A Voice from Waterloo

Waterloo as told by one who fought and became one of its first historians

The title of this book is doubly appropriate. Cotton was a soldier of the 7th Hussars who had served in Spain and became part of Wellington's polyglot army sent to Belgium to stand between Napoleon and his ambitions to regain the Imperial throne of France. He was in an ideal position to view the battle as a participant and his own experiences fighting with the light cavalry are retold in detail. After the battle Cotton saw an opportunity to make his living from the most momentous battle of the age and following his army discharge returned to Mont St Jean to become a battlefield guide and hotelier. Cotton's hotel still stands and is now the Waxworks Museum and part of the modern visitors' centre. Years of telling the story of the Battle of Waterloo enabled Cotton to fine tune his narrative and as a consequence he has left us an even handed and highly entertaining account filled with anecdotes related to him by other participants-on both sides of the conflict-as they revisited the battlefield in the years after those bloody days of June 1815. A Voice from Waterloo-the words of a soldier and a storyteller-was once the most popular book on its subject. It is an invaluable addition to any library of the Napoleonic Wars and also provides-as a consequence of its inspiration-a perfect companion for the modern Waterloo visitor as, perhaps, its most authentic expert tells his story once again across time.