by

John B. Hattendorf

E. J. King Professor of Maritime History 

Chairman Maritime History Department

The Naval War College Museum

Newport, Rhode Island

October 2005 to March 2006

Catalogue of an Exhibition of

Rare Books, Maps, Charts, Prints, Models, and Signal Flags

Relating to Events and Influences

of the

Battle of Trafalgar and Lord Nelson
Copy Number of Thirty signed and numbered copies

Acknowledgements

Curator, Naval War College Museum

Robert Cembrola

Exhibit and Catalogue Designer

Jason Peters

Art Director

Elizabeth Davis

Copy Editor

Jo-Ann Parks

Naval War College Exhibit Production

Visual Communications Department

Multimedia and Photography Support

Joseph F. Quinn, Jr.

PHC Robert Inverso

David Bolender

Micheal Cardin
“Nelson and Trafalgar – 200 Years”

One of the greatest naval battles in history occurred on 21 October 1805, when Vice Admiral 

Lord Nelson defeated the Combined French and Spanish Fleet under Admiral Villeneuve 

in the Atlantic off Cape Trafalgar.

This exhibit features more than 30 Rare Prints

from the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University

•

Rare Materials from the Naval War College’s own collections

illustrating 125 years of our own interest in the subject

•

A Sampling of Mahan’s Original Research Materials on Nelson 

•

Nelson’s Influences on U.S. and General Naval History
Portrait of Nelson

Victory Model

Display Case “The Naval War College and Nelson 1880 – 1930 

Display Case “The Naval War College and Nelson 1930 – present”

Kiosk video of “Explore HMS Victory”

Victory Deck Layouts

Eighteenth-century French Navigation Chart

Movable Walls “Battle of St. Vincent” 

Display Case “Navy and the Age of Nelson”

Movable Wall “Navy and the Age of Nelson”

Display Case “Nelson in America”

Movable Wall “Royal Navy and the Age of Nelson” 

Posters “North American Sailors in the Battle of Trafalgar” 

Movable Walls “Battle of Nile” 

Portraits “Great Adversaries” 

Portraits of Nelson’s Mentors

Painting Battle Scene on Victory Deck

Floor Diorama Battle of Trafalgar

Display Case “Peep Show” 

Charts of various ship positions during the Battle of Trafalgar

Movable Walls “Campaign of Trafalgar” 

Movable Walls “Death of Nelson”

Display Case / Posters “Death of Nelson” 

Display Case “Influence of Nelson and Trafalgar on the United States”

Display Case “The Impact of Nelson and Trafalgar on the World”

Display Case “Mahan and Nelson” 

Movable Wall “Portraits of Nelson” 

Display Case “Current Scholarship on Nelson and Trafalgar” 

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

AA

BB

Museum 

Display Area Display type and Title

The Exhibit Layout is cataloged Alphanumerically
The Exhibit Layout

Founder’s Hall

Naval War College
Admiral Lord Nelson

Tinted lithograph, undated

This is based on the pencil and watercolor drawing by Henry Edridge, 1802. The original showed Nelson’s left hand on a 

cannon. A stipple engraving by Anthony Cardon was published in 1802 and it was used again in half-length as the frontispiece of the 1810 edition of Clarke and M’Arthur’s biography.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
A Portrait of Nelson
Model of HMS Victory

This 1⁄4-inch-to-one-foot scale model of HMS Victory was presented to the Naval War College in 1953 by Lieutenant Francis 

L. Higginson, Jr., of the NWC Class of 1944. It was built and rigged by Captain Frederick E. Story and Captain Sumner. 

NWC Museum Collection
B Victory Model
The Rev. James Stanier Clarke and John M’Arthur, The Life and Services of Admiral Lord 

Nelson, Duke of Bronte, Vice Admiral of the White, K.B. etc., From his Lordship’s Manuscripts. 

London: Fisher, Son, & Co., 1840

The frontispiece of this volume shows the church rectory at Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, where Nelson was born on 29 September 

1758.

Clarke and M’Arthur’s biography of Nelson first appeared in 1809 and had immense influence on later studies of Nelson. M’Arthur 

had been Nelson’s secretary, naval prize agent, and the purser of HMS Victory, and was in a position to know what he was writing 

about. However, Nelson’s brother, the Rev. William Nelson, who had inherited Nelson’s titles and papers, was anxious to create a 

good impression and worked with the Prince of Wales’s chaplain, the Rev. James Stanier, to ensure that this happened. Intended as 

a pious monument to a hero, it became instead a major source for future historians. Current historical research has now shown the 

many fabrications this book created and sustained for nearly two centuries.

This 1840 edition documents the Naval War College’s long-standing interest in Nelson. The College acquired it on 11 November 

1885 as one of the very first books in the College’s Library.

Henry E. Eccles Library, NWC

“A Review of the Naval History of the Eighteenth Century.” Written and Presented before the 

Staff and Classes by the Department of Intelligence, 

Naval War College, Newport, R.I., in 1928 – 1929

During the academic year 1928-1929, the members of the Naval War College’s Intelligence Department presented a series of 

illustrated lectures on naval history. The final two lectures of the series were devoted to the Campaign of Trafalgar as the pinnacle of 

naval warfare under sail and these were given personally by the head of the department, Captain Edward C. Kalbfus, a future fourstar admiral and battle force commander as well as a future President of the Naval War College, 1934–1937, 1939–1942. Later, as a 

retired officer, Kalbfus became the first officer to hold the position of Director of Naval History. In the preface to this work, Kalbfus 

wrote:

When the plane of knowledge of naval history shall have been elevated to the point where all officers who begin the War College 

course are completely grounded, the College need allot no time to a review. Until that day arrives, there will be found profit in 

devoting part of the time here to retrospective contemplation of the experiences of those who have preceded us.

NWC Museum Collection

Charles Ekins, The Naval Battles of Great Britain from the Accession of the Illustrious House of 

Hanover to the Throne to the Battle of Navarin. London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1828

War College Founder Admiral Stephen Luce was particularly critical of Ekins’s understanding of Nelson’s tactics. In a lecture that 

Luce gave during the Naval War College’s first academic year in 1885, “On the Study of Naval History as Grand Tactics,” Admiral 

Luce referred to this book and contrasted Howe and Nelson, whom he considered to be the great exemplars of two different branches 

of tacticsHowe representing “minor, elementary or evolutionary tactics” and Nelson representing “Fighting or Grand Tactics or the 

Tactics of Battle.” Nelson, he said, was also a great naval strategist, but this, Luce pointed out, is a professional branch distinct from 

the grand tactics of fleet fighting. Ekins had misunderstood Nelson and applauded the old tactical concept of close action, ship to 

ship. Luce argued that this was “a principle directly opposite to what Nelson and his school taught. His teaching and the teachings of 

all great captains, both on shore and afloat, is to put two against one.”

Henry E. Eccles Library, NWC
C The Naval War College and Nelson 1880 – 1930

Letter from Admiral Mark Kerr, RN, to the President, Naval War College, Rear Admiral 

Harris Laning, USN, 22 January 1932, with an illustration of Nelson’s “Trafalgar Signal.”

In addition to sending a replacement typescript copy of his lectures that had been lost in the mail en route to Newport, Kerr also 

sent this drawing of Nelson’s famous signal.

NWC Archives

RG 28: President’s File: Laning

Mark Kerr, The Sailor’s Nelson. London: Hurst & Blackett, Ltd., 1932

Struck by the professional relevance of what Kerr had written in his lectures, Laning, in a reply to Kerr’s January 1932 letter, 

apparently promised to reproduce the lectures and send them to every ship in the U.S Fleet. Although no documentary evidence 

has yet been found to show this actually happened, Kerr wrote on page 9 of this volume:

“Admiral Laning, the Head of the U.S.A. Naval College at Newport, Rhode Island, expressed a wish to have them [the lectures] 

AND When I sent them to him, he had them reproduced and sent a set to every ship in the U.S. Navy. I was then asked . . . to 

publish the collection in a book.”

