Thriller Thursday: The Courtesy Due My Rank, a Civil War Murder

General Davis, Circa 1862.

Along with my love of suspense, true crime, and thrillers, Civil War history is another favorite, so today we're talking about a Civil War murder committed by Jefferson Davis.

No, not THE Jefferson Davis, the one and only President of the Confederate States of America, but Jefferson C. Davis, an officer in the United States Army. Davis served in the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, and the Modoc War. A proven soldier, Davis was inside the walls of Fort Sumter in 1861 when the rebels fired the first shots. A tenacious soldier, he was appointed Brigadier General of Volunteers in 1862. Despite his distinguished history, Davis is remembered for the similarity of his name to President Jefferson Davis and for murdering a superior officer during the Civil War.

In 1862, exhausted and emaciated, Davis left the Army on sick leave but returned to defend Cincinnati, Ohio. He soon found himself in Louisville, Kentucky reporting to Maj. General William Nelson.

Davis was a quiet man, but he was stubborn and known to have a temper. A biographer once described Davis as "aggressive, feisty, and confrontational with a fiery and combative spirit." Small and compact, Davis knew how to handle himself in a fight.

Jefferson C. Davis, standing second from right, with General Sherman and his staff.

In contrast, Maj. General William Nelson was over six foot tall and weighed around 300 pounds—no small feat in the lean days of the Civil War. Four years older than Davis, Nelson had gotten his start as a midshipman in the Navy and then quickly rose to rank during the Civil War. Known to be a bully, Nelson had been nicknamed "Bull" during his Navy days.

Major General William Nelson.

Not exactly a match made in heaven.

Davis was an Indiana boy, and Nelson a staunch Kentuckian. The two states didn't get along, and Nelson often referred to Hoosiers as "poor trash." A veteran soldier, Davis resented reporting to a man who'd only recently been given command of troops. Nelson ordered Davis to organize and train the "home guard," an assignment Davis would have been insulted by.

It didn't take long for the two men to clash. When Davis reported to Nelson at the Galt House, a fancy hotel serving as Army offices and Nelson's quarters, the Maj. General asked Davis for the number of troops gathered and how many weapons they needed. After only two days on the job, Davis later said he couldn't possibly have answered differently. Nelson was furious.

Maj. General James B. Fry

Maj. General James. B. Fry witnessed Nelson rise and glared down his nose at the diminutive Davis. The following is his description of his encounter:

"But you should know, I am disappointed in you, General Davis. I selected you for this duty because you are an officer in the regular Army, but I find I made a mistake.'

"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...I demand from you the courtesy due my rank.'

"Nelson replied: 'I will treat you as you deserve. You have disappointed me. You have been unfaithful to the trust I have reposed in you, and I shall relieve you at once. You will proceed to Cincinnati and report to General Wright.'

"Davis said: 'You have no authority to order me.'

"Nelson turned toward the Adj. 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!"

Needless to say, egos were severely wounded and all hell was about to break loose.

General Wright temporarily defused the situation, but when General Buell took over for Nelson, Wright sent Davis back to Ohio. Davis settled in and began planning an attack against rebels in Kentucky. On September 29, Davis entered Galt house to report. When Nelson arrived, Davis demanded an apology. Indiana Governor Oliver Morton and General Fry overheard the exchange.

Indiana Governor Oliver Morton

Fry said Nelson answered Davis's demand with a loud, "no!" and "said in a loud voice for all to hear, 'Go away, you damned puppy. I don't want anything to do with you!'"

Thoroughly insulted and embarrassed, Davis wadded up the paper he was holding and threw it in Nelson's face. Nelson slapped Davis with the back of his hand, made a nasty comment to Governor Morton, and stomped toward the staircase. Unbelievably, Davis took a pistol from a nearby friend, walked to within three feet of the towering Nelson and shot the unarmed general in the chest.

According to witnesses, Nelson dragged himself up the stairs before collapsing. "Send for a clergyman," he gasped. "I wish to be baptized. I have been basely murdered."

Davis was immediately arrested, but he insisted that while he wanted an apology, he had no intention of murdering Nelson. I'm not sure how you shoot a man point blank in the chest without intention, but I digress. Some officers screamed for Davis' immediate hanging. General Buell, an admirer of Nelson, called the act "a high crime and gross violation of military discipline. He intended to take quick action, but time was on Davis's side.

General Buell

Because time was short and quality officers in need, Buell didn't have the resources for a court marshall. He wanted Davis to be tried in Washington. Davis's friend Governor Morton lobbied on his behalf, and Davis was released with in a week. Some accounts also have General Wright coming to Davis's aid and gaining his release from prison. He escaped conviction because the Union Army was in desperate need for experienced field commanders, and within fourteen days of murdering Nelson, Davis received division command in the Army of the Cumberland.

