Basil W. Duke

Infobox Military Person
name= Basil Wilson Duke
born= birth date|mf=yes|1838|5|28
died= death date and age|mf=yes|1916|9|16|1838|5|28
placeofbirth= Georgetown, Kentucky
placeofdeath= New York City, New York
placeofburial= Lexington Cemetery


caption=
nickname=
allegiance= United States of America Confederate States of America
branch= United States Army Confederate Army
serviceyears= 1861–65
rank= Brigadier General
commands= Morgan's Raiders
unit= 2nd Kentucky Cavalry
9th Kentucky Cavalry
battles= American Civil War
*Battle of Shiloh
*Morgan's Raid
awards=
laterwork= lawyer, lobbyist, writer

Basil Wilson Duke (May 28, 1838 – September 16, 1916) was a Confederate general officer during the American Civil War, most noted for his service as a brigade commander in 1863's Morgan's Raid; Duke would later wrote a popular account of this raid. He was the brother-in-law of John Hunt Morgan, and took over his command after Morgan was shot by Union soldiers in 1864. Near the end of the war, Duke was among Confederate President Jefferson Davis's bodyguards after his flight from Richmond, Virginia.

Duke's lasting impact was as a historian and communicator of the Confederate experience. As a historian he helped to found the Filson Club Historical Society and started the preserving of the Shiloh battlefield. He wrote numerous books and magazine articles, most notably in the "Southern Bivouac". When he died, he was one of the few high-ranking Confederate officers still alive.

Early life and career

Basil Wilson Duke was born in Scott County, Kentucky, on May 28, 1838; the only child of Nathaniel W. Duke and his wife, the former Mary Pickett Currie. He was convert|5|ft|10|in, slightly-built, with a resonant voice. [Matthews pg.xiii] A relative described him as "essentially a man of the 17th century, that century in half armor, torn between chivalry and realism". [Brown pg.27, 28, Christensen pg.264]

Duke's parents died during his childhood: Mary, when Basil was eight, and Nathaniel when Basil was 11; save for an instance in his "Reminiscences", he seldom mentioned them. He attended Georgetown College (1853-1854) and Centre College (1854-1855), before studying law at Lexington, Kentucky's Transylvania University. After graduating in 1858, he went to St. Louis, Missouri in 1858 to practice law, as his older cousin, also named Basil Duke, was practicing law there, and there were already a multitude of lawyers in Lexington. [Kleber pg.256, 257.] [Matthews pg.12,16-18]

Civil War service

When the American Civil War started in 1861, Duke was still in Missouri, where he helped in the initial forays for Missouri's secession from the United States. (Missouri would have both Federal and Confederate governments during the War.) On January 7, 1861, after so many pro-Northern politicians were elected in St. Louis, he and four others created Minute Men, a pro-secession organization, with Duke quickly becoming the leader, despite being only 23 years old. He formed five companies, and sought to acquire the federal arsenal in St. Louis for the secessionist movement. He made a habit of placing secessionist flags at prominent locations, looking to start fights with pro-Union forces. He would eventually be indicted for arson and treason. [Heidler pg.625] [Matthews pg.24, 25]

He moved back to Lexington, Kentucky, in April 1861 in order to marry Henrietta Hunt Morgan, sister of John Hunt Morgan. They were married on June 19, 1861. Duke would return to Missouri to help Confederate forces in Missouri, but would eventually return to Kentucky at Brigadier General William J. Hardee's insistence. By October 1861, he would enlist in his brother-in-law's (Morgan's) command as a private, but would be elected as a Second Lieutenant. [Kleber pg.257] [Matthews pg.34] [Heidler pg.625]

He was twice wounded. At the Battle of Shiloh, he was swinging at a Union soldier when he was shot in the left shoulder by a Brown Bess musket, exiting his right shoulder, barely missing his spine. After this, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel, and a few months later a full colonel. At Elizabethtown, Kentucky during Morgan's Christmas Raid of 1862 he was hit by a shell fragment while leading the back guard as the rest of Morgan's men crossed a stream; his men initially assumed he was dead. [Kleber pg.257] [Brown pg.50, 153] [Heidler pg.625]

