TRUE COURAGE OF NELSON REVEALED

The astonishing courage he displayed has emerged in newly uncovered documents about the Napoleonic wars.

A journal written by Horatio Nelson’s surgeon in 1797 details how a musket ball smashed into the then 38-year-old admiral’s elbow, severing an artery and leaving the bone badly exposed, during an assault on the Canary Islands.

His doctor made the decision to amputate then recorded how, less than 30 minutes later, Nelson was back on duty and issuing orders. At the time operations were carried out with no anaesthetic.

Nelson lost his arm a year before his first great success over the French at the Battle of the Nile, when he was shot in the head but again survived.

He suffered numerous other injuries during his career including the loss of an eye before being killed by a sniper’s bullet as he achieved his final triumph, the defeat of the French fleet at Trafalgar in 1805.

The new documents were uncovered by researchers at the National Archives in Kew.