A Shooting at the Galt House: The Death of General William Nelson

A Shooting at the Galt House: The Death of General William Nelson Kirk C. Jenkins Three Confederate generals were murdered during the Civil War: Gen. Earl Van Dorn was shot to death by the husband of a woman he had allegedly seduced; Gen. Lucius Walker was killed in a duel with Gen. John Marmaduke; and Gen. John Wharton was shot by a Texas cavalryman following an argument. But it has been the single slain Union general, William "Bull" Nelson, who has attracted the attention of historians over the years.1 The death of Bull Nelson is the stuff of screenplays: the killing occurred in a moment of crisis, in the midst of Braxton Bragg's invasion of the North, with the entire Federal army encamped around Louisville, about to take the field against the Rebels. The victim, a larger-than-life character who seemed to inspire only the strongest feelings of loyalty or hatred in everyone he met, was gunned down, unarmed, in front of one hundred witnesses by a Union general with the unfortunate name of Jefferson Davis. Best of all, the air of conspiracy and cover-up has always hung heavy over the story of Nelson and Davis's fatal confrontation. A friend of Nelson's who served as one of the pallbearers at his funeral charged in a 1906 article that Nelson was the victim of a conspiracy among Indiana officers in his command. Another author implied that the governor of Indiana, Oliver Morton, was involved in planning the shooting, and yet another suggested that Morton orchestrated Buell's dismissal to coincide with Nelson's death.2 Even the writers who have not seen conspiracy in the shooting itself have seen dark forces at work in the weeks following the incident. General Buell's 1 Richard N. Current, ed., Encyclopedia of the Confederacy, 4 vols. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), 3:1009, 4:1652, 1679, 1I0T, Ezra J. Warner, Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, i960), 315, 322, 332; The Civil War Book ofLists (Conshohocken, Pa.: Combined Books, 1994), 152-53. 2 A. M. Ellis, "Major General William Nelson," Kentucky State Historical Society Register 7 (May 1906): 62; Hambleton Tapp, "The Assassination of General William Nelson September 29, 1862 and its Ramifications," The Filson Club History Quarterly 19 (Oct. 1945): 204; Arthur A. Griese, "A Louisville Tragedy—1862," The Filson Club History Quarterly 26 (Apr. 1952): 143. Civil War History, Vol. xliii. No. 2 © 1997 by The Kent State University Press 102CIVIL WAR HISTORY chief of staff, James Barnet Fry, charged a calculated, cold-blooded government cover-up of the shooting, with Governor Morton cast as the lead villain, and other historians have since uncritically repeated Fry's claim.3 A serious charge indeed, but one in conflict with the evidence. It is time for one more look at the shooting of Bull Nelson. Before this article meets the eyes ofour readers, this city may be attacked by rebels and its streets reddened with blood. . . . Let all worldly matters be laid aside . . . meet with alacrity at the places where you are required to meet, and take with you the weapons which have been preserved as heirlooms in your families. . . . Never let it be said that the proud commercial capital of the State was surrendered to the invaders. Never while we have living men or dead bodies to form as breastworks against them. ... To arms and out! —Louisville Daily Journal, September 4, 1 862 Louisville had been under martial law for three weeks, ever since Confederate general Edmund Kirby Smith had swept into the state through the Cumberland Gap, pulverized a ragtag Federal force at Richmond, and captured Lexington and Frankfort. During those first days after the disaster at Richmond, everyone had assumed that Smith would keep right on going and take possession of Louisville as well. Louisvillians' nerves were further shaken as refugee families from the Lexington area descended on the city in droves with vivid stories of the ragged Southern veterans. Among the refugees were the new governor, James Robinson, and the entire state legislature, along with the state archives and over one million dollars in state...