Duke was the principal trainer for mounted combat for Morgan's Raiders. He participated in Morgan's Raid, during which he was captured at the Battle of Buffington Island on July 19, 1863, leading troops in a delaying tactic which allowed other Confederate forces to escape across the Ohio River with Adam "Stovepipe" Johnson, or further into the state of Ohio with Morgan. [Kleber pg.257] [Heidler pg.625]

Duke would remain in captivity until August 3, 1864, where he was exchanged. He could have escaped from the Ohio State Penitentiary with Morgan and Thomas Hines, but felt that to do so would hurt the chances of the escapees, as Morgan was easily replaced in his cell by his brother, but no similar replacement was there for Duke. After Morgan was killed, Duke assumed command of Morgan's forces on September 15, 1864, being promoted to brigadier general. He was with Confederate President Jefferson Davis when Davis left Richmond. Duke was in the final Confederate war council at the Burt-Stark Mansion in Abbeville, South Carolina, on May 2, 1865. Duke surrendered to Union officials on May 10, 1865, in Washington, Georgia. [Brown pg.242, Christensen pg.265, Kleber pg.257]

Postbellum

After the war, Duke moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and in 1868 returned to practicing law, with his primary client being the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. He served as their chief counsel and lobbyist, despite the L&N Railroad being a favorite victim of Morgan's raiders during the war. He briefly serve in the Kentucky General Assembly from 1869 to 1870, resigning as he felt a conflict of interest being a lobbyist for the L&N. Duke also served as the Fifth Judicial District's commonwealth attorney from 1875 to 1880. [Kleber pg.257] [Heidler pg.625] [Matthews pg.xiii]

Duke became greatly involved in writing the history of the Civil War and related topics. He helped to found Louisville's Filson Club Historical Society in 1884, writing many of their early papers. From 1885 to 1887 he edited the magazine "Southern Bivouac". He also wrote three books: "History of Morgan's Cavalry" (1867), "History of the Bank of Kentucky, 1792-1895" (1895), and "Reminiscences of General Basil W. Duke" (a collection of various magazine articles he wrote) (1911). [Kleber pg.257] A prominent writer of the Southern experience, he neither advocated slavery, nor apologized for it; thinking it was a good thing it was abolished, but that Northern claims of excessive abuse of slaves was exaggerated. [Matthews pg.16]

After 1900, Duke began to withdraw from his public career. In 1902 or 1903 he ceased doing work for the L&N. In 1904 he was appointed commissioner of Shiloh National Military Park by President Theodore Roosevelt, due to having been introduced to each other at the Filson Club. Duke was devastated when on October 20, 1909, when his wife of fifty years, Tommie, died of sudden heart failure. Afterward, he lived with his daughter Julia and her family in Louisville's Cherokee Park. Duke was one of the last high-ranking Confederate to live, so in his final years he spent much time handling requests by those with questions about the Confederacy, even during the time he was recovering from cataracts in 1914. Duke died after having surgery in New York City on September 16, 1916 while visiting his daughter Mary Currie in Massachusetts; he had been in the hospital to have his right foot amputated on September 1, and then have his right leg amputated at the knee on September 11. He is buried in Lexington Cemetery in the Hunt family section, in front of John Hunt Morgan. His lasting fame was as a writer of Confederate military history. [Heidler pg.625] [Matthews pg.297,300-304]

ee also

*List of American Civil War generals

Notes

ee also

References

*cite book
author = Dee Alexander Brown
title = The Bold Cavaliers
location =
publisher = White Mane Publishing Co.
date = 1959
isbn = ASIN B0013APBE6
*cite book
author = Lawrence O. Christensen
title = Dictionary of Missouri Biography
location =
publisher = University of Missouri Press
date = 1999
isbn = 0826212220
*cite book
author = David Heidler
title = Encyclopedia of the American Civil War
location =
publisher = W. W. Norton & Company
date = 2002
isbn = 039304758X
*cite book
author = John E. Kleber
title = Encyclopedia of Louisville
location =
publisher = University Press of Kentucky
date = 2001
isbn = 0813121000
*cite book
author = Gary Matthews
title = Basil Wilson Duke, CSA: The Right Man in the Right Place
location =
publisher = University Press of Kentucky.
date = 2005
isbn = 0813123755

External links

*findagrave|8922 Retrieved on 2008-08-12