General Sir Edward Nicolls ( – 5 February 1865) was a British Royal Marines officer and colonial administrator who served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and War of 1812. Known as "Fighting Nicolls", he had a distinguished military career, and according to his obituary in The Times, Nicolls fought "in no fewer than 107 actions, in various parts of the world" and had "his left leg broken and his right leg severely injured, was shot through the body and right arm, had received a severe sabre cut in the head, was bayoneted in the chest, and had lost the sight of an eye."
Nicolls was born in Coleraine, Ireland into a family with a military tradition; his father was surveyor of excise in Coleraine, and his maternal grandfather was a rector. Nicolls spent his life as an intensely devout Ulster Protestant. He had two years of school in Greenwich, but enlisted in the Royal Navy at the age of 11. In 1795, at the age of 16, he received his first commission in the Royal Marines and soon began service with shipborne detachments of marines. During the Napoleonic Wars and associated conflicts in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, and North Sea, he served as a commander of ships' detachments, and gained his reputation for ferocity and courage.
Connected with his religious beliefs, Nicolls was a committed abolitionist, as well as an advocate for Native Americans and a leader of the Hibernian Temperance Society. During the War of 1812, Nicolls was posted to Spanish Florida as part of the British attempt to recruit local allies in the southern front against the United States. He set up a base at Prospect Bluff, on the Apalachicola River, and had a sturdy fort built there, where he recruited Native Americans and a black Corps of Colonial Marines. He later established Nicolls' Outpost sixty miles to the north. Nicolls's marines, and their Creek and Seminole allies, fought at Fort Bowyer, but the war ended in early 1815, which stalled their offensive towards Georgia. He was present at the Battle of New Orleans. He returned to Britain with a Treaty of Nicolls' Outpost he had negotiated, but failed to receive support from his government for any further aid to his erstwhile native allies.
From 1823 to 1828, he was the Commandant of Ascension Island in the South Atlantic, which was followed by a posting from 1829 to 1835, as Superintendent of Fernando Po, off the coast of Africa, an important base in British operations against the Atlantic slave trade. In 1835, Nicolls retired from the Royal Marines with the rank of a lieutenant colonel. For his service, Nicolls was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1855—among other honours—and was promoted to the rank of full general in his retirement.
Early life Edward Nicolls was born in 1779 in Coleraine, Ireland, the son of Jonathan Nicolls and Anna Cuppage. Jonathan Nicolls (died 1818) was for a time controller of excise for Coleraine. Anna Cuppage (1757?–1845) was a daughter of the Reverend Burke Cuppage, rector of Coleraine, a close kinsman and friend of Edmund Burke. Anna had an older brother William Cuppage (1756–1832), who had an appointment secured for him at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich by Edmund Burke. William was later a lieutenant general of the Royal Artillery and a neighbour of Edward Nicolls in Woolwich.
Edward was the oldest of six siblings, and some of his brothers had distinguished military careers as well, including Lieutenant Colonel William Burke Nicolls (1780–1844) of the British Army's 2nd West India Regiment, and Commander Jonathan Frederick Nicolls (1782–1845) of the Royal Navy. All five of Edward Nicolls's brothers and both of his sons died in or as the result of public service. Nicolls was educated at a grammar school in Coleraine and for two years at Royal Park Academy near Greenwich prior to entering the Marines on 24 March 1795; this was the extent of his formal education. He was not yet 16 years old when he received his commission as a second lieutenant in His Majesty's Marine Forces, in 1795, and he was promoted to first lieutenant on 27 January 1796.
Career Napoleonic Wars It was during his early career, during the Napoleonic Wars, that Nicolls earned his reputation as "Fighting Nicolls", for as an officer on small ships, he was engaged in numerous fierce actions on small boats and at gun batteries. On 5 November 1803, during the blockade of Saint-Domingue, Lieutenant Nicolls took a 12-man cutting-out party in the cutter from HMS Blanche and captured the French cutter Albion from under the battery at Monte Christi. Albion had a crew of 43 men and was armed with two 4-pounder guns and six swivel guns. The British lost two dead, and two wounded including Nicolls., vol. III, pp. 201–203 In single combat, the French captain wounded Nicolls severely with a pistol shot before himself being killed. For his courage in this action, Nicolls was awarded with a sword of honour valued at £30 by the committee of Lloyds. In 1804 Nicolls led another boat assault in the capture of a French brig, and led a landing party of Royal Marines in the successful siege of Franco-Dutch forces at Curaçao. Nicolls and his men withstood 28 consecutive days of continuous enemy assaults on their positions.
On 25 July 1805, Nicolls was promoted to the rank of captain, and assigned command of a company which embarked in HMS Standard. During 1807 and 1808, Nicolls participated in the siege of Corfu and in a foray to Egypt. It was during this period, too, that he was honourably mentioned in despatches for his part in the Dardanelles Operation, during which he captured a Turkish flag., vol. IV, p. 303 In 1808 he led the boat attack from the Standard which captured the Italian gunboat Volpe off Corfu.
