The Union General who got away with Murder.
General Jefferson C. Davis 1828-1879 was born in Clark Co., Ind. Appointed colonel of the 22nd Indiana Infantry. After promotion to brigadier general for service at Pea Ridge, he saw action at Corinth, Murfreesboro, and Chickamauga and the Atlantic Campaign. --Erected 1963 by The Indiana Civil War Centennial Commission.
18 year-old Jefferson C. Davis enlisted in the 3rd Indiana volunteers in 1847 and served in the Mexican War. He rose rapidly in the ranks and by the end of the Mexican War was a Lieutenant of Artillery. He was stationed at Fort Sumpter when the Civil War began with the 1861 bombardment of that fort. He soon became a Captain and eventually became Colonel of the 22nd Indiana Infantry.
The city of Indianapolis honored Davis by giving him this sword, which now belongs to the Indiana Historical Society.
“From the Citizens of Indianapolis,/ AUGUST 15th A.D. 1861,/ To COL. JEFF C. DAVIS,/ for his gallantry at Fort Sumpter[sic],/ April 12th A.D. 1861.”
By December of 1861 he was in command of the 3rd Division of the Army of the Southwest. Early in 1862 he was breveted Brigadier General.
In mid 1862, he was exhausted and ill. He wrote a letter to General Rosecrans asking for leave and received it in August. He returned to Indiana to recuperate. Realizing the the war was going badly in nearby Kentucky Davis reported to General Wright in Cincinnati although he was still convalescing. Wright assigned him to General William Nelson in Louisville.
Jefferson C. Davis, Harper's Encyclopædia of American Biography
That's when the trouble began!
William “Bull” Nelson had been a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy serving in the Navy Yard in Washington DC., when the war broke out. He was made Major General in U.S. Army and sent to Kentucky.
Two days after assigning Davis to organize Louisville citizens into a Home Guard, Nelson summoned Davis to the Galt House, an upscale hotel in Louisville, and asked how many men he had mustered. When Davis replied “I don't know.” an argument ensued and Nelson dismissed Davis from his command.
James B. Fry tells it this way:
Davis arose and remarked, in a cool, deliberate manner: “General Nelson, I am a regular soldier, and I demand the treatment due to me as a general officer.” Davis then stepped across to the door of the Medical Director's room, both doors being open... and said: “Dr Irwin, I wish you to be a witness to this conversation.” At the same time Nelson said: “Yes, doctor, I want you to remember this.” Davis then said to Nelson: “I demand from you the courtesy due to my rank.” Nelson replied: “I will treat you as you deserve. You have disappointed me; you have been unfaithful to the trust which I reposed in you, and I shall relieve you at once. You are relieved from duty here and you will proceed to Cincinnati and report to General Wright.” Davis said: “You have no authority to order me.” Nelson turned toward the Adjutant-General and said: “Captain, if General Davis does not leave the city by nine o'clock tonight, give instructions to the Provost-Marshal to see that he shall be put across the Ohio River.”
Wright assigned Davis to General Buel who had taken over for Nelson in Louisville. Davis encountered Nelson when he reported to Buel at the Galt House. Davis insisted that Nelson apologize. Nelson refused saying “Go away, you damned puppy, I don't want anything to do with you.” Davis grabbed the visitor information card from the clerks desk, wadded it up and threw it at Nelson. Bruce Sones says that:
“With the whole parlor of people now watching the crescendoing encounter, Davis flipped the piece of wadded paper into General Nelson's face ‘using his forefinger and thumb, as boys shoot marbles.’’’
Sketched by Mr. H. Mosler.
Nelson stumbled up the stairs and collapsed in front of General Buel's door.
James B. Fry, Buel's Chief of Staff. arrested Davis, but the battle of Perryville was in the offing; Buel had no time and could spare no officers for a court martial. Buel sent a telegram to Washington recommending that Davis be court martialed there. Fry gives us Buels telegram to Halleck:
“FLOYD'S FORK, KT.
“Via Louisville, Oct. 3, 1862. (Received 6.20 P.M.)
“GENERAL H. W. HALLECK:
“Brigadier-General Davis is under arrest at Louisville for the killing of General Nelson. His trial by a court-martial or military commission should take place immediately, but I can't spare officers from the army now in motion to compose a court. It can perhaps better be done from Washington.
“The circumstances are, that on a previous occasion Nelson censured Davis for what he considered neglect of duty, ordered him to report to General Wright at Cincinnati, Ohio. Davis said with reference to that matter that if he could not get satisfaction or justice he would take the law in his own hands. On the occasion of the killing he approached Nelson in a large company and introduced the subject. Harsh or violent words ensued, and Nelson slapped Davis in the face and walked off. Davis followed him, having procured a pistol from some person in the party, and met Nelson in the hall of the hotel. Davis fired. The ball entered the right breast, inflicting a mortal wound, and causing death in a few minutes.
“D. C. BUELL, Major- General”
Wright, in answer to a petition from Davis, released him only days after the incident.
As Fry tells it:
Wright, the General commanding the Military Department in which the offence was committed, explains Davis's release as follows: “The period during which an officer could be continued in arrest without charges (none had been preferred) having expired, and General Buell being then in the field, Davis appealed to me, and I notified him that he should no longer consider himself in arrest.“ Wright adds: ”I was satisfied that Davis acted purely on the defensive in the unfortunate affair, and I presumed that Buell held very similar views, as he took no action in the matter after placing him in arrest.”
Rhonda Abner describes Wright's claims that Davis acted in self-defense and that Buel agreed, as “pure fantasy.” Davis was later indicted for manslaughter before the Jefferson County Circuit Court in October 1862. One of his defense attorney's was James Speed, later Lincoln's Attorney General. The defense stalled until the case was dismissed in May 1864. Abner sums it up in the title of her article in the Military Times, April 2000, “After killing a fellow officer, Union Brig. Gen. Jefferson C. Davis got off with little more than a reprimand.”
While in the city, an unfortunate personal difficulty occurred between himself and Major-General Nelson, which resulted in the death of the latter and led to the arrest of General Davis. After a few days' arrest, he was released, much to the gratification of the public, and ordered to report at Cincinnati for duty, where he was assigned to the temporary command of the forces around Newport and Covington.
Davis soon returned to duty and fought at Stones River, Chickamauga and in the Atlanta, Savannah and Carolinas campaigns. He mustered out of volunteer service in 1866 and served in the Modoc Indian War and in Alaska. He remained a colonel in the Regular Army until his death. His only possible mention of Nelson's demise was his reference to a "personal difficulty" as the reason he never received the brigadier generalcy in the Regular Army that he so coveted.
Before Davis died of pneumonia in Chicago on November 30, 1879, he left instructions that his personal papers should be destroyed. In doing so, Davis took with him to the grave any further insight about why he murdered a fellow officer or how the political powers of the day may have helped him get away with it.
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