A Soldier's Experience; or, A Voice from the Ranks / Showing the Cost of War in Blood and Treasure. A Personal Narrative of the Crimean Campaign, from the Standpoint of the Ranks; the Indian Mutiny, and Some of its Atrocities; the Afghan Campaigns of 1863

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Price:—Gilt Edges, 6s. 6d. Copies may be had on application to the Author—T. Gowing, 200, Chippinghouse Road, Sheffield; or from The Publishers, Nottingham.

Having been much encouraged by the rapid sale of 22,500 copies of the first editions of my book, and being urged by a number of friends to go more deeply into the subject, I have revised and considerably enlarged it, and hope that the following pages will prove of interest, not only to the rising generation, but to all thinking people. I have confined myself strictly to a narrative of facts, whether the incidents related came under my own observation or otherwise. A number of gentlemen have kindly given me valuable assistance, and I am, moreover, indebted to some of the best military writers, having consulted Napier, Maxwell, Alison’s “Europe,” Wellington’s Despatches, &c. Historical facts are here brought forward which, probably, few of the rising generation are acquainted with. My object has been to compress the largest amount of information into the smallest possible space, and to insert in one volume some of the most surprising and interesting events that have ever taken place on land, and in which a Briton will glory.
Some may regard the work as of a very mixed character, nevertheless I am in hopes that it will both interest and entertain thousands. And here I must beg my readers to remember that the book is submitted to their judgment as a record of facts, and not as an attempt at fine writing.

I took part in some of the most desperate scenes in those arduous campaigns of the Crimea, the Indian Mutiny, and Afghanistan. At the Alma I was one of those who led the way up the fatal heights; at Inkermann I was in the thick of the fight, and was wounded. I was beside that Christian hero, Captain Hedley Vicars, when he fell in his country’s cause, with the words on his lips—“For England’s home and glory—follow me.” It would be well if thousands of the fast young men of the present day took a lesson from the life of that exemplary soldier. I was also engaged in those memorable struggles that were carried on, night after night and day after day, before Sebastopol; and was wounded a second time in that bloody attack on the Redan, in which a Norfolk man—the late General (then Colonel) Windham—gained an immortal name. In giving my experiences during that campaign I may in some respects seem to be repeating an “oft-told tale,” yet, as a personal narrative, it will, I think, be new to many, and will afford information not elsewhere to be found.