Lame Captains and Left-Handed Admirals - (Peculiar Bodies) by Teresa Michals (Paperback)

About the Book

"Lame Captains and Left-Handed Admirals: Amputee Officers in Nelson's Navy focuses on the lives and careers of three amputee officers: Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, Admiral Sir Watkin Owen Pell, and Admiral Sir James Alexander Gordon. Bringing together military disability and the social history of the Royal Navy, this book examines how active-duty amputee officers attended to the difference between ideals of masculinity and military heroism, and the realities of military service"--

Book Synopsis

The well-known Admiral Horatio Nelson fought all of his most historically significant battles after he lost his right arm and the sight in one eye. With this notable exception, however, disabled members of the military on active duty remain largely invisible. Lame Captains and Left-Handed Admirals reveals that at least twenty-four other Royal Navy officers reached the rank of Commander or higher through continued service after the loss of a limb. It focuses on the lives and careers of three particularly distinguished amputee officers: Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, Admiral Sir Watkin Owen Pell, and Admiral Sir James Alexander Gordon.

Given that the number of talented and ambitious naval officers far exceeded the number of ships the Royal Navy had to give them throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, we might expect that contracting any physical impairment would disqualify an officer from further command positions and promotion. Instead, it seems that losing a limb in battle could become a mark of honor, one that a successful officer and his friends could use to increase his chances of winning so-called "hero promotion" and additional employment at sea. Bringing together military disability and the social history of the Royal Navy, Teresa Michals examines how active-duty amputee officers attended to the difference between ideals of masculinity and military heroism, on the one hand, and the complex and changeable realities of military service, on the other.

Review Quotes

The evidence for behooked pirates in the long eighteenth century [is] virtually nil. The evidence for pervasive maritime limb loss, though, is well beyond dispute; but since it turns out that Captain Hook was an invention, we do not have a strong paradigm for understanding the symbolic weight of amputation for status, masculinity, and even the differences between life on land and at sea. Lame Captains and Left-Handed Admirals is a most welcome and most interesting entry into these studies.-- "Eighteenth-Century Studies"

In Lame Captains and Left-Handed Admirals, her forthcoming book, Michals explores how the world's greatest military force came to rely on dozens of limb-different officers. Far from being marginalized or relegated to desk duty, these figures rose in stature and authority because--not in spite--of limb loss.

-- "Amplitude Magazine"

Michals takes an understudied topic in naval history and connects it to a broader historiography of disability, and she does so creatively and effectively.

--Evan Wilson, U.S. Naval War College, author of A Social History of British Naval Officers, 1775-1815

About the Author

Teresa Michals is Associate Professor of English at George Mason University.