File:18 June 1815 – Victory at Waterloo – In Memoriam Sgt Edward Cotton, "A Voice from Waterloo".jpg

English: In Memoriam Sgt.-Maj. Edward Cotton (1792 ? – 24 June 1849), author of A voice from Waterloo.

Edw. Cotton served in the British Army for several years, took part to the Battle of Waterloo and retired thereafter : the definitive collapse of the napoléonic régime allowed Europe to live in peace. He settled at Mont-Saint-Jean and made a living from his services as guide to visitors (pilgrims) of the battlefield. He went on buying a house (or had it built) at the foot of the Lion's Mound (built 1826), large enough to serve as a hotel – also as museum where memorabilia found on the battlefield were exhibited : ►([1]).

At the end of his life, Edward Cotton put his own memories of the battle into writing, minutely documented and expanded thank to the information and documents he had collected over thirty years. It was self-published in 1846 at Mont-Saint-Jean under the title A Voice from Waterloo. A second, enlarged edition, was similarly published in 1847.

Luckily for posterity, Cotton still had time to prepare a third edition, revised and considerably enlarged, prefaced in February 1849. He presumably saw the first copies published by Benjamin L. Green, London, an edition that reached a large audience and served as reference for many years (a facsimile was issued in 1974). Meanwhile, several other reprints have been made (fourth in 1852 ; fifth in 1854 ; sixth in 1862 ; etc.).

Pr. Gustave Sluse translated the sixth edition (1862) in French : Une voix de Waterloo, Brussels, 1874. That translation, reprinted by Jourdan, Brussels, is set to be republished on June 17, 2021.
Also, Karin C. Röhrs gave a German translation, Eine Stimme aus Waterloo (August 2013), to coincide with the bicentennial of the October 1813 victorious Völkerschlacht (Battle of Leipzig, 16 to 18 October 1813).

In 1849, Edward Cotton was interred in the orchard of Hougoumont Farm (shown) : the smaller slab was his ; in the foreground, Capt. John Lucie Blackman's. A photo from ca. 1912 : ►([2]).

When the British memorial was build in the Cemetery of Brussels (►(File:18 June 1815 – Victory at Waterloo – British Waterloo Campaign Memorial, front view.jpg), his remains were translated to its crypt (►([]).