Henry E. Eccles Library, NWC

C The Naval War College and Nelson 1880 – 1930

Lectures on Nelson by Admiral Mark Kerr, RN

As attested by the statement shown, when the battleship HMS Nelson was being prepared for her first commission in 1927, 

her commanding officer requested Admiral Mark Kerr, RN, to prepare a series of lectures on the “godfather” of the ship for the 

edification of the ship’s company. By 1930 these lectures were known to Rear Admiral Harris Laning, USN, then President of the 

Naval War College, who requested a copy for the College’s use.

NWC Archives

Naval Historical Subjects: Nelson
The Campaign and Battle of Trafalgar (1805)

Newport: Naval War College, March 1937

This 41-page typescript is the text of a historical presentation given by a Naval War College staff member in March 1937.

Naval War College Archives

RG 4C

G. J. Marcus, The Age of Nelson: The Royal Navy in the Age of Its Greatest Power and Glory, 

1793–1815. New York: The Viking Press, 1971

In 19721974, when Naval War College President Vice Admiral Stansfield Turner revolutionized the College curriculum, this 

volume was the most recent historical study of the Nelson period and it was immediately adopted for use as assigned reading in 

the new Strategy and Policy course.

Professor John B. Hattendorf

Piers Mackesy, “Problems of an Amphibious Power: Britain against France, 1793–1815,” 

Naval War College Review XXX, no. 4 (Spring 1978), pp. 1625

David Syrett, “The Role of the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars after Trafalgar, 1805–

1814,” Naval War College Review XXXII, no. 5 (September October 1979), p. 7184

These two articles in the Naval War College Review were originally given as lectures in Spruance Hall as part of the College’s 

Strategy and Policy course. At that time, the major lectures in that course were nearly all given by invited outside lecturers. Dr. 

Piers Mackesy of Pembroke College, Oxford University, and Dr. David Syrett of Queens College, City University of New York, 

were two of the leading historians of this period in the late 1970s.

Professor John B. Hattendorf

Jan S. Breemer, The Burden of Trafalgar: Decisive Battle and Naval Strategic Expectations 

on the Eve of the First World War. Newport Paper Number 6. Newport: Naval War College 

Press, October 1993

This study was written at the Naval War College by Jan S. Breemer, a member of the faculty of the Naval Postgraduate School, 

while he was serving here on a six-month appointment as Secretary of the Navy Senior Research Fellow at the Naval War College.

Page Proof of Cover. Naval War College Review 58, no. 4 (Autumn 2005)

The cover of the current issue of the Naval War College Review features an etching by James Gillray (1756-1815), considered 

the leading British caricaturist of the late eighteenth century: “Immortalitythe Death of Admiral Lord Nelson in the moment of 

Victory this Design for the Memorial intended by the City of London . . . humbly submitted to the . . . Lord Mayor.” It appeared on 

23 December 1805, the day the body of Nelson, killed on 21 October at Trafalgar, was transferred from his flagship, HMS Victory, 

on its way to the Royal Naval Hospital, Greenwich, where it would lie in state. The veneration for the admiral evident even in this 

somewhat tongue-in-cheek image, and still strong in the United Kingdom today at the bicentennial of his death, has not been afforded by Americans to any of their own great naval leaders for reasons, and with implications, explored in the lead article in this 

issue by Dr. James Holmes.
D The Naval War College and Nelson 1930 – present
HMS Victory Virtual Tour

HMS Victory was Lord Nelson’s flagship when he died, having won a decisive victory at the Battle of Trafalgar. This, the official 

HMS Victory CD-ROM, tells you everything you want to know about the ship, including her history, the men who sailed her 

and how she fought. Explore at your leisure all aspects of this unique 18th-century warship using hundreds of images, historic 

documents, interactive cross-sections and much more.

Published and produced by Pembroke Interactive Ltd.
E Explore HMS Victory
Printed pages from the pamphlet one recieves upon boarding HMS Victory in Portsmouth Naval 

Shipyard, Portsmouth England
F HMS Victory Deck Layouts
Herman van Loon, 2me. Carte Particulière des Costes de Normandie. Paris, Ca. 1753

This mid-eighteenth-century French nautical chart of the south coast of the Channel showing part of Normandy, including the 

port of Cherbourg and The Channel Islands, is typical of the late hydrographic information available at the time. This chart 

was apparently used off the French coast in a British warship in the late eighteenth century.

Naval Historical Collection, NWC

Whitshed Papers
G Eighteenth-century French Navigation Chart
This Historical Engraving of that unprecedented Event in Lord St. Vincent’s Victory of 

Admiral Nelson’s boarding of the TWO SPANISH SHIPS and the Reception of the Spanish 

Admiral’s Sword on board San Josef on the 14th of February 1797

Engraving by Daniel Orme from a Painting by Daniel Orme, under the direction of Lord 

Nelson and officers of HMS Captain

London: Edward Orme, June 21st, 1800

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
H Battle of St. Vincent
The Distinguished Action of the Gallant Nelson

Engraving by James Daniell from a Painting by Henry Singleton

London: James Daniel, November 4, 1798

This view illustrates Nelson’s heroic action at the battle of St. Vincent, when, as a Commodore, he leapt on board the 80-gun 

Spanish ship San Nicholas, while under heavy fire, hauled down her colors, and then dashed across her deck to board the 112-

gun San Josef, which then surrendered to Nelson.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
H Battle of St. Vincent
A Vice Admiral’s Commission, 1804

The document is the original, signed commission for a vice admiral, given to one of Nelson’s colleagues, Vice Admiral James 

Hawkins Whitshed. The document is signed in the left corner by the Secretary of the Admiralty, William Marsden. To the right, it 

is signed by three of the Admiralty commissioners. Among the signatures here are the first Lord of the Admiralty, the Earl of St. 

Vincent, and Captain Thomas Troubridge.

St. Vincent was a harsh disciplinarian and Nelson was one of the few officers who was able to stand up to him, although they were 

completely opposite in temperament. St. Vincent had more influence on Nelson’s career than any other person did.

St. Vincent initially thought Sir Thomas Troubridge was a superior officer to Nelson and pushed Troubridge’s career ahead, but 

later he proved to have extreme views. Troubridge and Nelson served together as midshipmen in Seahorse in 1773 and he commanded ships at Cape St. Vincent, Tenerife, and the Nile, but Nelson found him to be a man “extremely hasty on duty.”

Naval Historical Collection, NWC

Whitshed Papers

A Naval Telescope

Typical of the telescopes used in the Royal Navy in Nelson’s time, this instrument was manufactured by Dollard in London. As 

Nelson was leaving England to return to the fleet in September 1805, he had ordered a large number of telescopes from the same 

firm that made this one to be delivered to HMS Victory for distribution to his fleet.

NWC Museum Collection

His Royal Highness Prince William Henry Serving as a Midshipman on Board

His Majesty’s Ship Prince George

Engraved by F. Bartolozzi and colored by F. Sandby from the painting by Benjamin West

London: A Poggi, 1782

Prince William was the third son of King George III. From 1788 to 1830, he was known as the duke of Clarence. He succeeded to 

the throne as King William IV on the death of his brother, George IV, in 1830. He reigned from 1830 to 1837 and was succeeded 

by his niece, Victoria.

Known as the “sailor-king,” Prince William went to sea in 1779 and in 1782 was a midshipman in Hood’s flagship. Nelson first 

met him in New York harbor. Several years later in the West Indies, the two became good friends, and Prince William served as 

Nelson’s best man at his wedding to Fanny Nisbet on the island of Nevis. In the end, Prince William led Nelson to make some bad 

judgments that, for a time, put him out of favor with some at the Admiralty, who had expected him to exercise stronger control over 

the young prince.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
I Navy and the Age of Nelson

I Navy and the Age of Nelson

Instruction for the Conduct of Ships of War, Explanatory of, and Relative to the Signals 

Contained in the Signal-Book Herewith Delivered. 1795

Signal-Book for the Ships of War. 1795

These two small volumes were the official signal books issued in 1795. These two lack the hand-painted colored flags and crossindexing that such books would have had in use at sea. At this point, flag signaling was still awkward and had little flexibility.

