"Never mind tactics.. run straight at 'em!!"
This guy has amazed and confounded me for 45 years.. ever since I read for the first time the account of the Battle of Trafalgar at the age of 10.
In one amazing engagement against the Danes several years before Trafalgar, he was outnumbered, out gunned and engaged against both shore and fleet batteries. With the British taking a drubbing as they closed the enemy, Nelson's superior Sir Hyde Parker; got cold feet and hoisted from the flagship 'Disengage'.
Nelson, when his attention was called to the flagships signal, hauled his telescope to his blind eye[/i] and blandly said "I cannot see the signal". He dipped and re-rehoisted his own signal to the squadron: 'Engage Closely'. Every single ship in the squadron ignored Sir Parker and follwed Nelson to a resounding victory.
Quite the Leader. The guy was so much loved by the captains under his command that when the Battle of Trafalgar played out one captain remarked "The French and Spansih could have had a hundered more ships... mattered not. We would have still won, Nelson was with us."
Heluva leader. The world is very different because of him.