5 ms·

British redcoat's lost memoir reveals realities of life as a disabled veteran

132 points by wglb 9mo ago

wglb 9mo ago
[flagged]
pessimizer 9mo ago
> It had been assumed that Byfield died around 1850, but O'Keeffe's discovery of the veteran's 1851 memoir, along with additional evidence from newspapers and archives, adds new chapters to his astonishing life story. I hate to be obnoxious, but what O'Keeffe did was happen upon a rare book in a small library the he recognized had been written by a semi-famous author. Instead of scanning it (or having it scanned) and putting it on archive.org, then writing his article, he's actively concealing these "new chapters" from the world. My assumption is that he's planning to put it into print in order to make a few bucks. According to the Google Books entry (which I don't quite trust, because why would there be a Google Books entry?), it's 80 pages, so he'll either have to write a hefty introduction of what seems to be a story about a disabled vet talking about Jesus, or he'll combine the war narrative and the post-war narrative (both obviously long out of copyright) into a single volume and hawk that, and the article he's written will be the introduction. I guess I advise him to self-publish and to make sure to also target Christian bookstores rather than just academic libraries? Survey a brick and mortar Christian bookstore of possible and get an idea about what covers sell?
- squigz 9mo ago
  Isn't this the book? https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/61f15583-612e-4ea5-aa89-2a57d106877c https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/61f15583-612e-4ea5-aa...
  - BrownRobin2 9mo ago
    Indeed. Don't think anything is being "concealed"! The rediscovered memoir has been transcribed and made available at the link posted above, while the full research seems to be available without a paywall here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-british-studies/article/from-amputee-to-author-shadrack-byfield-and-the-making-of-a-war-of-1812-veteran/775AD03CFBCD32F7688A34FAF365EAC5 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-british-s...
jmclnx 9mo ago
Sadly, i dare say in the US, except for advancements in Medical, disabled vets have a somewhat rough time these days :( Probably not as bad as Byfield, but compared to the standard of living now to back then, probably not that different when matched against the general population.
- readthenotes1 9mo ago
  What leads you to dare say that?
  - jmclnx 9mo ago
    When young, I saw the a few vets coming back from Vietnam, one I knew, and they were having a very hard time getting help.
- trollbridge 9mo ago
  100% disabled vets in America get a tax free allowance of $4,000 a month, plus free medical care, plus a great deal of support including full free college to pursue the possibility of employment, which won’t reduce the disability pay at all. I’d say America is taking care of them pretty well compared to Dickensian conditions.
  - zdragnar 9mo ago
    Experiences with VA can be wildly different. Disability can be easy or hard to get, depending on which generation you got injured in and whether or not they think you're playing it up. I've heard both people saying that they were pushed to claim disability when they didn't actually need it, as well as men who definitely needed it getting turned down. Actual health care at the VA can be really uneven too. A friend of mine got a knee injury and was basically given a three month supply of an addictive painkiller and told to go sit at home and take however much he wanted. What do you think happens to a young man in his prime who is stuck glued to a couch other than sit around playing video games drunk all day addicted to painkillers? Well, in his case at least, he managed to get off of them and turn himself around before it became too destructive, but the lack of care he was shown by the doctors put him at significant risk for permanent harm. I've heard other horror stories, and stories of nothing but praise as well. YMMV.
weirdmantis69 9mo ago
[flagged]
AtlasBarfed 9mo ago
I get they are fictional, but what strikes me from typical Victorian England proletariat dramas... Is that the British empire at the time had the largest empire in the history of the world. And their people lived in squalor in London.
- bsder 9mo ago
  And the conditions for their vaunted military (both army and navy) was as bad or worse. A trip to the Fusilier Museum in the Tower of London really drove that home. Being a soldier absolutely sucked until pretty much the 20th century.
  - gerdesj 9mo ago
    You might like to note that Florence Nightingale largely invented the concept of effective treatment of broken soldiers and she was from these parts. You might like to ask this chap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Weston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Weston about being burned on a ship as a soldier many 1000 miles away from home. The thing about history is that it is remote until it is personal. My dad was a soldier (so was mum but she left to marry dad, because that was an "option" in the '60s). We lived in West Germany quite a lot and the LSLs (Landing Ship Logistic): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFA_Sir_Galahad_(1966) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFA_Sir_Galahad_(1966) were an option for travel to and fro' the UK. Me and my brother were teenagers at the time. The cooks on the LSLs were Chinese (Honkers - Hong Kong) and inveterate gamblers. I don't recall all the crew being Chinese as the wiki article says. After dinner, "pud" (sweet/pudding) was often apple fritters with syrup. Me and my brother had quite an appetite and my mum told me later that the cooks would bet on how many bowls of apple fritters we would demolish. Another thing I remember from the LSLs is that the tables had a ring around the edge about 1" high and very sticky table mats. They were flat bottomed, being designed to run up a beach, which had no chance because they were pretty old by the '80s. In any sort of a sea they pitched and yawed and made you wish you were a better person! Despite all that, one made it to the Falklands and died horribly along with a fair few soldiers. Galahad was actually one of the later ones. Lancelot was an old one and would never have managed the journey.
- 9mo ago

