Harris (b. 1781) was an infantryman who served in the British army during the Napoleonic Wars. He is most widely remembered today as the author of this memoir which gives a rare insight into the world of the enlisted man in Wellington's army. Most memoirs published after the war came from serving officers and the experiences of ordinary soldiers were overlooked due to widespread illiteracy at the time. Harris was himself illiterate but his recollections were recorded in the mid-1830s by an officer who knew him, Captain Henry Curling, who kept the manuscript until 1848 when he succeeded in publishing it.