Horatio Nelson (1758-1805)
Horatio Nelson joined the Royal Navy at the age of twelve, and would come into his own as an inspired naval strategist and charismatic leader of men. While blockading Corsica, he was wounded in the right eye, eventually losing sight in it. At Tenerife, he was struck by a bullet in the right arm, which was amputated above the elbow. The following year, he destroyed a French fleet at Aboukir Bay, stranding Napoleon’s land forces in Egypt. In 1801, he destroyed the Danish fleet at Copenhagen. A final victory against a Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar (1805) would secure his place in the pantheon of England’s greatest naval commanders.