Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) REMINISCENCES OF SERGEANT-MAJOR RUNDLE [Illustration: COLOR-SERGT. EDWIN G. RUNDLE. Age, 28 Years.] A Soldier's Life Being the Personal Reminiscences of EDWIN G. RUNDLE Late Sergeant-Major in Her Majesty's Leicestershire Regiment of Foot, Instructor and Lecturer to the Military School, Toronto, 1866-1868. Member of the Red River Expedition. With Introduction by MAJOR HENRY J. WOODSIDE Author's Edition TORONTO WILLIAM BRIGGS 1909 INTRODUCTION. Of recent years we have had many books on military history, most of them chiefly devoted to the wars which have marked the extension of the British Empire. In Sergeant-Major Rundle's narrative we have the interesting story of how an honest English boy became attracted to the colors; how the British army lives, moves and has its being in the British Isles and in the Dominions beyond the seas; how that boy rose by honest effort to the highest non-commissioned position in that army; and most interesting of all, his experience on foreign service when his regiment took part in the _Trent_ affair and Fenian raids, following the close of the American civil war. Later, Sergeant Rundle became instructor at the Toronto Military School, where he trained some men now very prominent in Canadian affairs. He also was a member of the Red River expedition, which helped very much to open up and develop that western empire whose golden tide of grain is now flowing into the wheat bins of the British Empire. Scattered through the story are many interesting reminiscences and incidents. The actors in these dramas of a young nation's birth are falling by the wayside, and few have left a record of their adventures. It is from such that history is written. In revising the manuscript, "by order" of my truest of Klondike friends, Colonel S. B. Steele, C.B., M.V.O. (the lion of the Yukon), I have endeavored to interfere as little as possible with Sergeant Rundle's pleasant and simple style of narrative, and it has been a pleasure to assist one whose record and character are without stain, and whose loyalty to sovereign and country is without blemish. HENRY J. WOODSIDE. Ottawa, Ont., August 9, 1909. A SOLDIER'S LIFE. CHAPTER I. I was born September 17th, 1838, in the town of Penryn, County of Cornwall, England, and was educated at the national and private schools. When my education was sufficiently advanced, I was apprenticed to learn the trade of carpenter and joiner. My father was a paper-maker, and lived all his lifetime in the town. He was a strict teetotaler, and brought up his family, four boys and one girl, on the principles of temperance, which he assured us would form the basis of our future prosperity and happiness.