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Edward Cotton
1792–1849
A veteran of Waterloo who turned lived experience into one of the best-known early guides to the battle, he wrote with the practical eye of a soldier and local guide. His work helped shape how later readers and visitors understood the field at Mont-Saint-Jean.
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About the author
Born on the Isle of Wight around 1792, Edward Cotton served in the 7th Hussars during the Napoleonic Wars and fought at Waterloo in 1815. Sources about his book and later museum work describe him as Sergeant-Major Edward Cotton, and later as a longtime guide to the battlefield.
After leaving the army in 1829, he settled near Waterloo. The National Army Museum notes that he married a woman from near the battlefield, opened an inn, and became an expert on the campaign while collecting objects connected with it. In the preface to A Voice from Waterloo, Cotton wrote that he had lived on the field for more than fourteen years as a guide and describer of the battle.
His best-known book, A Voice from Waterloo, mixes eyewitness memory, official documents, and years of conversations with other veterans and visitors. It was revised and reissued in multiple editions, which suggests it found a lasting audience among readers interested in Waterloo and among travelers visiting the site. He died in 1849.