The Murder of Major General William Nelson

In the summer of 1862, the Union was in dire peril. The second year of the Civil War brought changes to the nature of the war and the fabric of the country. Confederate forces were seemingly unstoppable, having won a string of unanswered victories. Now Confederate armies were invading Maryland and Kentucky. Anti-war sentiment grew in response to President Abraham Lincoln's issuance of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. The two pronged invasion of Kentucky threatened to bring Confederate forces all the way from Middle Tennessee to the Ohio River. The fall of Louisville and or Cincinnati seemed imminent.

In response to this emergency, Lincoln called for 600,000 volunteers. Raw recruits from Illinois, Indiana and Ohio were rushed to the front to protect the Ohio River line. Major General Horatio Wright, the Department commander, was organizing the defenses of Cincinnati. Major General William Nelson was given the task of defending Louisville.

Nelson was a native Kentuckian and a career navy officer who was commissioned a general in the U.S. Army as a reward for his role in keeping Kentucky in the Union. He was a large man, with a fierce temper, which he was quick to unleash on anyone who ran afoul of him. As a general, he had won a number of small victories. His division was first to occupy Nashville after the fall of Fort Donelson, and his troops were first on the field to support U.S. Grant on the first day of the battle of Shiloh. Nelson was trying to organize the raw recruits into something resembling an army.

Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis was a native Indianan, and also a career army man. He won distinction in the Mexican War and was commissioned directly into the army after that conflict. He was small in stature, but had an ego and a temper that matched Nelson's. He was appointed to assist Nelson at Louisville and tasked with organizing the new forces into regiments and brigades, a job he felt was beneath him.

When Nelson confronted Davis about his lack of progress, he lost his temper and the two men engaged in a shouting match. Nelson ordered Davis to leave the city. A week later, Davis returned, provoked a confrontation and shot Nelson to death. Although he was arrested and indicted, he was never brought to trial. A number of factors contributed to this astonishing result, including political intrigue, cronyism and the exigencies of war.

About the Presenter: Robert I. Girardi earned his M.A. in Public History at Loyola University of Chicago in 1991. He is a past president of the Civil War Round Table of Chicago, a fellow of the Company of Military Historians and is an associate member of the Sons of Union Veterans. He is on the Board of Directors of the Illinois State Historical Society as well as the editorial review board of the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. He has consulted for the Chicago Historical Society and the Bureau County Historical Society on their Civil War exhibits. In 2013 he joined the Board of Directors for the Camp Douglas Restoration Foundation, and was awarded a research grant by the Friends of Andersonville. He was the 2010 recipient of the Chicago CWRT’s Nevins -Freeman Award for service and scholarship. In 2014 he was awarded the Iron Brigade Association Award for Civil War Scholarship by the Milwaukee CWRT.

Robert has a lifelong interest in the Civil War and has studied all facets of the conflict. He speaks to groups of all ages and levels of expertise on multiple aspects of the Civil War, especially the experience of the common soldier, and the role of Illinois in the war. He has written numerous essays and book reviews and was the guest editor for the 2011- 2014 Sesquicentennial of the Civil War issues of the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. His most recent essay appeared in the Winter 2015 issue of Chicago History magazine. In his spare time, he is employed as a homicide (violent crimes) detective by the Chicago Police Department. He has been a policeman since 1986, and a detective since 1992, on the South Side of Chicago.

Robert I. Girardi has authored or edited ten books:

The Soldiers’ General: Major General Gouverneur K. Warren and the Civil War (2016) The Civil War Generals: Comrades, Peers, Rivals, in Their Own Words (2013) Gettysburg in Art and Artifacts (2010) The Civil War Art of Keith Rocco (2009) Campaigning with Uncle Billy: The Civil War Memoirs of Sgt. Lyman S. Widney, 34th Illinois Volunteer Infantry (2008) The Soldier’s View: The Civil War Art of Keith Rocco (2004) The New Annals of the Civil War (2004) The Memoirs of Brigadier General William Passmore Carlin, U.S.A. (1999) The Military Memoirs of General John Pope (1998)

“The Murder of Major General William Nelson”, Thursday, April 13, 2017, 7:00 p.m. Ryerson Auditorium, Grand Rapids Public Library, presented by Robert I. Girardi.