'A Soldier's experience' by T Gowing is a personal narrative, collection of letters, biography of some soldiers plus a lot of information pertaining to military establishment. I read his personal narrative along with the collection of letters that he wrote to his parents from the battle field.
The book has been written with a lot of patriotic fervour. Despite that the narration is unbiased. The first part of the story is from the war against Russia and the second part is related to his stay in India. Out of his ten children born in India, only two survived. Six died in a single day due to Cholera. The letter he writes to his parents to break the sad news reflects the brave heart of a soldier. After reading a few books related to soldiers, I have concluded that human life was very cheap in those days. Deaths due to diseases were very common and thousands died on the battle field only to be forgotten soon. Death of a few hundred or a few thousand people hardly created any stir anywhere.
The mutiny of 1857 is a lot different if it is seen from the English perspective. Hundreds of English women were reported to be dishonoured and killed in Kanpur. Even children and infants were not spared. Some say that the mutineers believed that the seed of an enemy should never be spared. Long ago a resident of Kanpur was our guest at NOIDA. He had a firm believe in this policy and according to him it was taught by the political Legend Chanakya. Anyway, the massacre perpetrated by the forces of Nana Sahib infuriated the Britons and they avenged every drop of blood of women and children that was shed at Kanpur.
The author is full of praise for bayonet. According to him it is the queen of weapons. He has described several battles were the tables were turned by the use of bayonets, 'the cold steel' as he often called it.
This book can be downloaded from the following link http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46989
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