Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Trafalgar

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The results were frightful, especially to Santa Ana. The balls from 50 British cannons and two carronades sheared through the Spaniard’s thin-skinned stern and wrought havoc on the gun deck and beyond. Splinters and glass, ball and shot, whined into the cannons and their crews, dismembering, maiming and killing more than 100 men and knocking 14 guns out of action. After the one broadside, Santa Ana’s decks ran red with blood.

Collingwood, however, was in a vulnerable position, for Fougueux was soon upon him, swinging its own batteries into play with Indomitable, San Leandro, San Justo and other allied vessels close behind. An officer on HMS Neptune in Nelson’s division noted at 12:08 that ‘on the smoke clearing away saw the Royal Sovereign closely engaged with the Santa Ana and several of the Enemy’s ships firing into her.’ The British Tonnant, swinging past Belleisle, was also in action by then.

‘Closely engaged’ was no figure of peach, for Royal Sovereign’s yardarms had become entangled with Santa Ana’s, and the two ships were immobilized, locked in a sinister embrace, all but invisible in the thick, greasy smoke of their cannon fire.

Firing methodical, rapid, double-shotted broadsides into Santa Ana at a range of 20 yards or so, the British ship had all but gutted its opponent, blowing massive chinks out of its died, slaughtering the gun crews on its lower decks. At ranges so close that ‘blow back’ of splinters form the Spaniard decimated some of his own gun crews, Collingwood continued to hammer his reeling foe, which was soon replying with a mere handful of guns.

Royal Sovereign was itself hardly immune. Blue-collared, red-coated Spanish marines, high in what was left of Santa Ana’s rigging, poured musket fire and hand grenades onto Collingwood’s gunners, while at least five passing allied ships threw broadsiides into his ship before they became otherwise engaged. The admiral, himself wounded by a shell splinter, saw that most of his marines were down, as well as a high percentage of his deck officers. Had not the friendly Tonnant, Belleisle and Mars come up rapidly, Royal Sovereign would have been a charnel house.

Tonnant, which would soon batter Algesiras and San Iledonso into surrender, broke the allied line between the former and Monarca, ‘under whose stern we passed in breaking the line and poured in a most dreadful broadside which silenced her for a long time,’ one of Tonnant’s officers said. Most of Monarca’s 360 casualties were casued by that one broadside — after that, the Spaniard did little more than survive.

The first ship to surrender in what had become Collingwood’s melee was the unlucky Santa Ana, which had been described earlier by an admiring Briton as ‘a superb warship’ painted a ‘magnificent black.’ It was thoroughly wrecked, most of its guns were dismounted, hundreds of its crew was dead or wounded. Vice Admiral Don Ignacio d’Alava ordered his captain to strike the colors just before 1:30. Royal Sovereign was in hardly better shape. It was dismasted, though structurally sound, and counted 47 of its crew dead and anther 94 wounded. Unable to maneuver and hence out of the fight, the game Collingwood was forced to signal for a frigate to take his ship in tow.

Victory, leading Nelson’s division, underwent even rougher treatment. This was hardly surprising, for he took his flagship through the allied line between the immense Santissima Trinidad — whose top gun deck toward above Victory — and Villeneuve’s flagship Bucentaure, a splendidly handled vessel. Victory was thoroughly raked on its approach and had taken scores of casualties before 12:10, when it belted out its own broadside into Bucentaure’s bow and Santissima Trinidad’s mountainous stern. Victory’s carronades were shotted with large kegs, holding 500 musket rounds each, atop a 68-pound ball, impelled by 20 pounds of powder. Their effect on the Spanish was hellish.

As its gunner worked like automatons Victory, dismasted and largely out of control, ran its bowsprit into the rigging of the oncoming 74-gun French warship Redoubtable. Clasped together, the two ships pounded away at one another from a scant few yards’ distance. Superior British firepower — a 26-gun advantage — and rate of fire gave Victory a decided edge and soon Redoubtable’s gun decks were awash in blood, a virtual abattoir. As per their doctrine, however, French marines swarmed into the rigging and poured musket fire and at least 200 hand grenades down on Victory’s exposed decks. The ship’s surgery facilities were soon overflowing with anguished sailors, totaling 57 killed and 102 wounded.

Redoubtable’s Captain Jean-Jacques Lucas, his ship splintering around him, could also see the slaughter on Victory’s deck, some caused by his own guns, some by Santissima Trinidad’s. A single solid shot had smashed into the Royal Marine contingent on the poop deck, killing eight and wounding a dozen. Mr. Scott, Nelson’s personal secretary, standing by the admiral’s elbow, was literally whipped away by a cannon ball in the chest. According to a French officer, Victory’s ‘decks were strewn with dead and wounded.’ Valiantly, Lucas twice rallied his men and tried to board, all too aware that his own ship, seams sprung by repeated hits from heavy British guns, was settling in the water. The Royal Marines aboard Victory decimated the would-be boarders and boarding nets impeded their movements. Lucas, seriously wounded, called off both suicidal attempts.

Victory, mauled, dismasted and being steered by hand below decks, was suffering, but Redoubtable was being utterly eviscerated, for the British Temeraire had come up on its other side, close enough to almost touch the French ship. So dismembered was Redoubtable that many British cannon balls were passing right through it, to impact on the friendly vessel beyond. Lucas, gaining the respect of his foes, fought on, even after his lower gun deck flooded and most of his upper guns were out of action. When he finally struck his colors at about 1:40 p.m., his vessel was more a shattered hulk than a warship, with 522 of his 670 men dead or wounded.

Shortly before Lucas’ surrender, though, a French marine in the remnants of Redoubtable’s rigging fired his musket and shattered Nelson’s spine as the admiral paces the deck. He fell, twisted an in agony — both Nelson and those around him knew the wound was fatal. He was rushed below to the surgeon’s overflowing work area, his face covered with a lace handkerchief to hide his identity and prevent demoralizing rumors. There, in the gloomy bowels of his flagship, Nelson was perfectly lucid despite his agonizing wound. He demanded and received frequent reports on the battle’s progress.

The British Neptune, following close behind Victory, passed between it and Villeneuve’s Bucentaure, soon coming up on Santissima Trinidad, whose stern was entirely exposed to Neptune’s fire without its being able to return a single effective shot. While Neptune turned its aft quarters into a slaughter pen of lethal splinters, Africa, Leviathan and the first rate Britannia came up and mercilessly hammered the hapless Spaniard from the sides.

As the Spanish Leviathan shuddered under a storm of British shot, its huge figurehead of the Holy Trinity symbolically fell into the sea. By 1:50, Santissima Trinidad was totally dismasted and barely a quarter of its guns were slowly returning British fire. At 2:05, with more than 400 of its crew dead or wounded, the white flag fluttered above the world’s largest warship. The prize crew that took charge was appalled. As one British officer recalled: ‘the scene aboard was simply infernal….Blood ran in streams about the deck, and, in spite of the sand, the rolling of the ship carried it hither and thither until it made strange patterns on the planks.’ The Spaniard could probably have stood off any ship of any navy, but not four British foes mounting a total of 336well-served guns.

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Tags: 19th Century, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures, Napoleonic Wars, Naval Battles

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