Captain Horatio Nelson.
Horatio Nelson (1758 - ?) was a British naval officer who served in the North American Rebellion and the Trans-Oceanic War.
Nelson was born on 29 September 1758 at Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk to the Rev. Edmund Wilson and Catherine Suckling Wilson. Nelson's uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling, gave him a berth on his ship HMS Raisonnable on 1 January 1771 at the age of 12. When his uncle was transferred to command of another ship later that year, Nelson served on a West Indiaman, sailing to the Caribbean twice. Nelson also served in an expedition to the Arctic Sea before transferring to HMS Seahorse for service in the Indian Ocean. Nelson returned to Britain after contracting malaria, and after his recovery was posted to the Caribbean, where he was given command of a ship captured from the rebels in the North American Rebellion.
After the end of the Rebellion in June 1778 Nelson returned to Britain for a time before being posted again to the Caribbean, where he was active in the campaign against smuggling between the American and Caribbean colonies. Nelson married into the Caribbean planter class and divided his time between Britain and the Caribbean.
With the outbreak of the Trans-Oceanic War in 1795 Nelson was placed under Admiral Samuel Hood in the Caribbean, where he took part in several actions against the Spanish before being assigned to transport General Charles Cornwallis and his men for an attack on New Orleans in 1797. The city fell on 1 October to a combined force of British regulars and Southern Confederation militia under General Edward Curtis of Georgia. After wintering in New Orleans, Nelson's ships transported Curtis's militia up the Mississippi to capture St. Louis and other Spanish outposts in Louisiana. Nelson returned to Britain after the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ended the Trans-Oceanic War.
Horatio Nelson does not have an entry in Sobel's index.
IOW Horatio Nelson led the Royal Navy to victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, forestalling a potential Franco-Spanish invasion of Great Britain. He died in the battle.