The phrase ” camp followers”, which re-enactors often uses soldiers wives, was used at the time to describe hangers on specifically on campaign, such as peddlers, prostitutes, and Portuguese new drivers: not soldiers wives who lived with the Army in barracks and billets as well as in camp. (Obviously you can’t have camp followers if you haven’t got a camp!) Soldiers wives were called as the soldiers wives, ” the wives”, or simply ” the women” (as opposed to the officers wives, who were “the ladies”).

next in the series Active Service

reproduced with kind permission from the author Victoria Soult Dennis