Waterloo.

providing a highly detailed description of engagements with the enemy from 16 June 1815 onwards, 75 closely written pages, plus blanks, small 8vo, 1814-1816, stamp of Ernst August II, Crown Prince of Hanover and Duke of Cumberland to inside upper cover, later blue wrappers, light browning and staining to outer leaves



[together with:]  a nineteenth-century manuscript of an anonymous poem entitled "The Battle of Waterloo", in four parts ("Part the first The Muster...Part--the--second The March...Part--the--Third The Fight...Part---the---Fourth The Flight"), 35 pages, 4to, black ties, loose in a nineteenth-century red morocco folder, some gatherings detached; "Damals und Jetzt. Reminiscenzen eines alten Waterloo-Veteranen" by Sergeant-Major Nicolai of the Brunswick Büchsen-Jäger, twentieth-century transcript of an account of the 1814-1815 campaign, 34 pages, folio, with a related letter

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...bis endlich gegen Abend einige Preussen zur Verstärkung mit einem Hura hinter uns kamen und ausriefen, brüder ihr habt gut gestanden und brav gefochten, jetzt wollen wir auch auf die Hunde los. Die Englische Cavallerie und geschwinde Artillerie die am linken Flügel war zogen sich nun weiter rechts indem die Preussische Cavallerie den linken Flügel einnahm, die Cavallerie und Artillerie ging jetzt auf die Franzosen los, in Zeit von einer halben Stunde hörte man keinen Schuss mehr den[n] die Franzosen waren retterirt und davon gelaufen...

An exceptional eyewitness account of the Waterloo campaign. The anonymous soldier records details of locations, starting at Göttingen on 4 March 1814, and including Münden, Brönninghausen, Münster, Nijmegen, Turnhout, Bruges, Ypres, Oudenaarde, Brussels, Malplaquet, Hamm, Saint-Denis, Neuilly and Paris, ending at Göttingen on 4 February 1816, including routes, rivers crossed, weather conditions, quarters, operations, provisions, and other details of the long march in pursuit of Napoleon. This is very much the account of an ordinary soldier, with its descriptions of the wounds and illnesses of comrades, and includes graphic accounts of combat and its gruesome aftermath. He notes the deaths of the soldiers Henze and Drebing, lists exercises and parades, mentions the other regiments he encountered, names officers, including Colonel Best and Lieutenant Brenning, and records the movements of the French and the Allied commanders, including Wellington and the Duke of Brunswick, whose death is recorded.