Historical Record of the Eighty-Eighth Regiment of Foot, or Connaught Rangers: Containing an Account of the Formation of the Regiment in 1793, and of Its Subsequent Services to 1837.

This official British military record chronicles the Connaught Rangers from their birth in 1793 through four decades of imperial service. The 88th Regiment of Foot earned their famous nickname serving alongside the Duke of Wellington, fighting in the Peninsular War, at Waterloo, and across the empire's far-flung campaigns. Richard Cannon's account, prepared under the Adjutant-General's direction, was designed not as popular entertainment but as institutional memory: a formal ledger of courage, sacrifice, and the regiment's place in the machinery of British military history. The record captures the raw reality of early Napoleonic warfare, from the mud of Flanders to the brutal Peninsular campaigns where the Rangers built their reputation. It documents battles, marches, and the grim calculus of casualties alongside honors bestowed. For military historians, this is primary source material that preserves details now lost to broader histories. For readers drawn to the grit beneath the brass, it offers something rare: an official account that still manages to convey the hardship and valor of ordinary soldiers thrust into extraordinary circumstances. The Connaught Rangers were Ireland's contribution to the British line, and this record preserves their story in the formal language of the era that produced them.