General Davis, circa 1865.

Davis did receive a very tiny punishment for the murder: he never reached a rank higher than brigadier general of volunteers. He did earn a temporary promotion to major general of volunteers on August 8, 1864, then was appointed commanding officer of the XIV Corps, a post he retained until the end of the Civil War.

Controversy continued to surround Davis during the Ebenezer Creek passing. His racist attitude toward freed slaves was deplorable. On December 9, 1864, Davis ordered a bridge removed before the refugee slaves following his army could cross. Hundreds of slaves were either captured by Confederates or drowned in the Creek.

Davis with his staff in Washington D.C. in 1865

Davis stayed in the Army after the war. He was the first commander of the Department of Alaska. True to his crusty nature, he forced the Russian settlers of Sitka, Alaska out of their homes because they were "needed for Americans." In the Modoc War, Davis's field prowess was an asset, resulting in the successful Battle of Dry Lake.

Crown Hill Gateway, Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Jefferson C. Davis died in 1879 at age 51 in Chicago. He was buried in Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis, Indiana. Crown Hill is the place for Indiana's soldiers and celebrities, and it's a beautiful cemetery. On a personal note, my great-great grandfather Peter Fisher is buried at Crown Hill. He served in the Civil War, and we're lucky enough to have his Colt Revolver.

Jefferson C. Davis Grave Site, Crown Hill. Image credit Seth Musselmen.

Clearly this was a case of egos and tempers out of control. In the days when gentlemanly conduct was highly valued, it's astounding Davis wasn't tried. Do you think General Davis should have served time for the murder, or did the needs of the Union Army outweigh justice?

Tempting Tuesday: The New Book Adrenaline Rush

We've all had it. That rush of excitement that ripples through us when we get a new idea. If you're like me, you whip out your phone or whatever is closest to make notes. And yes, I've used napkins before. I've also stolen my child's kids menu and crayons to get an idea down. Don't judge—it was a major break through for Light and Dark.

The biggest rush for me is plotting a new book. I'm still a partial panster, but I work out my characters, inciting incident, and end game ahead of time. With The Prophet, I decided to create a town, which is really exciting. The book takes place in southern Mississippi, on the border of Louisiana. Deep south Bible Belt country. I've created antebellum homes, a town map, town characters—all the nuances that are vital to making the book seem real. Starting from scratch means I can do whatever I want with the place (the town is named Roselea, by the way), and I'm loving it.

Of course, this means my brain is working overtime. I'm thinking about the book when I'm supposed to be sleeping. It's on my mind as I exercise and even when I'm playing with Grace. Does Roselea have everything it needs? How would city government be ran? Would there be a city sheriff or county? Would the area be big enough to have a detective? How many churches would the town have? What do they look like? And it goes on. It's tiring, but fun. Creating Roselea has helped me iron out the plot of The Prophet and its main characters. I understand their motivations now. I'm sure they'll change over the course of writing, but I've got a strong starting point. I already love Roselea. I can see its historical homes and tree-lined streets as easily as if I were standing in the town square.

With that image in mind, I wrote the first 1000 words of The Prophet yesterday. A small start, but a significant one. It's only uphill from here.

What about you? What's your favorite part of plotting? Have you ever created a town from scratch?

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Body Snatcher?

You're shaking your head, right? Let me explain. If you've read Tess Gerritsen's The Bone Garden, you'll get it. Part of the book takes place in 19th century Boston where a young Oliver Wendell Holmes and his colleagues are attending Harvard Medical School. Cadavers are in short supply around the country. In the book, a shady secondary character is a “Resurrectionist,” a person paid money by (usually) well-meaning doctors wanting to further the medical field.

Remember, Oliver Wendell Holmes was the genius (and I say that with all sincerity) who discovered that doctors washing their hands would prevent thousands of deaths from infection. That the idea was common sense is still mind boggling to me, but that’s another story.

In the 19th century surgery was still regarded as somewhat taboo and certainly feared. The idea of medical students carving into dead bodies was ghastly, and it was something no one talked about. Most Victorians believed being dissected after death would keep you from heaven, and there were strict laws preventing human dissection. Only the bodies of hanged criminals were given to the universities.

But as the medical profession grew and more students flocked to schools like Harvard, dead bodies became precious commodities. Poor refrigeration methods meant bodies didn’t stay fresh for long. Many medical professionals believed the process was a necessary evil offset by the benefits of anatomical study. Resurectionists were so good at their ‘profession’ they became indispensible to doctors and were often kept out of jail by prominent physicians and surgeons.

