Notebooks of Captain Coignet
Accounts of Jean-Roch Coignet. from his beginnings as a private soldier to his becoming Napoleon's baggage master in the Waterloo campaign.
Captain Jean-Roch Coignet was an illiterate peasant who was drafted into the French Army in 1799 and served in most of the major campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars. He was present at Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Eylau, Friedland, Spain, Wagram, the Invasion of Russia, Leipzig, and Waterloo. Despite his inexperience and size, Coignet was selected for the Grenadiers of the Guard with less than four years service, for bravery at the battle of Montebello. He served with the Grenadiers for the next eleven years, until they were disbanded after Waterloo.