Basil Jackson
An essential personal witness to great events and of great menNo enthusiastic student of the Battle of Waterloo-academic or amateur-could wish to be without this remarkable book in their library. Wellington’s ’glittering staff’ rode at their great chief’s heels as a body of forty horseman at dawn on the day of the great battle that would end an epoch. As the Duke rode back to Waterloo in the darkness of that apocalyptic day he was accompanied by just five. Young Basil Jackson, one of their number, was a staff officer, aged only 19 years, when he experienced the events of what became possibly the most famous battle ever. His book is absolutely compulsive reading and provides insights and information not readily found in regimental works. We discover that the route employed by the Prussians to Wavre had been mapped and was known, at least to the British, long before in was employed and many other interesting details. Jackson’s junior rank gave him a roving commission and he tells of his experiences in detail at Quatre Bras and over much of the Anglo-Allied line before Mont St. Jean throughout the conflict including the historical meeting between Blucher and Wellington at its close. There are so many interesting aspects to this book it is impossible to mention them all here, but the book is further enhanced and completed by the author’s appointment to join Hudson Lowe on St Helena with the fallen Emperor. So young Jackson came to know and engage in conversation with the very man who had set Europe ablaze. Recommended.
