by Roy Adkins
Leech helped with the amputation on a Swedish messmate, Able Seaman Jacob Logholm: ‘We held him while the surgeon cut off his leg above the knee. The task was most painful to behold, the surgeon using his knife and saw on human flesh and bones, as freely as the butcher at the shambles does on the carcass of the beast!’14 He added: ‘Such scenes of suffering as I saw in that ward-room, I hope never to witness again.’15
Next, the arteries and smaller vessels would be tied with silk or waxed thread ligatures, the tourniquet was released, and finally the skin was folded back over the stump of the bone and taped, with the ligatures hanging out. The ligatures were believed to help drain the wound, and eventually fell out, but they were actually a source of infection. One of Nelson’s ligatures took months to fall away, and he suffered considerable pain for a long time afterwards, possibly because a nerve had been tied up with the artery.
Towards the end of the war in France, in July 1815, Midshipman Robert Barrett of the Hebrus frigate was also horrified at the process of amputation after an accident to the carpenter’s mate, twenty-three-year-old George Huntley from South Shields:
The poor fellow’s jacket was quickly ripped off, and it was a lamentable spectacle to behold his mutilated frame: his only words were, ‘Doctor, bear a hand.’ The most stern and iron nerve, I am sure, must give a momentary shudder, when the surgeon [David Boyter], after having made the first incision, and drawn back sufficient skin to cover the stump, grasps the knife with firmness, and cuts determinedly through the quivering flesh, severing the arteries and muscles down to the bone … poor Huntley winced at this terrible period, but afterwards continued only to mutter as before, ‘Bear a hand, good doctor.’ ’Tis a mistake, I doubt not, to believe the suffering either severe or excessive, in comparison, when the bone is severed, and the marrow touched by the saw; but the most courageous heart will flinch when the arteries are hooked out until the ligatures are fastened.16
In 1789 the surgeon Lionel Gillespie proposed covering the stump with a pig’s bladder, a procedure that does not seem to have been adopted:
In reflecting on the improvements amputation has undergone and those it is capable of, it strikes me as an easy and plausible method of dressing that … after the vessels have been secured and the soft parts have been drawn down, to apply immediately over the face of the stump a hog’s bladder, prepared in such a manner as to soften it and prevent it becoming stiff from the heat of the body. To the mouth of this straps of adhesive plaster might be attached, which would stick to the skin previously shaved, and supported by a few turns of bandage. The bottom of the bladder being then laid hold of and drawn down so as to bring the circumference of the stump into contact, may be tied so as to preserve this situation of the parts and effectually exclude air.17
One of the keys to a successful operation was speed, because if it went on too long the patient could die of shock or bleed to death. With Huntley’s amputation, Barrett noted that ‘The operation on his arm was skilfully completed in little more than twelve minutes, but the agony he suffered was excruciating when the splinters were extracted from his face and breast’.18 At the Battle of Camperdown, Henry Spence, a seaman aged about twenty-five years, was brought down to the cockpit of the Russell in a bad way, as the surgeon George Magrath recorded: ‘Being in the act of running out one of the forecastle guns, a large cannonball from the opponent’s ship struck him a little above the ankle joints, and carried away both legs.’19 Magrath was so short of skilled help that he had to attend to another patient: ‘During the time that I was examining the legs, another man came to the cockpit with profuse hemorrhages from a large artery that was divided by a splinter. I was therefore necessitated to leave Spence (previously applying the tournequet) to staunch the man’s bleeding, which was soon done, and afterwards he [Spence] was laid on the table.’20
Apart from the surgeon’s mates, during a battle surgeons also had assistance from unskilled seamen, called loblolly men, and from any available women. Examples of women performing such duties come to light in chance remarks, as with Magrath, who accepted it as normal that women were on board during the battle, and only mentioned them in passing during his description of the operation on Spence:
He was laid on the table and the operation was performed in the usual way, which he bore very well indeed, so much so, that he did not require an assistant to hold him on the table; lucky it was that he bore it so well, as a shot at this time came into the cockpit and passed the operating table, close, this startled all the women who formed the chief of my assistance … The Tournequet being applied in the ham, the operation was finished in the usual way by bringing the muscles and teguments over the face of the stump, so as to form a longitudinal line down the face of the stump, the lips being laid neatly together, they were retained in that state of contact with each other by adhesive straps, the bandage being applied, a cordial was administered, and he was laid on a platform, in the cable tier, erected for the accommodation of the wounded men. When the action was over, he was put into a cot.21
