Author Description

"If the young Scot, George Miller, had travel and adventure in his sights when he joined the army in 1804, he was not disappointed. A founding officer of the brand new 95th Regiment of Foot (later the Rifle Brigade), he served as far afield as the Cape of Good Hope and South America (where he was taken prisoner at Buenos Aires) and, nearer home, in Spain, France and the Low Countries. At Waterloo he was briefly in command of the 2nd Battalion 95th before being carried off the field, wounded. During a long leave in 1817 he made a Grand Tour in Europe, and later was posted to Ireland on peace-keeping duties. The 162 letters which George wrote to his brother John between 1804 and 1828, supplemented by a long article in the United Service Magazine of 1842-43, describe his life as an army officer. Well written, reflective and humorous, the letters exude vigour and excitement and are often salted with critical and perceptive comments. They reveal a close relationship with his brother, family and friends in Scotland, England and France. The brothers had both received a good education and had income from inherited lands. George rose to the rank of Colonel in 1837, by which time John was an established QC and a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn. The brothers shard academic and literary interests. Travel appealed to them both, and their attachment to the family farms in Scotland was also a lasting bond. George Miller's letters, hitherto unknown, are an important find. Military historians will relish the immediacy of the letters; social historians may focus more on the life and attitudes of the Military; the general reader will appreciate all these elements through the filter of the cultivated epistolary style of the period. No reader can fail to warm to the writer, George Miller, whose pen brings him so vividly to life"--Dust jacket flap.