ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the development and contemporary critical reception of the body of writing. It demonstrates how the material, which had earlier been met with derision by reviewers, began to assume a privileged role in the commemoration of the nation’s wars. Mobilizing the population for war, particularly in response to threats of invasion, had been vital for the British government during the conflict with France, such that patriotic festivals and various forms of military spectacle were common across Britain. The widespread sense of the people’s involvement in the wars also established a role for personal forms of military memoir in such commemorative efforts. Between 1825 and 1830 nearly 40 accounts of military or naval life appeared in the British press, with roughly half of the accounts penned by soldiers or sailors from the ranks and the bulk of the remainder by subaltern military and naval officers.