Magrath commented that ‘The man’s legs were amputated in the heat of action, which I am happy to say did not retard the case, indeed when he was first carried to the cockpit, there were little hopes of success.’22 The following year another woman is known to have helped in the surgeon’s cockpit, this time at the Battle of the Nile. She was Christiann White, who claimed that ‘during the action I attended the surgeon in dressing the wounded men, and like wise attended the sick and wounded during their passage to Gibraltar, which was 11 weeks on board his Majesty’s ship Majestic’.23
Like Magrath’s experience, the surgeon Robert Young painted a picture of torment in the cockpit of his ship at the Battle of Camperdown, forcing himself to remain detached yet compassionate:
Melancholy cries of assistance were addressed to me from every side, by wounded and dying and piteous moans and bewailings from pain and despair. In the midst of these agonising scenes I was enabled to present myself firm and collected, and embracing in my mind the whole of the situation to direct my attentions where the greatest and most essential services could be performed. Some with wounds, bad indeed and painful but slight in comparison with the dreadful condition of others, were most vociferous for my assistance. These I was obliged to reprimand with severity as their noise disturbed the last moments of the dying. I cheered and commended the patient fortitude of others, and sometimes extorted a smile of satisfaction from the mangled sufferers amidst so many horrors. The man whose [right] leg I first amputated, Richard Traverse [Richard Travese, a landsman from Manchester], had not uttered a groan or complaint from the time he was brought down, and several, exulting in the news of the victory, declared they regretted not the loss of their limbs.24
Despite the surgeons’ best efforts, many patients developed fevers and died, quite often of tetanus or gangrene. Huntley, whose amputation was witnessed by Barrett in the Hebrus, only survived a few days after surgery. Hygiene was simply not understood, and even though surgeons strived after cleanliness, they did not know that bacteria from their instruments and elsewhere caused infection. On board the Macedonian, Leech thought that alcohol was responsible for the death of another shipmate:
Among the wounded, was a brave fellow named [ John] Wells. After the surgeon had amputated and dressed his arm, he walked about in fine spirits, as if he had received only a slight injury. Indeed, while under the operation, he manifested a similar heroism – observing to the surgeon, ‘I have lost my arm in the service of my country; but I don’t mind it, doctor, it’s the fortune of war.’ Cheerful and gay as he was, he soon died. His companions gave him rum; he was attacked by fever and died. Thus his messmates actually killed him with kindness.25
One survivor of amputation was sixteen-year-old Midshipman William Rivers, a native of Portsea and the son of the Victory’s gunner, also called William Rivers. Midshipman Rivers had his left foot badly injured and three teeth knocked out by shot during the Battle of Trafalgar. He related what
happened after he had been helped to the cockpit: ‘The foot hung by a piece of skin about 4 inches above the ankle. When in the cockpit I called for Putty Nose (the nickname for the purser’s steward) for a knife to cut the foot off. Beatty the surgeon stopped it, saying “what are you going to do with a knife?” “Cut my foot off, it is of no use,” I say. “Doctor – when will you take me in hand?” Answer “very shortly”.’26
Midshipman Rivers had to wait some time before Surgeon Beatty dealt with him, as his father, Gunner Rivers, later heard: ‘[It was] about an hour after when the doctor took him in hand, told him to lay down on the table. His answer was, “I will sit on the table, you may cut where you please.” During his amputation, [he] said to the ship’s company that was wounded, “My men, it is nothing to have a limb off, you will find pleasure when you come here, men, to get rid of your shattered limb.”’27
The action over, Gunner Rivers described how he went down into the cockpit to look for his son: ‘Here I am Father, nothing is the matter with me; only lost my leg, and that in a good cause. He requested that I would get him up. The Doctor granted [permission]. I got him in my cabin.’28 His father later remarked that it was customary at midnight to throw dead men overboard, as well as amputated limbs, and that when his son realised what was happening, he heard him call out, ‘“Ask the men, what they were doing at the port.” Answer, “Nothing Sir.” “I suppose you are throwing legs and arms overboard” “Yes Sir” “Have you got mine?” “I don’t know Sir” “I understood old Putty Nose was to have them for fresh meat for the sick”.’29 The man they called Putty Nose was the purser’s steward, James Cosgrove, a native of Dublin. Rivers made a remarkable recovery, returned to duty after a few weeks, and four years later married and had several children.