Naval Historical Collection, NWC

Whitshed Papers

Regulations and Instructions Relating to His Majesty’s Service at Sea. Established by His 

Majesty in Council, 1808.

This thick book contained all the regulations and procedures for serving in ships at sea. Its contents range from the relative 

seniority and of flag officers to gun salutes, the duties and responsibilities of junior officers down to those of the schoolmaster, 

chaplain, and cook as well as pay, pensions, convoys, courts martial, and prize money.

Naval Historical Collection NWC

Whitshed Papers

Sir Home Popham, Telegraphic Signals: or Marine Vocabulary. London: T. Egerton, Military 

Library, 1803

Captain Sir Home Popham’s signaling system using numbered flags was not the official codebook, but it offered a much more 

flexible means of communicating. This work had several versions, and the one shown here predated the version that Nelson and 

his flag lieutenant John Pasco used to compose the famous signal, “England expects that every man will do his duty.” The book 

is open to the page that has two of the number sequences that Nelson used: 253 (England) and 261 (Every). In the next edition, 

296 would be added to this page to mean “Expects.”

Naval Historical Collection, NWC

Whitshed Papers
Dinner. Fetching lee-way; or One of the Comforts of a Channel Cruise 

in November. London: William Holland, 1 June 1810. Engraved by 

Stadler

This colored aquatint of a wardroom in a small warship is reminiscent of life in small warships in 

any period. At the same time it illustrates the point that despite wear and tear, the Royal Navy’s 

persistence in keeping its warships on blockade station and patrolling off the French coast throughout the period, while French warships were kept in port, kept British officers and men at a relatively 

higher state of skill and readiness.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
J Navy and the Age of Nelson

The Press-Gang or Cruel Separation

This 1795 caricature looks at naval impressment and the effect it had on the home 

front. Impressment was the compulsory recruitment of men into the Navy by a “press 

gang,” a party of seamen commanded by an officer. It was legally based on the royal 

right to call all men for military service, and this practice was confirmed by many legal 

opinions. Impressment lasted until the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, because 

the British government could not then devise a better way of providing the number 

of men needed to man warships. In theory, only seamen should have been pressed 

and most of them were taken at sea from merchant vessels just as they were returning 

to British home waters. However, as manpower needs increased in the Royal Navy 

through the eighteenth century, all types of men were drawn into the Navy. Due in 

part to the political issue involved in the Royal Navy’s practice of searching American 

ships for deserters in the period leading up to the War of 1812, the estimated numbers 

of men who had been impressed became highly inflated. Recent research shows that in 

the Napoleonic War period that the number was significant, but not higher than about 

25 percent.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University

Some Contemporary Critics Of Nelson

A Mansion House Treat. Or Smoking Attitudes

London: S. W. Fores, Nov. 18th, 1800

This caricature that shows Prime Minister William Pitt in the center and 

Nelson and Lady Hamilton to the right, expresses some criticism and ridicule 

of that relationship.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
J. F. W. Des Barres, The Atlantic Neptune. London, 1778

Nelson visited the region that is now the United States only once in his career. While in command of the 28-gun Albemarle in the very 

last stage of the American Revolution, Nelson had crossed the Atlantic with a convoy to Canada. He cruised off Cape Cod from mid-July 

through the end of August, then visited Quebec.

In late October, Nelson sailed with a convoy to New York, then the Headquarters of British Forces in North America. Nelson anchored 

in the East River on 13–15 November, shifted anchorage to the North River on 16–19 November, then sailed to Sandy Hook, where he 

anchored for the night of 21 November, before sailing for the West Indies with Admiral Samuel Hood. It was at New York that Nelson 

first met Hood, who was to become one of his most influential patrons.

In 1774, the Admiralty ordered Colonel J. F. W. Des Barres of the Engineers to compile an atlas of the charts that he had been surveying 

for the Royal Navy to use in North American Waters. This 1778 edition is the first partial edition of a work that was published in full in 

1780.

Naval Historical Collection, NWC

Whitshed Papers

Geoffrey Rawson, ed., Nelson’s Letters from the Leeward Islands and other Original Documents 

in the Public Record Office. London: Golden Cockerell Press, 1953

While Nelson was in command of the frigate Boreas in the West Indies in 1784–1785, he took exceptional initiative in trying to 

suppress the long-standing direct American trade with the West Indies, which was now banned by the Navigation Acts to the newly 

independent republic. In one of the letters Nelson wrote at that time, dated 15 January 1785, he expressed his view of Americans:

I, for one, am determined not to suffer the Yankees to come where my ship is, for I am sure if once Americans are admitted to any 

kind of trade they will first become the carriers and next have possession of our Islands, are we ever again embroiled in a French war. 

The residents of these Islands are Americans by connexion and interest, and are inimical to Great Britain. They are as great rebels as 

ever were in America, had they the power to show it.

This copy is number 279 of a limited edition of 300 copies printed on pure rag paper in Perpetua type.

Professor John B. Hattendorf
K Nelson in America
Nelson in America

How and When the News of Trafalgar Reached America

 

 The Battle of Trafalgar occurred on Monday, 21 October 1805. The first news of it reached London in 16 days 

by HM Schooner Pickle, Captain John Lapenotiere, who came overland on arriving in Falmouth on 4 November 

and arrived first with the news at the Admiralty on 6 November. HMS Nautilus arrived the following day.

 The first news arrived in America at Portland, Maine, on 13 December 1805 just 37 days after it was 

released in London. In contrast to the time in took news to reach England from America in earlier periods, 

this was a rapid transmission of information. A century earlier in 1705, the average age of London date-lined 

news in Boston newspapers was about 163 days, but this had declined to about 85 days in 1745. With the 

establishment of regular sailing packets between New York and Liverpool in 1818, the average sailing time was 

37 days. This declined to an average of 34 days by 1857.
K
Royal Marines

This print shows the evolution in uniforms for the Royal Marines 

from 1785 to 1834.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
L Royal Navy and the Age of Nelson

Thomas Rowlandson, Naval Cutlass Exercise.

London: T. Egerton, Military Library, 31 December 

1813

The naval cutlass was a short, single-edged weapon used for hand-tohand fighting. Henry Angelo, Jr., who provided the information for this 

colored etching, was a well-known fencing instructor in London in this 

period. The well-known artist Thomas Rowlandson made the drawings. 

In 1814, the Board of Ordnance decided that the cutlass that had been 

used up to that point in the Royal Navy and illustrated here was not 

as efficient a weapon as they had hoped. At that point, the Royal Navy 

adopted a model with a cup-guard hilt, similar in style to the type that 

was then in use in the U.S. Navy. The drill shown here was not formally 

adopted by the Royal Navy until about 1820.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
Ayshford Trafalgar Roll, copyright Pam & Derek Ayshford
M North American Sailors in the Battle of Trafalgar
Sir Horatio Nelson, K.B., who 

gloriously defeated the French 

Fleet off the Mouth of the Nile 

August 1st 1798.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown 

University

Admiral Lord Nelson

Tinted lithograph, undated

This is based on the pencil and watercolor drawing by Henry 

Edridge, 1802. The original showed Nelson’s left hand on a 

cannon. A stipple engraving by Anthony Cardon was published 

in 1802 and it was used again in half-length as the frontispiece of 

the 1810 edition of Clarke and M’Arthur’s biography.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
N Battle of the Nile

The HAZARDS of WAR, or NELSON WOUNDED

London: J. Fairburn, 24 November 1798

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University

Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, K.B.

