When Thomas Hamilton set out to write this detailed history of the Peninsular campaigns, the great struggle for Portugal and Spain was still fresh in the minds of his intended audience. It was also seared on his own memory from his service in the war as an ensign and later lieutenant of the 29th Regiment of Foot. He served at the first siege of Badajoz, at the butchery of Albuera, where he was severely wounded, and, after his recovery, in the battles around the Pyrenees. Following his military service, he turned to writing, penning the noted military novel Cyril Thornton, and was a frequent contributor to "Blackwood's Magazine". The Annals were positively received by critics of his own time and were written with much detail from eye-witness accounts amongst his contacts in the military and literary circles that he moved in. They form an excellent and readable account of the military and political events of the Peninsular War and are less critical and argumentative than others written around the same period. This first volume takes the action from the opening of the War to November 1808.