Ressurectionists worked in teams, targeting new graves because of the unsettled earth. They sent spies—usually women—to funerals to plan for the body removal.

“Typically, a member of the gang, or his wife, would spend the day loitering in a likely graveyard waiting for a funeral…At night, two members of the gang would appear and, after carefully laying a sheet on the ground, would uncover the head portion of the grave, dumping the loose dirt on the sheet. The body would be pulled from the coffin head first with ropes, the shroud stuffed back in the grave, and the dirt carefully replaced.” – Body Snatching: A Grave Medical Problem, p 401

The mass graves the poor were buried in were a favorite target for Ressurectionists. These graves were open until they were full of coffins—a body snatching smorgasbord.

They crept out in the dark of night, sneaking into the cemeteries while looking over their shoulders for police and occasionally, the ghosts of the dead. In The Bone Garden, the Resurrectionist is a cad who keeps the corpse’s jewelry and isn’t fazed by the many young people he’s digging up. He doesn’t think about their families—only his wallet. His accomplice is the books protagonist—a medical student. He despises the job, but he’s desperate for money to stay in school. It’s through his eyes we see the callous treatment of the dead.

Body snatching may have taken place at night, but it was no secret. It was common for families of the deceased to watch over their graves. Families with means did everything they could to keep the greedy at bay, building elaborate fences. An iron bar structure known as a Mortsafe was built around the coffin. Some even built fortified stone houses to keep the snatchers away.

But most people didn’t have a lot of money, so they had to get creative. Many snatchers would dig a tunnel to the coffin, bust the side and use a rope to dislodge the body. So a miserable-looking wooden plank (pictured above) was bolted to the coffin floor and the metal collar fastened around the deceased’s neck. When the snatchers broke through the coffin, the body would stay firmly in place.

As the demand for cadavers grew, so did the profits. And the competition. The fresher the body, the better. Some intrepid snatchers didn’t want to waste time waiting for the families to turn their backs or figure out a way around the various contraptions to protect the dead.

Two body snatchers from Edinburgh, Scotland delivered wonderfully fresh bodies and made lots of money. In their quest for comfy living, they murdered at least 17 people.

What’s worse, anatomist began to recognize the bodies the men were delivering but kept silent. Eventually Burke’s ego grew too big for his britches, and he made a mistake. On Halloween night in 1827, he met a woman at a bar and coerced her into drinking with him in his lodgings. He killed the woman by suffocation so there were no marks. But Burke was so drunk he did a poor job of disposing of the body, and she was discovered the next day. Burke was made to stand trial, and from then on stealing bodies for science was known as ‘Burking.’

Eventually laws were created to protect the dead that allowed for unclaimed bodies and those of volunteers to be donated to science. But in many cemeteries across the world, the leftovers of body-snatching fervor can still be seen.

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Thriller Thursday Murder In The Midwest: Two Adults And Six Children Found Dead

On June 10, 1912, the sleepy little town of Villisca, Iowa was changed forever. Josiah Moore, his wife Sarah, their four children (Herman, Katherine, Boyd, and Paul), and two friends were found murdered in their beds, their skulls crushed. Lena and Ina Stillinger had gone to church with the Moore’s and had been invited by Katherine to spend the night.

The crime has never been solved.

The bodies were discovered when a neighbor realized the Moore’s hadn’t started their outside chores. Josiah’s brother was called, and he found the broken bodies of Lena and Ina Stillinger in the Moore’s parlor.

The Villisca Axe Murders may be one of the most mismanaged crimes in history. Word of the bodies spread like wildfire, and police soon lost control of the scene. Historical accounts claim more than a hundred people walked through the house to gape at the bodies before the National Guard arrived.

All hell broke loose in the town. Residents took up arms, suspecting one another. Reporters and private detectives flocked to the town while law enforcement agencies from neighboring counties and states assisted in the investigation.

Here are the facts, as stated by the official site of the Villisca Murders:

