Biographical Note

Thomas Nelson Jr. married Frances Page in 1795 and had four children, including Rev. George Washington Nelson (b. 1805), who married Jane Crease in 1834. They had three children, including George Washington Nelson, Jr. (b. 1840), also known as "Wash." He attended University of Virginia from 1858 to 1860, but, in May 1861, enlisted in the Confederate Army. Within a year, he was a Captain commanding the Hanover Light Artillery, soon to be promoted to Major. In October 1862, outside New Market in Millwood, Clarke County, Va., he was captured by Union forces and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner. Confined first at Atheneum Prison, West Virginia, he was transferred to Camp Chase, Ohio; Johnson’s Island, Ohio; Pt. Lookout then Hammond General Hospital, Maryland; and then to Ft. Delaware, Delaware in June 1864. On 20 August 1864, he was moved to Morris Island outside Charleston, South Carolina, where he become one of what is known as the Immortal 600, a group of confederate prisoners placed by the Union in the line of Confederate fire, in retaliation for a similar action by the Confederate Army. "Wash" was moved again to Ft. Pulaski, Georgia, where he was finally released in June 1865. His correspondence with cousin Mollie Scollay, written while he was a prisoner of war, is a prominent part of the Nelson Family Papers. He and Mollie were married in October 1865. George Washington Nelson, Jr., was ordained as a Episcopal priest in 1875 and had been rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Warrenton, Va. for over twenty years at the time of his death on 30 May 1903. Mollie died on 12 June 1923.

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