Waterloo Irishman

He carried the ladders into Badajoz. He survived Waterloo. Then he went back to war.Edward Costello was an Irish soldier in Wellington's army who spent years fighting his way across Portugal, Spain and France with the famous 95th Rifles.This is his story.From the recruiting streets of Dublin to the battlefields of the Peninsular War, Costello experienced the Napoleonic Wars from the ground level. He marched with Wellington's Light Division, endured forced marches, disease and starvation, fought at Ciudad Rodrigo, crossed the Coa under French attack, witnessed the retreat of Massena, and volunteered for the Forlorn Hope at the storming of Badajoz, one of the bloodiest assaults of the entire war.He survived wounds that should have killed him.He fought at Salamanca and Vittoria, crossed the Bidassoa into France, and stood with the Rifles at Waterloo in 1815, where a musket ball shattered his foot and cost him a toe.But Costello's military career did not end with Napoleon.Years later, after returning to civilian life in Britain, he enlisted again in the British Legion during the First Carlist War in Spain. He returned to the same mountains and battlefields where he had fought Wellington's French armies, this time as an officer commanding men of his own.The result is one of the most remarkable first-hand accounts of the Napoleonic Wars, combining battlefield action with the hunger, exhaustion, fear, discipline, comradeship and sheer survival that defined life for the ordinary soldier.The Waterloo Irishman presents Edward Costello's memoir in a substantially modernised and story-driven edition, edited and annotated for contemporary readers. Historical notes, a campaign timeline, geographical context and a military glossary help place Costello's experiences within the wider history of Wellington's wars.For readers interested in the Peninsular War, Wellington, the 95th Rifles, Waterloo, British military history, Irish military history and first-hand soldier memoirs, this is the war as experienced from the ranks.Not the view from headquarters.The view from the ladder, the battlefield and the hospital bed.