Nelson’s heroic victory at Trafalgar marks a watershed in British naval history. After Trafalgar Britannia truly did “rule the waves”, dashing Napoleon’s hopes of controlling the English Channel and mounting an invasion on British shores. Despite the importance of the battle, however, few would have imagined Nelson could win it. The Spanish outnumbered the British with 33 ships against 27. But Nelson’s tactical nouse was going to make sure that cunning, rather than numbers, determined the outcome.
Rather than arranging his ships in the line, as was customary, Nelson ordered his fleet to form up in two perpendicular columns, cutting through the enemy’s line at two crucial points in the centre. As the battle got underway Nelson refused to remove his official insignia—which made him an easy target for enemy sharpshooters—but remained on deck with the appropriately named Captain Hardy, exhorting his men to fight bravely in spite of the bloody carnage around them. Yet his bravery was to be his undoing.
At around 1 pm, roughly an hour after the battle had started, Hardy turned around to see that Nelson had been struck by a musket ball. Fired from the mast of the French ship Redoutable, the ball had passed through the admiral’s shoulder and lodged deep within his spine. In the throes of agony, the admiral gasped, “They finally succeeded, I am dead”, before being carried below decks to the surgeon’s quarters.
Before the battle, Nelson had sent a signal from his flagship reading, “England expects that every man will do his duty.” The sentiment clearly had just as much impact on the admiral who sent it did on the victorious sailors under his command. For as the battle died down around him, Nelson’s uttered his last words: “Thank God that I have done my duty… To God and my country.”
This, in short, is the story of Horatio Nelson’s life. But this story doesn’t end with his death; it just gets more bizarre. As smoke lifted over the seas off Cape Trafalgar, the late admiral’s men found themselves in the rather sticky predicament of how to transport their beloved leader’s body back to Britain for proper burial. The crippled, prisoner-laden fleet was still a good two-month journey away from Britain. If Nelson’s corpse was going to make it, they would need to get creative.
The man behind the plan was Nelson’s surgeon, an Irishman named William Beatty. As a nineteenth-century naval surgeon, he had remarkable success rates. Of his 102 casualties at Trafalgar, 96 had survived. He had also had to amputate 11 men, 9 of whom had lived to tell the tale. Consider that, at the time, average survival rates post-amputation were around 33 percent and this sings praises of his abilities.
Beatty suggested that Nelson’s body be stored in alcohol. This wasn’t actually all that novel. The preservative qualities of alcohol were widely known at the time. But navy rum was considered the safest, most effective bet. Beatty’s decision to entrust one of Britain’s best-loved figures to a barrel of brandy mixed with camphor and myrrh showed bravery and conviction of character becoming of his esteemed, deceased patient.