In the Hour of Victory: The Royal Navy at War in the Age of Nelson
A rising British naval historian has assembled from an underused primary source—the after-battle dispatches of the British admirals—a thoroughly absorbing account of the seven great fleet actions of the Napoleonic Wars. The prominence of Nelson is inevitable, as he commanded in three of them and was important in a fourth. But the author also does justice to less iconic figures such as John Jervis (Earl St. Vincent) and the almost forgotten Sir John Duckworth. He even has a good word for the fighting spirit of William Bligh, of Bounty notoriety. Framing the dispatches are excellent narrative passages, well furnished with both statistics and analysis, and brief notes on such subjects as the fate of the wounded (not pleasant reading), navigational instruments, signals, and lightning rods on the mastheads. The book is altogether a feast for the serious student of the Age of Sail and so gracefully written as to be surprisingly accessible to the new reader. --Roland Green