Stipple engraving by Robert Cooper from a drawing by W. Evans, 

based on a sketch in oils by Sir William Beechy painted in 1800. 

London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 21 June 1815

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
The Gallant Nelson bringing home two uncommon fierce French 

crocodiles from the Nile as a Present to the King

London: S. W. Fores, 7 October 1798

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
N Battle of the Nile

The Reward of Courage, or Nelson Triumphant

London: J. Fairburn, 14 November 1798

Admiral Blanquet, shown here surrendering to Nelson, was second in 

command of the French Fleet under Vice Admiral Brueys at the Battle 

of the Nile.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University

The Glorious Battle of the Nile: From an Emblematic Drawing 

of Large Proportions Presented to Lord Nelson on his arrival at 

Naples by Baron de Fages

London: Bunney and Gold, 1 April 1800

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
Battle of the Nile . . . This print Representing the Quarter Deck 

of Lord Nelson’s ship, the Vanguard, on the ever Memorable 

first of August 1798

Engraving by Danial Orme and Robert Cooper of a painting by 

Daniel Orme

London: Edward Orme, January 1st, 1805

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
N Battle of the Nile

ADMIRAL NELSON recreating with his BRAVE TARS after the 

GLORIOUS BATTLE OF THE NILE

Woodcut by Thomas Rowlandson

London: Ackermann’s Gallery, 20 October 1798

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University

JOHN BULL taking a Lunch or Johnny’s Purveyors 

pampering his appetite with Dainties from all parts of the 

World

London: S. W. Fores, November 1798

Nelson offers John Bull a dish of “Ragout from Aboukir” while holding a pot of “Hash 

Crocodile” in his hooked right.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, K.B.

Stipple engraving by Robert Cooper from a drawing by W. Evans, based on a sketch in oils 

by Sir William Beechy painted in 1800. London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 21 June 1815

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
O Great Adversaries

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 150 - 1821) and Horatio Nelson 

(1758 -1805)

Nelson and Napoleon represent the great rivalries of their age. While they never met 

in person or in battle, Nelson, the British naval commander, and Napoleon, the French 

military commander and Emperor, have come to be symbols of the opposing sides and 

the opposing nations, along with their essential strengths and strategies, despite the 

significant differences between them.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
The Rt. Honble. Lord Collingwood

Engraving by J. Colnaghi

London: Messrs Colnay Printsellers, July 1st 1811

Cuthbert Collingwood, who was Nelson’s second in command at Trafalgar, was one of Nelson’s earliest and 

closest friends. The two first met as midshipmen in 1773 and they served together in the West Indies. On 

Nelson’s death, Collingwood became Commander in Chief of the Mediterranean Squadron and died in 

the post off Minorca in 1810. After seventeen years of war, he died worn out, having spent only one year 

ashore.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
P Nelson’s Mentors

Admiral Viscount Samuel Hood

Mezzotint engraved by N. Green from the portrait 

by L.F. Abbott

London: L. F. Abbott, 1 December 1795

From 1782, Lord Hood was Nelson’s patron, or what in the modern U.S. 

Navy today might be called his “Sea Daddy.” Nelson served under him 

in the West Indies and again in the Mediterranean. To Nelson, Lord 

Hood was “certainly the best Officer I ever saw. Everything from him 

is so clear it is impossible to misunderstand him.” Collingwood and 

others did not agree with Nelson on this point, but Nelson learned some 

of his key attributes from Hood, particularly the clarity of expressing 

his orders to his officers, his coolness under fire, and his attention to 

training younger officers.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
Battle of Trafalgar

Heliograph print by Dr E. Albert of painting by Pierre Jazet

1882

NWC Museum Collection
Q Battle Scene on Victory’s Deck
The Opening Phase of the Battle of Trafalgar

These paper cutout models have been used during this anniversary celebration to war-game the Battle of Trafalgar. In the layout 

shown here, the illustrated the two separate columns of the British Fleet, on led by Nelson in HMS Victory and the other by 

Collingwood in HMS Royal Sovereign as they approached to break the ragged line of the Combined Franco-Spanish Fleet.
R Floor Diarama Battle of Trafalgar
An “Optique” or “Peep Show” of the Battle of Trafalgar, ca. 1825–1843

An “optique” or “peep show” was an attempt to make a three-dimensional representation of the battle of Trafalgar. It folds flat into a small 

paper box and consists of seven colored plates, all but the last with the center cut out. Each are mounted on paper strips folded accordion 

style, and measuring approximately 42 cm. when extended. The back image was changeable and this version has two scenes. The view 

shown here is that of Nelson wounded and supported on deck in battle. The alternative shows the explosion of the French ship Achille at 

the end of the battle.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
S Peep Show
Position of the British Fleet at Midnight, 19–20 October 1805

Reproduced from Great Britain. Admiralty. Committee on tactics of Nelson at battle of Trafalgar. Navy 

(Trafalgar: Report of a committee appointed by the Admiralty to examine and consider the evidence 

relating to the tactics employed by Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar. London: H.M. Stationery off., Eyre 

and Spottiswoode, ltd., printers, 1913. The numerous repairs of this set of Charts documents their heavy 

use at the Naval War College.

Henry E. Eccles Library,NWC
T Charts of various ship positions during the Batle of Trafalgar

Approximate Track of the British Fleet off Cadiz, from Midnight, 19 October to Noon. 21 October 1805

Following the centenary of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1905, a historical controversy arose over the tactics that Nelson had employed at Trafalgar. To resolve 

this issue, the Admiralty appointed a committee to examine the logbooks and evidence from the battle, headed by Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge, Admiral 

Sir Reginald Custance, and Professor Charles Firth of Oxford University, with the Admiralty Librarian, W. G. Perrin, as the Committee’s Secretary. With 

the help of Captain T. H. Tizard, RN, the results of their research was reported in a series of track charts that showed the actual movements of vessels as 

shown in the ships’ logs. The work of this committee, although it has often been ignored by historians, is the most accurate and detailed study.
Position of the British Fleet at 6 a.m. on 21 October 1805

Reproduced from Great Britain. Admiralty. Committee on tactics of Nelson at battle of Trafalgar. Navy (Trafalgar: Report of a committee appointed by the Admiralty to examine and consider the evidence relating to the tactics employed by Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar. London: 

H.M. Stationery off., Eyre and Spottiswoode, ltd., printers, 1913.

Henry E. Eccles Library,NWC 
T Charts of various ship positions during the Battle of Trafalgar

Position of the British Fleet at Noon, 21 October 1805

Reproduced from Great Britain. Admiralty. Committee on tactics of Nelson at battle of Trafalgar. Navy (Trafalgar: Report of a committee appointed by the Admiralty to examine and consider the evidence relating to the tactics employed by Nelson at the battle of 

Trafalgar. London: H.M. Stationery off., Eyre and Spottiswoode, ltd., printers, 1913.

Henry E. Eccles Library,NWC 
Nelson’s Chase of Villeneuve, 12 May – 15 August 1805

The opening of the Trafalgar Campaign was marked by Villeneuve’s escape with the French fleet from under Nelson’s blockade of Toulon 

to join with the Spanish squadron under Gravina at Cadiz, followed by Nelson’s subsequent chase of the Franco-Spanish fleet to the West 

Indies and back.

Reproduced from Julian S. Corbett, The Campaign of Trafalgar. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1910), facing p. 154.
U Campaign of Trafalgar

Calder’s Action, 22 July, and the Great Concentration at Ushant

Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Calder with fifteen ships of the line engaged Villeneuve and Gravina’s twenty ships off Finisterre, as they returned from 

the West Indies. To support Calder, Rear-Admiral Charles Stirling raised his blockade of Rochefort, allowing Allemand to put to sea with five 

French ships of the line. After the inconclusive action with Calder, the Franco-Spanish forces gathered at Vigo and then moved to Ferrol and later 

Coruña. Then, Nelson moved north from the Straits of Gibraltar to join Cornwallis and Calder off Brest, making a concentration of thirty-six ships 

to block the Franco-Spanish fleet from either joining Ganteaume’s Brest squadron or entering the Channel.

