In this volume Lt.-Col. Batty recounts his memories of the Waterloo campaign in 1815 which he witnessed firsthand. As an officer on the staff he was ideally placed to write on the subject and added a great deal from enquiries that he made of other officers that he was acquainted with.

Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Batty (5 August 1789 - 20 November 1848) was an English army officer and artist.

He was born in 1789, the son of Dr. Batty of Hastings and started to study medicine at Caius College, Cambridge, being awarded an M.B. in 1813. He left his studies to join the Grenadier Guards (then the 1st Foot Guards), with whom he served in the campaign of the Western Pyrenees and at Waterloo, where he was wounded and wrote an account of the Battle of Waterloo in a series of letters.