Wellington's Right Hand : Rowland, Viscount Hill

One of the most unlikely soldiers of his day, General Rowland Hill, 1st Viscount Hill of Almarez was imaginative, brave – and perhaps more surprisingly for the period in which he lived and fought – compassionate towards those under his command. This is the compelling story of one of history’s forgotten heroes, a man who frequently led from the front in some of the deadliest battles of the Napoleonic Wars.

Hill was given his own ‘detached’ corps and fought his way through Spain, Portugal and France, winning battles against the odds – such at St Pierre, where he defeated the redoubtable Marechal Soult when outnumbered two to one. When ministers at home asked that Hill be allowed to leave the Peninsula and lead an army elsewhere, Wellington dismissed the idea with ‘Would you cut off my right hand?’

Hill fought at Roliça, Corunna, Talavera, Bussaco, Almarez, Vitoria and Waterloo. He succeeded the Duke in 1828 as Commander-in-Chief of the forces and served as such until he resigned in 1842, a period marked by civil unrest that he reluctantly was obliged to confront.

Based upon the Hill papers and a wide range of other primary sources, Wellington’s Right Hand is an important addition to the literature of the Napoleonic age and in particular to that of the Peninsular War.