Dear Bernard Cornwell,

thank you for Richard Sharpe!

Since my youth I was reading the books of Forrester, Kent, O’Brian and others. About 20 years ago, on a Saturday,  I was zapping on TV, and suddenly there were some men in green uniforms. The story started with a duel and ended with the battle of Vittoria. I was happy to find a good series. Unfortunately the series never was repeated.

Years later the series was on DVD and I bought it. Because the stories based on the books of Bernard Cornwell, I started to read book after book.  This year the last one was republished: “Sharpes Teufel”/”Sharpe’s Devil”.  Yesterday I started to read it, Sharpe and Harper are now visiting Napoleon.

In the last years I was reading the books on the way to work. A work in a psychiatric clinic. A work with violence and intrigues. Nothing is better as to start such a day with Richard Sharpe! What will I read next, when this era ends? I think your novels about the American civil war with Sharpe’s son Patrick.

I was born in Hesse. Genealogy is one of my hobbies and some of my ancestors were from Nassau. I knew that the Nassauers fought in Spain and at Waterloo. A long time I asked me if some of my ancestors were soldiers in the Napoleonic era.

In 2015 I  found that my great-great-great-great-grandfather Jacob Kohl from (Bad) Soden, second son of a widow, was called up to the army of Nassau in March 1809. He was 18 years old. I was frustrated because I didn’t found him in the assent books, the army had forgot to list him.  Last year I had more luck. I found Jacob in the lists of the 2nd regiment of Nassau while the campaign in Spain.  Then I discovered he became a prisoner of war at Vittoria. Vittoria, the battle of the first TV part I had seen Sean Bean as Richard Sharpe, isn’t it crazy? Some of the captured Nassauers were brought to prison hulks, others started a career in the british army. I don’t know Jacob’s fate from there till his marriage ten years later, I hope to find more in the future.

After  Nassau changed the sides to the allies in the end of 1813, a 3rd regiment was founded. Jacob’s older brother Johannes became a grenadier, but after the siege of Mainz he deserted.

Jacob’s younger brother Heinrich became a soldier in the 1st regiment and fought at Waterloo.  All of the three brothers came back and married in the 1820s. No luck had a cousin of Jacob’s wife. After the ending of the fights of the 16th June he arrived Quatre Bras with the 1st regiment, on the 17th June he had his 20th birthday, and at Waterloo he was wounded at arm and chest. He died in August in a hospital of Brussels.

Another great-great-great-great-grandfather, Johannes Schmitt from the Gimbacher Hof, left the Army of Nassau in 1809 after the campaign against the Prussians and married. Then his younger brother Franz  was with the 1st regiment in Spain, came back and had to fought with the 2nd regiment at Quatre Bras and Waterloo. He survived and came back as a corporal. In 1819 Johannes died and a short time after that Franz married his widow.

I think, I would not reserched this part of my family history without Richard Sharpe. Thanks again!

Viele Grüße aus Schwalbach am Taunus

Michael Geisler