During his first year of soldier life he subscribed to a circulating library at Chatham, read every book in it, and began to study.
"I learned grammar when I was a private soldier on the pay of sixpence a day.

The edge of my berth, or that of the guard-bed, was my seat to study in; my knapsack was my bookcase; a bit of board lying on my lap was my writing-table, and the task did not demand anything like a year of my life.

I had no money to purchase candles or oil; in winter it was rarely that I could get any evening light but that of the fire, and only my turn, even, of that.

To buy a pen or a sheet of paper I was compelled to forego some portion of my food, though in a state of half starvation.

I had no moment of time that I could call my own, and I had to read and write amidst the talking, laughing, singing, whistling, and bawling of at least half a score of the most thoughtless of men, and that, too, in the hours of their freedom from all control.