Reproduced from Julian S. Corbett, The Campaign of Trafalgar. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1910), facing p. 184.

U Campaign of Trafalgar

Calder’s Retreat to Ushant and Return in Pursuit of 

Villeneuve

Villeneuve’s Sortie from Ferrol and Retreat to Cadiz

Napoleon waited in vain at the Headquarters of the Army of England 

at Boulogne for Villeneuve to join Ganteaume off Brest and to enter the 

Channel. On 10 August, Villeneuve left Ferrol, first sailing west as if 

initially reaching for Brest. Deciding this was not feasible, he fell back 

on contingency orders to concentrate his forces at Cadiz. Meanwhile, 

Allemand continued to try to find and join Villeneuve, while Calder 

pursued Villeneuve and joined Collingwood off Cadiz, blocking entry 

into the Mediterranean and any attempt of the French to interfere with 

Anglo-Russian military plans in Italy.

Reproduced from Julian S. Corbett, The Campaign of Trafalgar. (London: 

Longmans, Green, and Co. 1910), facing p. 254.

Chart to illustrate operations to intercept Allemand

From mid-July through mid-October 1805, Commodore Allemand, with 

his formidable small squadron that included a 120-gun ship, four 74s, 

three frigates, and some sloops, had been attempting to rendezvous 

with Villeneuve in the Bay of Biscay, while at the same time evading 

battle and remaining a threat to British operations. The whereabouts 

of Allemand remained a continual uncertainty as General Sir David 

Baird’s Expedition sailed from Ireland in mid-August to retake the Cape 

of Good Hope and, in early September, Nelson sailed from England to 

join Calder and Collingwood off Cadiz.

Reproduced from Julian S. Corbett, The Campaign of Trafalgar. (London: 

Longmans, Green, and Co. 1910), facing p. 302.
Battle of Trafalgar, Death of Lord Viscount Nelson

Engraving by R. Cooper of a painting by W. M. Craig

London: Edward Orme, June 1st, 1806

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
V Death of Nelson

Daniel Maclise

“The Death of Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar”

London, 1874

This engraving depicts the monumenatl painting that the Irish painter, Daniel Maclise (1806-1870) did for the new Palace of Westminster, which replaced the Houses of Parlaiment that had been 

destroyed by fire in 1834. In 1858 Maclise commenced the first of two great monumental works of his life, “The Meeting of Wellington and Blücher,” on the walls of Westminster Palace. It was begun in fresco, a process which proved unmanageable. The artist wished to resign the task; but, encouraged by Prince Albert, he studied in Berlin a new method of water-glass painting, and carried 

out the subject of its companion, the “Death of Nelson”, in that medium, completing it in 1864.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, Duke of Bronte

Drawn by G. Ballisat and engraved by T. Wageman

Newington Butts: G. Ballisat, 1 November 1808

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
V Death of Nelson

The Death of Lord Viscount Nelson. K.B.

Engraved by James Heath from the painting by Benjamin West

London: Benjamin West, May 1st 1811

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
Admiral Lord Nelson Mortally Wounded 

by a Musket Shot

London: W. B. Walker, 5 December 1805

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
V Death of Nelson

The Ever to be Lamented Lord Viscount Nelson

London: Laurie & Whittle, 12 December 1805

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University

Admiral Lord Nelson mortally wounded on the quarter deck of 

the Victory in the Battle of Trafalgar

Drawing by W. M. Craig and engraved by J. Brown

London: T. Kinnerseley, 20 August 1815

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
Reenactment of Nelson’s Funeral Procession

Report from the London Weekly Telegraph

On Friday, 16 September 2005, Nelson’s funeral procession up the Thames by water from Greenwich to London was 

reeenacted, as described in this newspaper report. An image of the actual event from January 1806 is shown in the case 

below.

The Weekly Telegraph issue 737
W Death of Nelson

An Exact Representation of the Grand 

Funeral Car which carried the Remains 

of Lord Nelson to St. Paul’s on Thursday, 

January 9th, 1806

London: S. W. Fores, 13 January 1806

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University

Lord Nelson’s Funeral Procession by Water

Bound in a copy of Edward Orme, Orme’s Graphic History 

of the Life, Exploits, and Death of Horatio Nelson. London: 

Edward Orme, 1806

Henry E. Eccles Library, NWC

The Times. London, Friday, January 10, 1806

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
Rear Admiral Winfield Scott Schley, U.S. Navy

Winfield Scott Schley, who would later become one of the leading American admirals in the Spanish-American War, had served as 

a lieutenant under Farragut in the Civil War and reflected in his memoirs that Nelson and Farragut were much alike. He compared 

them favorably in their restless energy of purpose, bravery, and self-poise. Yet, in the American’s opinion, “Farragut’s private life 

and high ideals. . . gave him preeminence over his great English compeer.”

Commodore Thomas Truxtun and his book on Naval Tactics

One of the first professional naval books to appear anywhere in the world following the battle of Trafalgar was compiled by 

Commodore Thomas Truxtun of the U.S. Navy. Truxtun had been one of the original six captains that President George Washington 

appointed to the newly established U.S. Navy in 1794. During the Quasi War with France in 1798–1801, Truxtun had compiled 

the U.S. Navy’s first signal book, had commanded the U.S. frigate Constellation in some of her most famous actions, and was well 

known for being a close observer of European naval events.

In retirement, Truxtun published in Philadelphia during February 1806 a small volume entitled A Few Extracts, from the Best 

Authors, on Naval Tactics. Interestingly, ‘Truxtun’s focus was not on Nelson, but on how the French and Spanish defended 

themselves from Nelson’s attack. In this, the principal lesson that Truxtun took from Trafalgar was the idea that a crescent formation 

was an effective way to prevent an enemy from doubling one’s line.

Truxtun’s intentions in publishing his study and in drawing attention to Trafalgar was to encourage young American naval officers 

to study tactics and to become proficient in the art of war, just at a time when the administration of President Thomas Jefferson 

seemed to be favoring a navy composed of gunboats alone and when American naval officers seemed to be ignoring tactical 

thinking in general.

The Battle of Lake Champlain, 1814

Another prominent instance of Nelson’s influence on the U.S. Navy can be found at the battle of Plattsburg Bay on Lake Champlain 

on 11 September 1814. There, Captain Thomas Macdonough’s small squadron of U.S naval vessels faced the squadron under 

Captain George Downie, RN. Preparing for the battle that played a key role in General Provost’s decision to withdraw British forces 

from the area, Macdonough hoisted a signal on board his anchored flagship, the 24-gun corvette Saratoga: “Impressed seamen call 

on every man to do his duty.” Macdonough’s alteration of Nelson’s signal carried with it not only a reflection of current American 

foreign policy in denouncing British impressment of American sailors, but it also transmitted a sense of Macdonough’s caring 

support and concern for the ordinary seaman.

In preparing to fight British forces on Lake Champlain, Macdonough decided to fight with his squadron in a defensive formation 

at anchor. Clearly, Macdonough was aware of Nelson’s successful tactics against an anchored enemy at the Nile in 1798 and at 

Copenhagen in 1801. Macdonough used descriptions of those battles to guide his defensive planning on Lake Champlain, so as to 

avoid the French and Danish weaknesses in those engagements and to better a British officer, whom Macdonough expected would 

use Nelsonian tactics. Macdonough carefully guarded against having his anchored squadron doubled, as Nelson had doubled 

Bruey’s anchored ships in Aboukir Bay. In an innovative approach, the American commander ensured that his ships could use 

capstans and kedge anchors with carefully submerged spring lines to their anchor cables to turn themselves and to maintain 

broadside fire against the attacking British.