• Eight people had been bludgeoned to death, presumably with an axe left at the crime scene. It appeared all had been asleep at the time of the murders.
• Doctors estimated time of death as somewhere shortly after midnight.
• Curtains were drawn on all of the windows in the house except two, which did not have curtains. Those windows were covered with clothing belonging to the Moore's.
• All of the victims faces were covered with the bedclothes after they were killed.
• A kerosene lamp was found at the foot of the bed of Josiah and Sarah. The chimney was off and the wick had been turned back. The chimney was found under the dresser.
• A similar lamp was found at the foot of the bed of the Stillinger girls, the chimney was also off.
• The axe was found in the room occupied by the Stillinger girls. It was bloody but an attempt had been made to wipe it off. The axe belonged to Josiah Moore.
• The ceilings in the parent's bedroom and the children's room showed gouge marks apparently made by the upswing of the axe.
• A piece of a keychain was found on the floor in the downstairs bedroom.
• A pan of bloody water was discovered on the kitchen table as well as a plate of uneaten food.
• The doors were all locked.
• The bodies of Lena and Ina Stillinger were found in the downstairs bedroom off the parlor. Ina was sleeping closest to the wall with Lena on her right side. A gray coat covered her face. Lena, according to the inquest testimony of Dr. F.S. Williams, "lay as though she had kicked one foot out of her bed sideways, with one hand up under the pillow on her right side, half sideways, not clear over but just a little. Apparently she had been struck in the head and squirmed down in the bed, perhaps one-third of the way." Lena's nightgown was slid up and she was wearing no undergarments. There was a bloodstain on the inside of her right knee and what the doctors assumed was a defensive wound on her arm.

The murderer—or murderers—left behind a load of forensic evidence. Had the crime happened today, perhaps it would have been solved. Fingerprinting was in its infancy, and DNA testing unheard of. Even if the scene had been properly processed, authorities probably wouldn’t have been able to use the evidence.

Still, there are suspects. Many point to Frank F. Jones, an Iowa State Senator, as the murderer. Victim Josiah Moore had worked for Frank Jones for years. When he left and started his own implement company in 1908, Jones was furious. Moore had stolen the John Deere franchise from him. Rumors also floated around that Moore had an affair with Jones daughter-in-law, and his son was accused of being a co-conspirator. They were never arrested.

Sounds like great motive to me. Big financial loss and dilly-dallying with another man's woman? Never gets a good reaction.

William Mansfield from Illinois was suspected of being hired by Frank Jones to commit the murders. One investigator put together a case to bring to the grand jury, pinning not only the Villisca murders but several other axe murders on Mansfield. Insufficient evidence was found. He was released.

Rev. George Jacklin Kelly was also a suspect. He was a traveling preacher and had settled in Macedonia, Iowa. In 1917, he was arrested for the murder of ONE of the victims (but experts argue they were committed by the same person). Kelly attended the church and children’s program the day before. He left town early on the 10th.

Kelly confessed, but it was withdrawn before trial. The Villisca site calls his confession a “mockery of law enforcement practices at the time.” Kelly’s first trial was a hung jury; he was aquitted in the second.

This one makes me wonder. Sometimes it's often the least likely people who turn out to be the bad guys. Confessions are still coerced, and I can only imagine how easy it was to do back then with no video equipment and a town out for blood. But why did Kelly leave so early in the morning the day of the murders? Combined with his seeing the family the day before, that's suspect.

Murders like this are usually rage killings. Was Kelly angry at the Moores? We'll never know.

The third school of thought is that someone unknown to the area killed the Moore’s and Stillinger girls - a serial killer. The case against Mansfield actually supports this theory. 22 other murders had been committed in the Midwest around the same time. A federal officer assigned to the Villiscia murders believed Henry Moore (not related) was the killer.

He’d been convicted of the murders of his mother and maternal grandmother in Columbia, Missouri just months after the Villisca murders. His family was killed in the same manner. Other axe murders were also being investigated: family in Colorado Spring, Colorado was bludgeoned to death. A family in Monmouth, Illinois was killed, and then a family in Ellsworth, Kansas. A week before the Villisca killings, a man and his wife were murdered in Paola, Kansas. The similarities in the cases were undeniable. The case against him was never proved, however. Perhaps modern day science could have solved it.

Others were investigated, but again, no charges.

Another strong possibility. But are the similarities really the same? Were the nuances of the crime committed? Did the investigators look past the bludgeoning and look at the details of the rooms? Were the windows covered? Were the victims faces covered?

By the way, that's usually done by someone who knows the family, a sign of remorse. Even if Frank Jones hired Mansfield, the guys didn't know the family. Reverend Kelly did. He knew all the victims.

Of course, covering the bodies could have also been part of some weird M.O. Or perhaps the murderer couldn't stand to see what he'd done. The time taken in the house suggests callousness, something I'm not sure the Reverend had. And was this the murderer's first killing? His only? Behavioral analysts of today might be able to tell, but the details are lost to history.

The Villisca House is a now a tourist attraction on the National Registrar of Historic Places. Stories about it being haunted abound. The official site of the murders says paranormal investigators have gathered visual and auditory evidence of a haunting. Objects move, psychics claim to have seen spirits.

If ever a place was likely to be haunted, the Villisca House would be it. The only surviving witness to a terribly tragedy, it alone knows the murder’s true identity.

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The Villisca Axe Murder House