Letters Home From The Crimea: Young Cavalryman's Crimea Campaign (military Memoirs)
by Richard Temple Godman /
1998 / English / PDF
115.9 MB Download
Among the British troops bound for the Black Sea in May 1854 was a
young officer in the 5th Dragoon Guards, Richard Temple Godman, who
sent home throughout the entire Crimea campaign many detailed
letters to his family at Park Hatch in Surrey. Temple Godman went
out at the start of the war, took part in the successful Charge of
the Heavy Brigade at Balaklava and in other engagements, and did
not return to England until June 1856, after peace had been
declared. He took three horses and despite all this adventures
brought them back unscathed. Godman's letters provide a picture of
what is was really like to be in the Crimea. His dispatches from
the fields of war reveal his wide interests and varied experiences
- they range from the pleasures of riding in a foreign landscape,
smoking Turkish tobacco, and overcoming boredom by donning comic
dress and hunting wild dogs, to the pain of seeing many friends and
horses die from battle, disease, deprivation and lack of medicines.
He writes scathinly about the rivalries and deficiencies of the
generals in charge, inaccurate and "highly-coloured" newspapaer
reports and, while critical of medial inefficiency regards women in
hospitals as "a sort of fanaticism".
Among the British troops bound for the Black Sea in May 1854 was a
young officer in the 5th Dragoon Guards, Richard Temple Godman, who
sent home throughout the entire Crimea campaign many detailed
letters to his family at Park Hatch in Surrey. Temple Godman went
out at the start of the war, took part in the successful Charge of
the Heavy Brigade at Balaklava and in other engagements, and did
not return to England until June 1856, after peace had been
declared. He took three horses and despite all this adventures
brought them back unscathed. Godman's letters provide a picture of
what is was really like to be in the Crimea. His dispatches from
the fields of war reveal his wide interests and varied experiences
- they range from the pleasures of riding in a foreign landscape,
smoking Turkish tobacco, and overcoming boredom by donning comic
dress and hunting wild dogs, to the pain of seeing many friends and
horses die from battle, disease, deprivation and lack of medicines.
He writes scathinly about the rivalries and deficiencies of the
generals in charge, inaccurate and "highly-coloured" newspapaer
reports and, while critical of medial inefficiency regards women in
hospitals as "a sort of fanaticism".