Admiral David Glasgow Farragut, U.S. Navy

The Civil War was a conflict that brought with it many professional innovations and developments for the U.S. Navy. One of them 

was the creation of the rank of admiral, a title never before used in the American service, but brought about by the practical need 

to divide the fleet into several operating squadrons. Initially given the title “Flag Officer,” David Glasgow Farragut was the first 

of nine officers who were eventually commissioned as rear admirals during the war. Congress created for Farragut the rank of vice 

admiral in 1864, and finally, in July 1866, admiral. With his new rank, Americans quickly compared and contrasted Farragut to 

Nelson.

At the end of the war in 1865, on the day that Farragut returned his flagship USS Hartford to her homeport and hauled down his 

flag, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Vasa Fox wrote to the hero of Mobile Bay and New Orleans, “It is a source of very 

great happiness to me that you have come back with the laurels of Nelson without leaving any limbs or eyes. . . .”
X Influence of Nelson and Trafalgar on the United States Navy

The Battle of Lake Erie, 1813

During the War of 1812, Nelson’s influence seems to have been clear at the Battle of Lake Erie on 10 September 1813, when the 

American commander, the 28-year-old Captain Oliver Hazard Perry, USN, faced his 27-year-old opponent, Acting Commander Robert 

Heriot Barclay of the Royal Navy, who had been commended for his action at Trafalgar as a lieutenant in HMS Swiftsure. Perry’s biographer Alexander McKenzie wrote in 1843 that on the night before the battle, Perry’s “last emphatic injunction with which he dismissed 

them was, that they could not, in the case of difficulty, advise them better than in the words of Lord Nelson, ‘if you lay your enemy close 

alongside, you cannot be out of your place!’”
Admiral Heihachiro Togo (1847–1934)

The image of Nelson had a large impact on the Imperial Japanese Navy, which seems to arise from the personal experience of 

Count Heihachiro Togo, the Japanese admiral who had commanded the fleet in the Russo-Japanese War, bombarded Port Arthur, 

and defeated the Russians at Tsushima in the centenary year of Trafalgar on 29 May1905. His initial training had been spent 

in England as a cadet on board the training ship HMS Worcester in 1871–1874. On the sixty-eighth anniversary of Trafalgar in 

October 1873, Togo observed a commemorative ceremony that deeply influenced him and reputedly led him to pattern himself on 

Nelson. Through Tôgô, Nelson became a key part of Japan’s naval heritage. Most dramatically echoed at the battle of Tsushima, 

Togo ordered the “Zed” flag hoisted, meaning: “The country’s fate depends upon this battle: let every man do his utmost.”

Naval War College Musuem Collection

Eberhard v. Mantey, Seeschlachten-Atlas: Eine Einführung in die Lehre vom Seekriege. 

Berlin: E.G. Mittler & Sohn, 1928, Second edition, 1937

In Weimar, Germany, Eberhard von Mantey included the battles of St. Vincent, Aboukir, and Trafalgar in his 1928 illustrated 

atlas for students of naval history and tactics. Similar studies looking at Nelson in the context of the broader development of naval 

tactics appeared in many navies, usually at the entry level of cadet or midshipman.

Professor John B. Hattendorf

Sergei G. Gorshkov, The Sea Power of the State. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1980

Following on from earlier precedents in Soviet naval thinking, Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Sergei Gorshkov criticized 

western naval theory. In 19721983, Gorshkov wrote a series of articles that appeared in the Soviet naval journal Morskoi Sbornik 

and were eventually republished in book form under the title The Sea Power of the State. On a single page, Gorshkov summarized 

his understanding of the Wars of the French Revolution, which had been organized by “the English bourgeoisie, seeking to gain a 

complete hold on the colonial possessions still left to France.” In this struggle, the weakness of the French fleet played a fatal role 

for France. Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition had been initially saved by Nelson’s “chain of errors” that delayed his attack on the 

French squadron in Aboukir Bay by two and a half months. Trafalgar, Gorshkov believed, “like the role of the English fleet in the 

struggle with Napoleon, has been enormously exaggerated by Anglo-American ideologists.” Clearly making a point that could be 

translated into Cold War context and the need for the Soviet Union to develop a strong navy, he noted that it was Russia’s victory 

over Napoleon on land that had provided the most decisive effect on European politics, but at the same time Trafalgar showed the 

total inability of France to wage war at sea against the more sophisticated English fleet consisting of better-quality ships manned 

by better trained crews and employing tactics new for that time. England and her colonies became practically invulnerable to 

strikes from the sea. This untied the hands of the English bourgeoisie to organize and finance new alliances for continuing the 

struggle.

Professor John B. Hattendorf
Y The Impact of Nelson and Trafalgar on World Navies

Y The Impact of Nelson and Trafalgar on the World

Entry on H. Nelson: “Na’erxun, H.,”Zhongquo Haijun Baike Quanshu [Chinese Naval 

Encyclopedia] Beijing: Sea Tide Publishers, 1998–1999, Volume 2, page 1,366

If Japanese interest in Nelson follows a tradition that is more than a century old, Chinese interest seems to be much more recent. 

Lin Hsiang-kuang published a 120-page Nelson Biography only as recently as 1961; based largely on the works of Robert 

Southey, A. T. Mahan, and Sir Geoffrey Callender, it is a fairly straightforward factual account that does not make any distinctive 

China-related interpretation of its own. In 1999, however, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army-Navy published this westernstyle Chinese Naval Encyclopedia that contained two entries relating to our subject, one on Nelson and another on Trafalgar. 

These both extolled Nelson for his courage in battle, trail-blazing spirit, flexible leadership, rapid concentration of forces, wellconceived tactical planning, and for breaking away from the yoke of traditional naval tactics. The latter, illustrated here, shows 

a not altogether flattering portrait, as Nelson is shown at a slight angle with a huge nose, perhaps emphasizing the fact that the 

Chinese often refer to foreigners as “Da Bizi” which means “Big Noses.”

Professor Bruce A. Elleman

A. T. Mahan, “The Battle of the Sea of Japan,” Collier’s Magazine,

 17 June 1905

In this 1905 summary of the recent news about the Battle of Tsushima during the Russo-Japanese War, Admiral Mahan noted the 

similarity in Togo’s signal with Nelson’s exactly a century before.

Naval War College Museum Collection

The Battle of Chemulpo, 8 February 1904

Woodcut. Tokyo: Published by Hatsujiro Fukuda, 1904.

This view shows the opening battle in the Russo-Japanese War that culminated with Tôgô’s victory at Tsushima in the following 

year.

NWC Museum Collection
Diagram of the Battle of Trafalgar

This is a reproduction of a manuscript diagram of the battle of Trafalgar. It is authenticated by Captain Jean-Jacques Magendie, 

French Navy, the captain of Vice-Admiral Villeneuve’s flagship, Bucentaure. Completed while Captain Magendie was held as a 

prisoner of war along with Admiral Villeneuve at Reading, England, it was drawn to justify their view that they lost to a tightly 

massed, overwhelming British fleet. It is not done to any scale. This version should be contrasted with the results of the Admiralty 

Committee’s research done in 1913, shown on the accompanying panels.

NWC Museum Collection

A. T. Mahan, Futsukoku Kakumei Jidai Kaijo kenryoku-shi Ton, volume 1 translated for 

Nippon Suiko-sha by Tsunetaro Saito; volume 2 translated by Narumichi Uchida and 

Shigenobu Terajima. Tokyo: Kakubunkan, 1900.

This Japanese translation of Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power on the French Revolution and Empire was presented to Mahan 

and inscribed “Captain A. T. Mahan, with respectful regards of the translator.”