The surgeons were far more proficient than their Continental naval counterparts, and at Trafalgar the surgeon William Shoveller of HMS Leviathan was horrified at the sight of Spanish prisoners, as he wrote in his report:
The Leviathan has been much crowded with Spanish prisoners (about 500), 90 of whom were wounded, several with tourniquets on their different extremities, and which had been applied since the action, four or five days elapsing, consequently most of the limbs in a state of mortification or approaching it. In four of these cases I amputated – two arms, and two thighs – the two former did well and were sent on shore at Algeziras, the latter died on the third day of the operation, the stumps becoming mortified.30
Nevertheless, the physician Gilbert Blane saw many men bleed to death or lose so much blood that they could not undergo an operation, and he was in favour of the men carrying tourniquets during a battle: ‘It has been proposed, and on some occasions practiced, to make each man carry about him a garter, or piece of rope-yarn, in order to bind up a limb in case of profuse bleeding. If it be objected that this, from its solemnity, may be apt to intimidate common men, officers should at least make use of some precaution.’31
Another common battle injury that was often fatal was being burned by the accidental explosion of loose gunpowder and cartridges, such as when the wads that held the shot and gunpowder in place were not wetted when firing cannons, which, as Blane explained, ‘prevents their inflaming and blowing back when they fight the weather side of the ship [into the wind]; a circumstance which, without this precaution, gives occasion to a number of accidents by the burning parts catching the loose powder, or setting fire to the cartridges’.32 On board the Leviathan at Trafalgar, William Shoveller recorded that Andrew Pheling, a seaman, was ‘Burnt in the face, neck, breast and thighs, by an explosion of one of the main deck guns, the breach of which flew out’.33 Under Shoveller’s care, he was fit enough to return to duty a month later. Less fortunate was David Morris, a thirty-year-old seaman, who was fatally injured in the same accident, ‘severely burnt over his forehead, face, neck, and over the whole of the breast and belly’.34 Although he was given opium, and dressings and ointments were applied, some of Shoveller’s treatment was not helpful. From the start ‘he was bled and an enema ordered immediately’,35 and after a fortnight, Morris died.
