An Original and Authentic Journal of Occurences during the late American War: from its Commencement to the year 1783.

AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WARS - IRISH SOLDIER'S IMPORTANT FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT
first edition tall 8vo. iv, xxiv, (5)-294, 293-438pp. (complete), 1 plate (letterpress order of battle), list of subscribers on p.ix-xxix, contemporary tree calf, smooth spine paneled by gilt fillets and with red morocco label gilt, free endpapers sometime neatly removed, contemporary small outline drawing of a boat on both paste-down endpapers, contemporary owner's name at head of (slightly dusty) title page crossed out, headband of spine just a trifle chipped and joints slightly cracked at head, but overall a very good and handsome copy. Despite the minor flaws a much better copy than is usually encountered.
SABIN 38724 HOWES U.S.iana, L36
One of the best personal narratives by a soldier in the American Revolution. Lamb (Dublin, 1756–1830), soldier and writer, after somehow receiving an excellent education in English composition "at the age of seventeen he entered the army, joining the 9th regiment of foot at Waterford. He quickly rose to the rank of sergeant and, being at times attached to the general hospital, acted as a surgeon's mate or even surgeon in emergency situations. [In] April 1776 Lamb .. with his regiment ... sailed for Quebec. For the next seven years he was involved in the American War of Independence, about which he later published [this] detailed, personal account" [O.D.N.B.] He describes many campaigns and his part in them, including how after being captured by the Americans on two occasions he escaped and rejoined the British forces. He returned to Dublin in 1784, married and "for the remainder of his life taught at the free school in White Friar's Lane, Dublin. He spent his leisure time writing two accounts of his life in North America, his Journal of the war and a Memoir of His Own Life (1811) about the characters, anecdotes, plants, and animals of Canada and New England. ... He was a keen observer and a careful writer, and his books - especially his account of a non-commissioned officer's experience of the American war - have since become an important source for historians of the revolutionary period and of late eighteenth-century warfare" [O.D.N.B.]. His two books were the basis of two fictionalized accounts by Robert Graves.