Henry E. Eccles Library, NWC

Alfred Thayer Mahan

Autographed photograph taken in Newport, ca. 1910

When in 1885 Admiral Luce directed the newly promoted Captain Mahan to undertake for the Naval War College a series of 

lectures on naval history and tactics, Mahan himself was initially very skeptical of what Luce wanted to achieve. As Mahan 

later admitted, “I shared the prepossession, common at that time that the naval history of the past was wholly past; of no use at 

all to the present.” He recalled escorting a journalist through the College building at one point in 1886, a man “of magisterial 

condescension which the environment of the Fourth Estate nourishes in its fortunate members,” who noticed a plan of Trafalgar 

hanging on the wall. “‘Ah,’ he said, with superb up-to-date pity, ‘you are still talking about Trafalgar;’ and I could see that 

Trafalgar and I were henceforth on the top shelf of fossils in the collections of his memory.” Yet, Mahan went on follow Luce’s 

direction and produced some of the most important works in naval history.

NWC Museum Collection

A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power on the French Revolution and Empire, 1793-1805. 

Boston: Little, Brown, 1892

Mahan’s study of naval history during the Nelson era was the second of his sea power series. It was first delivered in 1892 as 

a series of lectures in the newly opened Luce Hall at the Naval War College, while Mahan was serving his second period as its 

president.

In the preface to this two-volume work, Mahan gave specific credit to the Naval War College as a place “instituted to promote 

such studies.” At the same time, he expressed his thanks to Admiral Luce “for guiding him to a path that he would not himself 

have found.” These references proved invaluable to the institution and they were largely responsible for saving it in the eyes of 

Secretary of the Navy Hilary Herbert, who had been bent on abolishing the College. On leaving an inspection visit to the College, 

Secretary Herbert wrote “This book alone is worth all the money that has been spent on the Naval War College. . . . I had fully 

intended to abolish the college; I now intend to do all in my power to sustain it.”

Henry E. Eccles Library, NWC
Z Mahan and Nelson

Captain Mahan’s Manuscript Note to Himself Listing Nelson’s Battles

These notes were found in Mahan’s own copy of the first edition of the Life of Nelson (1897), when it was donated to the Naval War College Library.

Naval Historical Collection, NWC

Mahan Papers, Box 1, folder 7
Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas, A Statement of the Means by which the Nelson Coat 

Presented by H.R.H. Prince Albert to Greenwich Hospital, was obtained . . . London: T. 

A. Evans, 1846

This pamphlet, with Mahan’s signature on the cover, also has a rare contemporary print of Nelson’s funeral car attached to 

it. Nicolas was the editor of the seven-volume edition of The Dispatches and Letters of Vice Admiral Lord Nelson (1846). The 

coat that is the focus of this pamphlet is part of the collection of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

Naval Historical Collection, NWC

Mahan Papers, Ms Coll. 17, Box 5, file 4

Transcript of a Letter from Sir James Saumarez, Commanding the Advanced Squadron 

off Cadiz, 27 April 1797, made for Mahan

Naval Historical Collection, NWC

Ms Doc. 109

Transcript of a Letter from Sir James Saumarez, 5 August 1798, with his account of the 

Battle of the Nile, made for Mahan

Naval Historical Collection, NWC

Ms Doc. 110
Z Mahan and Nelson

The Collection of Autograph Letters and Historical Documents Formed by Alfred Morrison. 

The Hamilton & Nelson Papers. [London]: Printed for Private Circulation, 1893

Autograph collector Alfred Morrison presented this two-volume, inscribed set to Mahan on 2 September 1890, when he was at Southampton, England, in command of the cruiser USS Chicago.

Henry E. Eccles Library, NWC

Advance Sheets of Mahan’s Life of Nelson. Boston: Little, Brown, 1897

This set of advance sheets was sent to the founder of the Naval War College, Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce, in March 1897 with a 

request from the editor of the leading literary journal of the day, The Critic, to review the book. Luce’s review appeared in its 3 April 

1897 issue.

As shown here, Mahan’s Life of Nelson was subtitled The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain and it was meant to be the 

capstone to his four-book Sea Power series that dealt with the key issues of leadership not clearly apparent in the other volumes.

Henry E. Eccles Library, NWC

A Copy of the First Edition of Mahan’s Life of Nelson. Boston: Little, Brown, 1897

From the time of its first publication in 1897 until the appearance of Carola Oman’s Nelson (London, 1946), Mahan’s biography 

was recognized as the most thorough study of the subject. Mahan revised a section of the book and published a second edition in 

1899. While Oman’s work was praised for its deeper appreciation of Nelson’s personal characteristics, Mahan’s work was universally 

recognized as being the best professional naval biography available until the newest studies appeared in connection with the 200th 

anniversary of Trafalgar in 2005.

Note the embossed gold portrait of Nelson on the original cover.

Naval War College Museum

A. T. Mahan, Lord Nelson: Gründläggaren av Storbritanniens Herravälde över Haven

Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt & Söners Förlag, 1913

This Swedish translation of Mahan’s own work was presented to Mahan by the translator, Daniel Landquist, who at the time was the 

equivalent of an Ensign in the Royal Swedish Navy. Landquist inscribed the book to Mahan on the front flyleaf, as shown by the 

accompanying photocopy, and the book came to the Naval War College along with others after Mahan’s death.

Daniel Landquist (1891–1962) rose in the Swedish Navy service to command the battleship Drottning Viktoria in 1940–1941, then 

became head of the Operations Section of the Swedish Naval Staff in 1941–1945. As a commodore in the Royal Swedish Navy, he 

was head of Sweden’s Naval Staff College, 1947–1951. From the beginning of his publishing career with this volume, Landquist 

wrote several books on naval history and strategy during the course of his career.

Henry E. Eccles Library, NWC

AA Portraits of Nelson

Admiral Lord Nelson

Signed Mezzotint by Arthur Hogg after the portrait by L. F. Abbott

London: Messrs Frost & Reed Ltd, 1923

The original of this version of Abbott’s portrait was painted in 1798 and owned by Lady 

Nelson. Since 1874, it has been in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University

Farewell to Nelson

Engraving of the painting by Andrew C. Gow 

from 1905

London: Landeker & Brown, n.d.

This painting was made exactly a century after the event 

to commemorate Nelson’s departure from England on 14 

September 1805 as he left Portsmouth and was about to take 

his barge out to HMS Victory and to sail for Trafalgar. The 

Uniform and many details are correct, but the scene is entirely 

imaginary. Nelson did not embark at this site, but furtherdown 

the shore.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
Adams, Max. Admiral Collingwood. London: Weidenfeld & 

Nicholson, 2005. 

Adkins, Roy. Nelson’s Trafalgar. London and New York: Viking 

Penguin, 2005.

Allen, Derek, and Peter Hore. News of Nelson: John Lapenotiere’s 

Race from Trafalgar to London. Brussels: SEFF edition, 2005.

Battesti, Michèle. La Bataille d’Aboukir 1798: Nelson contraire la 

stratégie de Bonaparte. Paris: Economica, 1998. 

Battesti, Michèle. Trafalgar : les aléas de la stratégie navale de 

Napoléon. Bibliothèque Napoléonienne. Paris: Tallandier Éditions, 

2004. 

 

Brockliss, Lawrence, John Cardwell, and Michael Moss, Nelson’s 

Surgeon: William Beatty, Naval Medicine, and the Battle of 

Trafalgar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Cannadine, David. Admiral Lord Nelson: Context and Legacy.

London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 

Clayton, Tim, and Phil Craig, Trafalgar: the Men, the battle, the 

storm. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2004.

Coleman, Terry. The Nelson Touch: The Life and legend of Horatio 

Nelson. London: Bloomsbury, and New York: Oxford University 

Press, 2002.

Cowie, Leonard W. Lord Nelson, 1758-1805: A Bibliography. 

Meckler’s Bibliographies of British Statesmen, no. 7. London and 

Westport, Connecticut, 1990..

Czisnik, Marianne. Horatio Nelson: A Controversial Hero. London: 

Hodder Arnold, 2005.