132 points by wglb 9mo ago

wglb 9mo ago

[flagged]

> It had been assumed that Byfield died around 1850, but O'Keeffe's discovery of the veteran's 1851 memoir, along with additional evidence from newspapers and archives, adds new chapters to his astonishing life story. I hate to be obnoxious, but what O'Keeffe did was happen upon a rare book in a small library the he recognized had been written by a semi-famous author. Instead of scanning it (or having it scanned) and putting it on archive.org, then writing his article, he's actively concealing these "new chapters" from the world. My assumption is that he's planning to put it into print in order to make a few bucks. According to the Google Books entry (which I don't quite trust, because why would there be a Google Books entry?), it's 80 pages, so he'll either have to write a hefty introduction of what seems to be a story about a disabled vet talking about Jesus, or he'll combine the war narrative and the post-war narrative (both obviously long out of copyright) into a single volume and hawk that, and the article he's written will be the introduction. I guess I advise him to self-publish and to make sure to also target Christian bookstores rather than just academic libraries? Survey a brick and mortar Christian bookstore of possible and get an idea about what covers sell?

squigz 9mo ago
Isn't this the book? https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/61f15583-612e-4ea5-aa89-2a57d106877c https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/61f15583-612e-4ea5-aa...
- BrownRobin2 9mo ago
  Indeed. Don't think anything is being "concealed"! The rediscovered memoir has been transcribed and made available at the link posted above, while the full research seems to be available without a paywall here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-british-studies/article/from-amputee-to-author-shadrack-byfield-and-the-making-of-a-war-of-1812-veteran/775AD03CFBCD32F7688A34FAF365EAC5 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-british-s...

jmclnx 9mo ago

Sadly, i dare say in the US, except for advancements in Medical, disabled vets have a somewhat rough time these days :( Probably not as bad as Byfield, but compared to the standard of living now to back then, probably not that different when matched against the general population.

readthenotes1 9mo ago
What leads you to dare say that?
- jmclnx 9mo ago
  When young, I saw the a few vets coming back from Vietnam, one I knew, and they were having a very hard time getting help.
trollbridge 9mo ago
100% disabled vets in America get a tax free allowance of $4,000 a month, plus free medical care, plus a great deal of support including full free college to pursue the possibility of employment, which won’t reduce the disability pay at all. I’d say America is taking care of them pretty well compared to Dickensian conditions.
- zdragnar 9mo ago
  Experiences with VA can be wildly different. Disability can be easy or hard to get, depending on which generation you got injured in and whether or not they think you're playing it up. I've heard both people saying that they were pushed to claim disability when they didn't actually need it, as well as men who definitely needed it getting turned down. Actual health care at the VA can be really uneven too. A friend of mine got a knee injury and was basically given a three month supply of an addictive painkiller and told to go sit at home and take however much he wanted. What do you think happens to a young man in his prime who is stuck glued to a couch other than sit around playing video games drunk all day addicted to painkillers? Well, in his case at least, he managed to get off of them and turn himself around before it became too destructive, but the lack of care he was shown by the doctors put him at significant risk for permanent harm. I've heard other horror stories, and stories of nothing but praise as well. YMMV.

weirdmantis69 9mo ago

[flagged]

AtlasBarfed 9mo ago

I get they are fictional, but what strikes me from typical Victorian England proletariat dramas... Is that the British empire at the time had the largest empire in the history of the world. And their people lived in squalor in London.

bsder 9mo ago
And the conditions for their vaunted military (both army and navy) was as bad or worse. A trip to the Fusilier Museum in the Tower of London really drove that home. Being a soldier absolutely sucked until pretty much the 20th century.
- gerdesj 9mo ago
  You might like to note that Florence Nightingale largely invented the concept of effective treatment of broken soldiers and she was from these parts. You might like to ask this chap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Weston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Weston about being burned on a ship as a soldier many 1000 miles away from home. The thing about history is that it is remote until it is personal. My dad was a soldier (so was mum but she left to marry dad, because that was an "option" in the '60s). We lived in West Germany quite a lot and the LSLs (Landing Ship Logistic): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFA_Sir_Galahad_(1966) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFA_Sir_Galahad_(1966) were an option for travel to and fro' the UK. Me and my brother were teenagers at the time. The cooks on the LSLs were Chinese (Honkers - Hong Kong) and inveterate gamblers. I don't recall all the crew being Chinese as the wiki article says. After dinner, "pud" (sweet/pudding) was often apple fritters with syrup. Me and my brother had quite an appetite and my mum told me later that the cooks would bet on how many bowls of apple fritters we would demolish. Another thing I remember from the LSLs is that the tables had a ring around the edge about 1" high and very sticky table mats. They were flat bottomed, being designed to run up a beach, which had no chance because they were pretty old by the '80s. In any sort of a sea they pitched and yawed and made you wish you were a better person! Despite all that, one made it to the Falklands and died horribly along with a fair few soldiers. Galahad was actually one of the later ones. Lancelot was an old one and would never have managed the journey.
9mo ago