William Nelson Biography

Dromo's Den

NELSON, William (1825-62), An American naval officer and soldier, born in Maysville, Ky. He entered the United States navy in 1840, and in 1847 commanded a battery at the siege of Vera Cruz. He subsequently served in the Mediterranean and South Pacific, was promoted to the rank of master in 1854 and to that of lieutenant in 1855, and in 1858, as commander of the Niagara, transported to Africa the negroes who had been rescued from the slave ship Echo. In 1861 he was on ordnance duty at Washington, and at the outbreak of the Civil War he was placed in command of the gunboats on the Ohio, with the rank of lieutenant commander. He left the navy soon afterward, entered the military service, was ordered to Kentucky, and there established recruiting stations, and organized camp Dick Robinson, near Danville, and a similar rendezvous at Washington, in Mason County. In September, 1861, he became a brigadier general of volunteers, and at the battle of Shiloh (April 6-7, 1862) he commanded the second division under General Buell. (See SHILOH, BATTLE OF.) He was wounded in the engagement at Richmond, Ky.; was in command at Louisville, Ky., in 1862, when the Confederate general Bragg threatened that city, and in July of this year was commissioned major general of volunteers. On September 29 he was fatally shot at the Galt House,

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XVI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 708.