Based on the author's exhaustive researches, this is the first dedicated account of the practice of surgery during the pre-anaesthetic and pre-antiseptic days of the Napoleonic War. The author, a retired surgeon, captures both the background and the nature of the patients, the experience of wounding and the training of surgeons. The surgeons had to battle against contagion, infection and bleeding, often operating in the most appalling conditions but in spite of this some of their results were truly remarkable.