The Autobiography of Lieutenant-General Sir Harry Smith, Baronet of Aliwal on the Sutlej, G.C.B.

Harry Smith
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LIEUTENANT-GENERAL Sir Harry Smith BARONET OF ALIWAL ON THE SUTLEJ G.C.B.
EDITED WITH THE ADDITION OF SOME SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTERS By G. C. MOORE SMITH, M.A.
WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1903
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

The Life of Sir Harry Smith here offered to the public consists of an Autobiography covering the period 1787 to 1846 (illustrated by notes and appendices), and some supplementary chapters contributed by myself on the last period of Sir Harry’s life (1846-1860). Chapter XXXI. carries the reader to the year 1829. This, it is interesting to remark, is a true turning point in the life of the great soldier. Till then he had seen warfare only on two continents, Europe and America (the Peninsula, France, the Netherlands, Monte Video, Buenos Ayres, Washington, New Orleans); from that date onwards the scene of his active service was Africa and Asia. Till 1829 his responsibility was small; after 1829 he had a large or paramount share in directing the operations in which he was engaged. This difference naturally affects the tone of his narrative in the two periods.
The Autobiography had been carefully preserved by Sir Harry’s former aide-de-camp and friend, General Sir Edward Alan Holdich, K.C.B., but, as it happened, I was not myself aware of its existence until, owing to the fresh interest awakened in Sir Harry Smith and his wife by the siege of Ladysmith early in 1900, I inquired from members of my family what memorials of my great-uncle were preserved. Sir Edward then put this manuscript and a number of letters and documents at my disposal. It appeared to me and to friends whom I consulted that the Autobiography was so full of romantic adventure and at the same time of such solid historical value that it ought no longer to remain unpublished, and Mr. John Murray, to whom I submitted a transcription of it, came at once to the same conclusion.