It was not death or injury in battle, but everyday accidents and disease that took their toll on ship’s crews, and there was an assumption that on top of those who might die in battle or shipwreck, one sailor in thirty might die from accident or disease during a voyage. Experienced seamen were not exempt from accidents, and although many were due to unnecessarily dangerous working methods, where safety was sacrificed to speed, numerous incidents were undoubtedly due to too much alcohol. Appalling accidents were continually recorded, many of which were falls from high in the rigging on to the deck or into the sea, or falls down open hatchways, as with Joseph Lawrance, an ordinary seaman of the Canopus, at Plymouth in July 1806: ‘7 oClock P.M. Fell from the main deck into the hold in the act of taking his hammock down and fractured the seventh rib of the left side. He was immediately bled to the amount of sixteen ounces.’36 Because the Canopus was being repaired, they were all being held on board a hulk (rather than being given leave), and so the surgeon Abraham Martin added: ‘Was sent to the hospital after taking his purge. We are at this time in the Yarmouth hulk in a great state of confusion and noise.’37
Robert Bailey, a landsman from Somerset, blamed the negligence of the boatswain for the death of an able seaman, James McCartney, when their ship the Audacious was heading for Palermo in Sicily to rejoin Nelson towards the end of May 1799: ‘His death was occasioned in getting the sheet anchor over the side – by too much noise and hurry of the boatswain which is too common on those occasions. The flue [fluke] of the anchor pitched on both his feet. One lay cut off and part of the other foot. He survived near a week in this calamitous situation.’38 Off Valletta in Malta some months later, in January 1800, Bailey noted further incidents: ‘A melancholy accident took place this evening. Wm Lewis belonging to the main top unfortunately fell out of the top in to the launch; fortunately he only broke his thigh.’39 Just two days later, at ten in the morning during a gale, Bailey recorded, ‘close reefed topsails, sent down top gt [gallant] yards and struck top gt [gallant] mast. Two lads [Thomas] Hatch and a Maltese boy in furling the mizen topsail was knocked off the yard; the Malta lad fell on the poop and was dead in an instant; Hatch fell overboard and was fortunately picked up but much hurt.’40 The Maltese boy was Vincenzo Bonefatso, who had joined as a volunteer.
By October 1806 the Canopus was at sea, and the surgeon reported another accident, the casualty being Stephen Kennedy, a seaman: ‘This unfortunate patient in the act of going down the fore ladder when it was blowing hard and the ship rolling very much slipped off and pitched upon a quart bottle on the lower deck which broke and made a very extensive wound in the sole of his right foot.’41 Gangrene rapidly set in, and strangely the surgeon monitored its progress rather than instantly amputate, which was the general procedure. By the fourth day he noted: ‘This morning he appeared refreshed having had a good night. The gangrenous appearance has extended all over the leg up to the knee and a swelling … up to the groin. Tongue foul. Pulse weak and tremulous. Answers sensibly when spoken to but his eyes have an unusual languor in them.’42 By four in the afternoon, Kennedy was dead.
Someone falling overboard usually galvanised the crew into action, particularly as most seamen could not swim. Archibald Sinclair depicted the scene:
There is no call or cry can be heard at sea that elicits such instantaneous alacrity, rouses the dormant faculties of sleepers, and stimulates the active energies of all hands, like ‘A man overboard’ … In a well ordered ship, after the first rush on deck, a stranger not accustomed to our ways would be struck with the unusual silence, and the calm determined energy with which a few commonplace manoeuvres are performed … Under these circumstances the ship’s way has soon been stopped, boats are manned, lowered and away. The rigging, tops and yards are clustered with officers and men, indiscriminately gazing around the horizon, in hopes of being the first to catch a glimpse of one who, for the moment, is the
object of such intense and general anxiety.43
In August 1810, on board the Nisus frigate, the surgeon James Prior witnessed Matthew Reilly from Dublin fall overboard as they approached the Cape of Good Hope:
A fine sailor-lad, who had been in a former ship with me, doing duty aloft with some companions, missed his hold and was precipitated into the sea. The alarm was instantly given, and every effort made to arrest the rapid progress of the ship; but before this could be effected, the poor sufferer was left at a considerable distance behind. Still we could trace him in the undulation of the waves, struggling for existence; our eyes were rivetted upon him to direct the boat in endeavouring to save him, yet with no other effect than to witness the last struggles of human nature, – for just when it had arrived within arm’s length, he sunk to rise no more. To increase the general regret on this occasion, it was discovered that the poor boy allowed half his pittance of pay for the support of an aged mother.44
