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The Diary of Miriam Green, wife of William Green, Chief Engineer at Gibraltar, and later Chief Engineer of Great Britain, is a primary source of information on life at Gibraltar during the great siege. There are reports on the privations faced by the inhabitants, the continuing social life (such as it was), hints at difficulties and discontents with General Eliott, the Governor and Commander. There is information on two different outbreaks of smallpox, in the second of which hundreds of children died, with the Governor refusing to allow inoculations against the infection. There are accounts of duels between young officers "to settle an Idle business, merely the Effect of their being Young Men". The most curious event recorded is the case of Colonel Ross, who grossly insulted General Boyd, the Lieutenant Governor and Colonel of the 39th Regiment, in front of the Regiment and while it was being reviewed. Ross was Lieut.-Colonel of the same regiment.

This volume contains a long series of articles written by an eminent officer of the Royal Engineers - Colonel Sir Edward T. Thackeray, V.C., K.C.B. - and published in 23 issues of the Royal Engineers Journal between 1914 and 1916. The subject matter - sieges and the defence of fortifications - is particularly the province of the military engineer, and it is for that audience that Thackeray was writing. The coverage includes Asseerghur (1803); Gawilghur (1803), Asseerghur (1819), Blockage of Cadiz (1810), the Lines of Torres Vedras; First, second and third sieges of Badahoz; Burgos; San Sebastian; Bhurtopore (1825); Khelet-i-Ghilzai (1841-42); Ghazni (1839); Mooltan (1848); Sebastopol; Delhi (where the author earned his V.C.); Lucknow; Pekin (1860); Magdala (1860); Kabul (1879) and Ladysmith (1899).

Rice Jones, the writer of the diary and of most of the letters contained in this volume was a young officer in the Royal Engineers when he was sent to Portugal in 1809. He remained until 1812, ending his peninsular experiences at Ciudad Rodrigo where he successfully lead the 52nd and 43rd regiments into one of the breaches. His other main experiences were the Battle of Bussaco, the building of the Lines of Torres Vedras, and the abortive siege of Badajoz in early 1811. Writing of Rice Jones's role at Ciudad Rodrigo, the editor remarks "Of this exploit, our diarist supplies the briefest and most modest narrative that was probably ever penned by a son to his father."Edited by Commander The Hon. Henry N. Shore, R.N., and first published in nine issues of the Royal Engineers Journal in 1912 and 1913. Much of the content consists of Shore providing general background to the author's experiences, comparisons with other accounts of some of the events, and summaries of diary entries that were, in his interest, not of professional interest. Charles Oman these documents in an appendix to Volume 5 of his History of the Peninsular War, "Notes on some points of controversy regarding the storm of Ciudad Rodrigo."Still another controversy, about which there is much in the Rice Jones papers, in the possession of Commander Harry Shore, R.N., is as to what engineer officers conducted the storming columns. Apparently some credit has been misplaced among individuals here, but to decide upon the point would take more space than a book like this can afford.The content from the nine issues of the Royal Engineers Journal are separated into chapters in this edition.