soldier, fourteen volumes of The Waterloo Archive, Waterloo: Myth and Reality, The Forgotten War Against Napoleon: Conflict in the Mediterranean 1793-1815, The Two Battles of Copenhagen 1801 and 1807: Britain and Denmark in the Napoleonic Wars and Marching, Fighting, Dying: Experiences of Soldiers in the Peninsular War.

More titles by Gareth Glover

Customers who bought this title also bought...

Other titles in Pen & Sword Military...