The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-07-06
A GRAND OLD TAVERN
By SAY WARD

to become counsel, adverse to Prentiss, in the case in the supreme court lie gained 1t, an inveterate habit with him, and beggared the brilliant Maine Yankee,
 who was become the most intense south ern man between the Ohio river and the l Gulf of Mexico. 1 The old Galt House was also the scene of the killing of Gen. William Nelson by Gen. Jeff. C. Davis, both of the federal army. That was in September 1862. And thereby hangs a tale more or less perti- nent. Nelson was an intensely and out rageously violent man. His string of pro- | lane swearing was turbulent as the Baltic ocean. and as hot as a volcano in full eruption. Hewas educated at the Naval academy at Annapolis for a sailor and had followed the sea but Abraham Lincoln having failed to induce the hus- band of his wifes sister to espouse ths union cause, sent Nelson, another Ken tuckian, to command at Camp Dick Rob- inson in Boyle county. There he gathered Bramlette, Wolford, Garrard and others, and perhaps 1t was his quad that pre- vented the secession of Kentucky.
 At Shiloh 1t is possible that the gall lsntry of Nelson supplemented the south ern misfortune of tho death of Johnston to turn the most glorious of victories into disappointing drawn battle.g
 In July, 1862, a squad of half a dozen from the Twenty first Kentucky federal
 infantry, under the command of a cor poral named Malone, was set to guard a bridge in Tennessee. The weather was fearfully hot, and they leaned their guns against trees shed their coats, rolled up their sleeves cast. off their shoes. and tucked to their knees their trousers. Then they took the big brass buckles from their belts and used them as quoits. and en- gagged in pitching at the mug for a very small stake.
 Bye and bye here bolted up Nelson at the head of his staff, and there was mo- body to receive him with a present of arms or other formality. A stream of oaths a mile long came from him, and at the close he called Sergeant Malone-a low, squat, fat mana whole lot of Jacks of- Clubs" and ended with the ex- pression of a determination to have him shot then and there. The command had not been in the service long enough to be as disciplined as the Imperial Guard, and Billy grabbed his musket, and there was shoot in his eye though Nelson was major general. Nelson saw the situation. He was no fool and gave the signal when his staff dashed across the bridge.
 Billy Malone quietly turned to his com panions and said: Boys. somebody will kill that man in less than six months" Within a little more than six weeks, Jeff c. Davis of Indiana, who had been one of the garrison in Fort Sumter, did kill him and with pistol that the governor of Indiana handed him for that identical purpose.
 The old Gait House at Second and Maine was burned about 1864, and the new one was erected one square east of the old site, at First and Maine. It was a much finer building. and when first opened 1t was the equal of any hotel in the world Silas Miller, an old Mississippi river steamboat captain. was the first lessee, and he was succeeded by Jilson Johnson, and under their management there was no hotel anywhere to surpass it.
 Some 40-odd years ago politics in Ken lucky was little strenuous. A famous Kentuckian was John w. F'innell. who wrote over the signature 'Jeems Giles' letters after the order of Nasby of the Toledo Blade, and many of them were capital, though they made some bad-man- nered democrats cuss. In the 1872 cam paign. when in our party there was more patriotism than any other political party, here or abroad carried before. Col Henry watterson predicted that it was "a tidal wave" and he was about right in Au- gust.
 | But in November we were overwhelmed and "Jeems Giles" writ a letter that be- | gan with a seance at 'Jils Johnson's
 tavern" in which Hop" Price swore that "the tidal wave wouldn't shake min | ner."
 | They were glorious times in old Ken | lucky and the Galt House was one of our institutions. Unfortunately it was To- cated in an unfortunate locality-too far ] up town.