In 1808 he made a brief return to England to get married. In 1809, Nicolls commanded HMS Standards marines while the ship participated in the Gunboat War. On 18 May Nicolls's marines assisted marines and seamen under the command of Captain William Selby of HMS Owen Glendower in the capture of the island of Anholt. In the skirmish, a Danish garrison of 170 men put up a sharp but ineffectual resistance that killed one British marine and wounded two before surrendering., vol. V, p. 130 Following the capture of Anholt, Nicolls was briefly assigned as the British military governor of the island. On 8 August 1810, Nicolls received the brevet rank of major, the first Royal Marine officer to be granted this promotion for shore service.
In May 1812, a court martial of Brevet Major Nicolls was held. For all thirteen charges, he was acquitted, and only reprimanded.
Nicolls was aboard the , moored at Gothenburg, when the Crown Prince of Sweden came aboard on 20 September 1812 for a formal reception. Newspaper reports state that Nicolls was rumoured to be 'expected to be appointed one of his Aides-de-Camp.' On 21 October 1812, arrived at Yarmouth via Gothenburg, having departed St Petersburg. It disembarked Nicolls, carrying dispatches from Lord Cathcart.
War of 1812 With the re-commissioning of at the start of 1814, there was a vacancy for the Officer Commanding the ship's detachment of Royal Marines. Nicolls took up this position. The last act of the disgraced Lord Cochrane was to forward to the Admiralty a request from Nicolls. He wanted the detachment aboard HMS Tonnant to include two chosen men, and for the boys to be replaced with 'efficient Privates' prior to the deployment of the Tonnant. He remained aboard until 4 July 1814, when he embarked Hermes, for passage to Florida.
A battalion of Royal Marines was embarked aboard various ships, its artillery detachment aboard the Tonnant. They set sail on 7 April, the artillery and Nicolls were disembarked at Bermuda upon arrival on 9 June. A cadre of 12 Royal Marine gunners (with two howitzers and a field piece) and 96 Royal Marine infantryHughes & Brodine (ed), p. 865, letter from Cochrane to Croker dated 23 July 1814, ADM 1/506 Folios 478–479 were transferred to and , to accompany Nicolls to Florida. Posting to Florida During the War of 1812, Nicolls was posted to Spanish Florida as part of an attempt to recruit the Seminoles as allies against the United States. Throughout the war, the British also recruited black locals to fight on their side, including those enslaved by American owners. As a fervent abolitionist, Nicolls gave particular energy toward this effort. He was to operate from a position established in April 1814 at Prospect Bluff (the "British post"). Sailing from Bermuda in the summer of 1814, the expedition Nicolls commanded stopped in Spanish Havana, where it was told not to land in Florida without prior request by the Captain General, Juan Ruiz de Apodaca., quoting a letter from Captain Percy to Admiral Cochrane dated 9 September 1814. Nicolls arrived at Apalachicola, Florida on 13 August 1814. The Governor of West Florida subsequently requested the redeployment of British forces to Pensacola..
At Pensacola on 26 August 1814, Nicolls issued an order of the day for the 'First Colonial battalion of the Royal Corps of Marines', and at the same time issued a widely disseminated proclamation to the people of Louisiana, urging them to join forces with the British and Indian allies against the American government. Both documents were reproduced in Niles' Register of Baltimore. These were a ruse as to the real strength of the British. The "numerous British and Spanish squadron of ships and vessels of war" he described comprised two sloops and two sixth-rates of the Royal Navy,, vol. VI, p. 518 the "good train of artillery" comprised three cannon and twelve gunners, whilst the "battalion" was a company-strength group of 100 Royal Marines infantry, detached from Major George Lewis's battalion., letter from Cochrane to Croker dated 23 July 1814, ADM 1/506 Folios 478-479
The numbers of Colonial Marines and Redstick Creeks are difficult to ascertain, although Nicolls did arrive in Florida with 300 British uniforms and 1000 muskets. Manrique cooperated with Nicolls, allowing him to train and drill Muscogee Creek refugees.. "[Nicolls] enlisted and publicly drilled Indians, who wore the British uniform in the streets [of Pensacola]." Their fighting force having been defeated at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in March, the few hundred Redstick Creeks still alive arrived en masse at British Post, on the verge of starvation and with no possessions other than the clothes they were wearing. There were so many of them that feeding them was a serious problem: there were deaths from starvation, and a case of cannibalism was recorded. Nicolls still attempted to broaden the forces on the side of the British, and he is mentioned as participating in attempts to recruit Jean Lafitte to the British cause.
Fort Bowyer and New Orleans Nicolls participated in an unsuccessful land and naval attack on Fort Bowyer on 15 September. In the fighting, Nicolls was wounded severely three times, and he lost the use of his right eye for life. The taking of Pensacola in November by an American force under Andrew Jackson forced Nicolls to retreat the following day to the Apalachicola River with freed and escaped slaves from Pensacola. There, Nicolls regrouped at Prospect Bluff, and rallied Indians and refugee ex-slaves living free in Florida, recruiting the latter into his detached unit of the Corps of Colonial Marines.