The Waterloo Roll Call.

A single day in June 1815 decided the fate of Europe, and here is the register of the men who stood on the ridge — named, ranked and remembered, one by one.

What it's about

Charles Dalton's Waterloo Roll Call is a reference work listing the British officers who took part in the Waterloo campaign. Beyond bare names and regiments, Dalton supplies biographical notices — details of careers, subsequent lives and services — assembling a collective portrait of Wellington's officer corps at the climactic battle against Napoleon. It is the fruit of patient archival labour, compiled so that the individual participants would not dissolve into an anonymous mass.

Themes

The book is about memory and record — the impulse to fix in print who was there and what became of them. Through its entries run the themes of duty, service and the long shadow a single battle cast over the lives of those who survived it.

Why it still matters

For historians, genealogists and enthusiasts of the Napoleonic Wars, this remains a valuable prosopographical tool, a way of putting faces and lives to the units in the order of battle. It exemplifies the Victorian passion for exhaustive commemoration, and it keeps a famous engagement grounded in the individual human beings who fought it.

Who it's for

For military historians and Napoleonic-era specialists, for family historians tracing an ancestor who served, and for readers who want their history at the level of the individual soldier rather than the grand strategic sweep.

Sources and references

Verified references for this edition: Open Library, Charles Dalton on Wikipedia.