A Regimental history of a British Army unit, originally called the 54th, then the 43rd Regiment, (Monmouthshire Light Infantry), later incorporated into the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Formed in 1741, the Regiment's first action came during the War of Austrian Succession when it defended the island of Minorca. The writer gives vivid and humane accounts of regimental life in its early years - including a fearsome punishment for cowardice known as 'riding the horse'. The 43rd were present at Wolfe's great victory at Quebec, and the author gives a colourful account of the battle, and of its next engagement in the American War of Independence, in which it fought at Lexington, Bunker Hill and finally Yorktown. During the Napoleonic Wars, the regiment was present at Sir John Moore's retreat to Corunna, the disastrous Walcheren expedition, and the Peninsular war in which it fought at the battles of Busaco, Fuentes d'Onoro, the storming of Ciudad Roderigo and Badajoz, the battles of Vittoria and Salamanca, the Nive and Toulouse. It was back in North America in the War of 1812, and was present at the battle of New Orleans.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.