The citizen soldier's tale: memoirs by militia privates of the Napoleonic Wars

The plebeian soldier memoir was a new feature of the literary landscape in the early nineteenth century. In the wake of Waterloo, dozens of such works were published, validating the humble soldier’s voice and celebrating his authentic experience of the realities of war. Military historians have long used these works as a mine of information, and literary scholars are beginning to take them seriously as Romantic literature. Whereas these soldier memoirs were written by regular soldiers who experienced battle and adventure on the Peninsular or in the Low Countries, this paper will instead focus on autobiographical works by militiamen. Little attention has hitherto been paid to life-writing by privates in the militia, perhaps because the auxiliary forces receive much less attention than the regulars, and also because of the apparent lack of source material. This study draws upon three main source types: memoirs by regulars who had formerly served in the militia; spiritual autobiographies; and the autobiographical writings of the poet John Clare, who served with the Northamptonshire Militia. Using this material, the paper will explore how militiamen told the story of their service. Historians often note the prominence of the ideal of the masculine ‘citizen soldier’ in this period, celebrating the civilian male who is motivated to fight by a desire to defend nation, home and family. Whereas the militia was celebrated in these terms in theory, historians usually argue that this played no role in practice. This paper will instead explore what role the notion of the ‘citizen soldier’ played in privates’ gendered self-identities, and whether this was distinctive from those of regular soldiers. It will also think about whether common elements in these narratives constitute a distinctive ‘soldier’s tale’ for militiamen.