Feldbæck, Ole. The Battle of Copenhagen 1801: Nelson and the 

Danes. Translated by Tony Wedgwood. London: Leo Cooper, 2001.

Gordon, Iain. Admiral of the Blue: The Life and Times of 

Admiral John Child Purvis, 1747-1825. Barnsley, South Yorks.: 

Pen & Sword, 2005.

Guimerá, Agustin, Alberto Ramos, y Gonzalo Butrón, coords. 

Trafalgar y el mundo atlántico. Madrid: Marcial Pons Historia, 

2004.

Hall, Christopher D. Wellington’s Navy: Sea Power and 

the Peninsular War, 1807-1814. London: Chatham, and 

Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 2004.

Hayward, Joel. For God and Glory: Lord Nelson and His Way of 

War. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2003.

Knight, Roger. The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement 

of Horatio Nelson. London: Penguin/Allen Lane, and New York: 

Basic Books, 2005.

Krajeski, Paul. In the Shadow of Nelson: The Naval Leadership 

of Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, 1753-1812. Contributions in 

Military Studies, no. 184. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood 

Press, 2000. 

Lambert, Andrew. Nelson: Britannia’s God of War. London: Faber 

and Faber, 2004. 

Le Fevre, Peter, and Richard Harding, eds. British Admirals of 

the Napoleonic Wars: the Contemporaries of Nelson. London: 

Chatham Publishing, and St Paul, Minnesota: MBI Publishing, 

2005.

Lincoln, Margarette, ed. Nelson & Napoléon. London: National 

Maritime Museum, 2005. 

Monaque, Rémi. Trafalgar: 21 Octobre 1805. Bibliothèque 

Napoléonienne. Paris: Tallandier Éditions, 2005.

A Tsunami of Books about Nelson and Trafalgar

In 1990, when Leonard W. Cowie published his Lord Nelson 1758–1805: A Bibliography, he listed 1,344 items in his 190-page bibliography of books, articles, manuscript collections, and prints. Ten years ago, the decade between 1995 and 2005 was dedicated as the 

“Nelson Decade” and it has kept the promise of its name. This selection includes only some of the many works that have been published 

recently to mark the bicentenary of Nelson’s death at Trafalgar. And there are more to come!

Lent by Professor John Hattendorf
BB Curent Scholarship on Nelson and Traflagar

Nicholson, Adam. Men of Honour: Trafalgar and the Making of 

the English Hero. London: Harper Collins, 2005; Seize the Fire: 

Heroism, Duty, and the Battle of Trafalgar. New York: Harper 

Collins, 2005. 

Prentice, Rina. The Authentic Nelson. London: National 

Maritime Museum, 2005.

Rasor, Eugene L. English/British Naval History to 1815: A Guide 

to the Literature. Bibliographies and Indexes in Military Studies, 

number 15. Westport, Connecticut, and London: Præger, 2004. 

Rodger, N.A.M. The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of 

Britain, 1649-1815. London: Penguin/Allen Lane in association 

with the National Maritime Museum, 2004; New York: W.W. 

Norton, 2005.

Rubenstein, Hilary L. Trafalgar Captain: Durham of the 

Defiance. Stroud: Tempus, 2004.

Stillwell, Alexander. The Trafalgar Companion. Oxford: Osprey 

Publishing, 2005.

Sugden, John. Nelson: A Dream of Glory. London: Jonathan 

Cape, 2004.

Vale, Brian. The Audacious Admiral Cochrane: The True Life of a 

Naval Legend. London: Conway Maritime Publishing, 2004.

Vincent, Edgar. Nelson: Love & Fame. New Haven, Connecticut, 

and London: Yale University Press, 2003.

Walker, Richard. The Nelson Portraits: An Iconography of 

Horatio, Viscount Nelson, K.B., Vice Admiral of the White. 

Portsmouth: Royal Naval Museum, 1998. 

Warwick, Peter. Voices from Trafalgar. London: David & Charles, 

2005.

White, Colin. Nelson: The Admiral. Stroud: Sutton Publishing in 

Association with the Royal Navy and the Royal Naval Museum, 

2005.

White, Colin, and the 1805 Club. The Trafalgar Captains: The 

Lives and Memorials. London: Chatham Publishing, 2005.

White, Colin. The Nelson Encyclopedia: People, Places, Battles, 

Ships, Myth, Mistresses, Memorials, and Memorabilia. Revised 

Edition. London: Chatham Publishing, 2005.

White, Colin, ed. Nelson: The New Letters. Woodbridge: The 

Boydell Press in association with the National Maritime Museum 

and the Royal Naval Museum, 2005.
Traflalgar and Nelson 200 Exhibit opening remarks made by John B. Hattendorf. 
Exhibit Opening October 21, 2005
TRADITION HAS IT THAT on a late October’s day in 1884, Commodore Stephen B. Luce, USN, was 

rowed from the flagship of the North Atlantic Squadron anchored off Newport to Coasters Harbor Island two 

miles north of the center of Newport, a site designated earlier that month by the Secretary of the Navy for 

a new kind of college. Once on the island, Luce proceeded to a large stone building, the former Newport 

Asylum for the Poor, climbed its rickety stairs, and as he opened the front door solemnly announced to his 

few companions and the empty grounds, “Poor little poorhouse, I christen thee United States Naval War 

College.” 

Historic Landmark 

Today the “little poorhouse” is a well preserved and stately structure, a National Historic Landmark and 

home to the Naval War College Museum. Named Founders Hall in honor of the founding fathers of the College, it is uniquely suited for its current purpose. In addition to being the original site of the College, it is 

where Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, USN, second president (1886-1889) and subsequently a renowned 

naval historian, first delivered his lectures on sea power—lectures which were first published in 1890 as 

the epochal The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783. 

Collection and Exhibit Themes

The Museum’s themes are the history of naval warfare, particularly as studied at the College, and the naval 

heritage of Narragansett Bay—a tale that begins with the nation’s colonial roots. Its collection consists of 

items relating to these subjects that are perceived to be of value to scholarship, and it forms the core for 

exhibits throughout the College and for educational outreach projects. Besides permanent exhibits on the 

College, the genesis of the Navy in the region, and the evolution of permanent naval installations from the 

late nineteenth century to the present, the Museum features short-term special exhibits relating to College curriculum and to current naval-related topics. In general, Museum exhibits identify milestones in the 

evolutionary development of war at sea; explain the significance of the sea as a factor in the formulation and 

the attainment of national policy objectives; describe the character, educational philosophy, and mission of 

the College; and chronicle the eventful relationship of the U.S. Navy with Narragansett Bay and its people. 

Services 

While the Museum is primarily for the education and the edification of the Naval War College community, it 

is in a larger sense the corporate memory of the Navy in the region, and it serves as a clearinghouse for naval history information in New England. The Museum Director, a subjects-area specialist, and staff answer 

inquiries, provide guidance and orientation talks to visitors on regional naval history and current exhibits, 

and assist scholarly researchers in the use of the Museum holdings. You may also access the U.S. Navy 

20th Century Ships History Database, available on a kiosk at the museum, from this website

http://www.nwc.navy.mil/museum
Hours

The Museum is open to the public 10 A.M. – 4 P.M., Monday through Friday throughout the year, 

and 12 noon – 4 P.M. on weekends, June through September. It is closed on holidays. Public access 

to the museum is through Gate 1 of the Naval Education and Training Center. As a consequence of 

September 11, and until further notice, access to the museum through Gate 1 of the Newport Naval 

Station is limited to persons with military IDs. Facilities for the handicapped are available, as is a 

gift shop operated by the Naval War College Foundation (which partially funds Museum operations). 

Further information on exhibits and special events is available by writing to: Director, Naval War 

College Museum, Naval War College, 686 Cushing Road, Newport, RI 02841-1207, or telephoning 

(401) 841-4052/1317 (DSN 948-4052/1317).