That Sir John Moore and Admiral Nelson, two of the most notable leaders in British History, should have met and operated together in the attack on Corsica in 1794 may note be unusual or particularly noteworthy. That they did not get on, indeed Nelson particularly, did not like Moore, is one of those interesting little foot notes of history.
Nelson, of course, was a Captain at the time, commanding the Agamemnon, while Moore commanded the 51st (2nd Yorkshire West Riding) Regiment of Foot and lead a brigade assaulting Saint-Florent at the outset of the campaign. When the French troops withdrew to Bastia, Gen Dundas (apparently on Moore’s advice) declined to follow up and lay siege to the city as Admiral Hood (at the behest of Nelson) advocated. Nelson (through Hood) managed to get 500 soldiers out of Dundas to act as Marines in concert with his naval landing party.
As history notes, Nelson took Bastia and a day later a brigade of British Infantry, reinforced by the 12th Dragoons marched to occupy the city.
When they moved on to besiege Calvi, Nelson fumed at, what he perceived to be the pedestrian pace of progress. He wrote:
“We must this evening either erect another battery for four guns , two hundred and fifty yards nearer, which will knock down an angle, or mount the breach as it is. Two days, I can’t help thinking, are already lost. Col Moore, as colonel of the flank company will have command, and I think it is he who wishes the breach made wider. We are slow, which I am sorry for.” Nelson wished that Moore was “one hundred leagues off”
Coincidentally, it was while directing fire from this new battery that a ricochet from the town felled Moore’s batman and blinded Nelson in one eye. Two days later, when leading the combined flank companies in the assault, Moore was also hit in the head by a splinter.
That Moore was later ordered, by Sir Gilbert Elliot, to leave the island at 48 hours’ notice leaves one to wonder if that was as a result of Nelson’s influence.
British Army Historical Database 