Robert Blakeney

Born in Galway in 1789, Robert Blakeney entered the army in 1804 and served as a subaltern in the 28th Regiment. The memoir later published as A Boy in the Peninsular War follows his experiences in the British campaigns of the Napoleonic era, including the Coruña campaign and later fighting in Spain and Portugal.

What makes his writing stand out is its directness. Instead of offering a grand history of the war, he shows what military life felt like from the ground level: confusion, danger, endurance, and the strange routines of campaigning while still very young.

Blakeney left the army in 1828. His autobiography was published after his death, in an edition prepared by Julian Sturgis in 1899, and it remains valued as a lively firsthand account of the Peninsular War.