Napoleonic Foot Soldiers and Civilians A Brief History with Documents

By highlighting the experiences of common soldiers and civilians, this volume by Rafe Blaufarb and Claudia Liebeskind presents a broad view of the Napoleonic Wars not found in typical military histories. The introduction recounts the key events of the wars and how they marked a shift in the modern notion of "total war" and provides necessary political and military background on the issues of recruitment and evasion, the military community, combat and its aftermath, the homefront, and demobilization. The rich collection of memoirs, letters, and popular engravings -- from familiar sources such as German infantryman Jakob Walter to an account of a French woman canteen worker -- offers contrasting voices, some offered here in English for the first time. These documents and images explore core civil-military interactions, including foraging, plunder, sexuality, violence, eating, religion, and commerce. Headnotes to the documents, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography provide pedagogical support.

RAFE BLAUFARB (Ph.D., University of Michigan) is Ben Weider Eminent Scholar Chair in Napoleonic History and the Director of the Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution at Florida State University. He is the author of The French Army, 1750-1820: Careers, Talent, Merit (2002), Bonapartists in the Borderlands: French Refugees and Exiles on the Gulf Coast, 1815-1835 (2005), and Napoleon: Symbol for an Age (2007). 
 
CLAUDIA LIEBESKIND (Ph.D., University of London) is associate professor of history at Florida State University, where she teaches world history, South Asian history, and the history of Islam. She is the author of Piety on Its Knees: Three Sufi Traditions in South Asia in Modern Times (1998).