Brigadier General Joseph Van Holt Nash's affiliation with Governor Hugh M. Dorsey in 1921 over cases of AWOL in the Georgia National Guard was, of course, not the first time the two had crossed paths. Dorsey had reappointed Nash to the Guard's top position following the World War. While the General and the Governor agreed on the treatment of cases of AWOL in the Guard in 1921, they were at opposite sides less than a decade earlier when General Nash had to mobilize Guardsmen, including the Governors Horse Guards, to protect then Governor John M. Slaton from citizens incensed by the Governor's commutation of Leo Frank's death sentenced. 1 In fact, several men were arrested with weaons and dynamite near the Governor's mansion and Slaton, whose term expired within days of his decision, left the state temporarily. Dorsey, as fate would have it, was the solicitor general of the Atlanta Judicial Circuit in 1913 and had declined to grant Frank's appeal for a rehearing. By 1920, Dorsey, (first elected in 1917) had risen to the state's highest office and Nash was his adjutant general. Nash was, however, an interesting and prominent Georgian in his own right.

Brigadier General Nash was appointed as Georgia's Adjutant General in the years preceding World War I and served for three years following the return of the Guard to State control in 1919 from wartime federal service. He was a staunch supporter of the National Guard and believed in the volunteerism of the citizen-soldier. During his watch, beginning in 1913, he had to contend with the financial wrangling between the U. S. Congress and the Governor's office in his pursuit of a budget that would provide funds for good training and equipment. Following World War I, Nash began his second term as Adjutant General and oversaw the reconstitution of the National Guard in Georgia.

Nash resided in Atlanta for many years prior to his appointment as Adjutant General. Accounts of his early years differ, though all agree that he was born in Virginia on April 11th, 1868, and that his family moved to Maryland when he was a young boy. His biographers also agree that his parents eventually settled in Georgia, but whether the young Nash accompanied them is in doubt. Some biographical sketches say that the future Adjutant General joined his parents in Atlanta after graduation from Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va. and later (1880) enrolled at the Georgia Military Academy in Savannah, returning to Atlanta afterwards to further his education at a local business college. Newspaper articles at the time of his death assert that Nash went with his parents to Augusta, Georgia and attended Richmond Academy where he received his first military training. 2

After completing his education, he joined an insurance firm in Atlanta and by 1894 had risen to a top managerial position. He was also married in Atlanta the same year.

Nash's military career began August 3rd, 1886, when at the age of 17, he enlisted as a private in the Atlanta Rifles of the Georgia Volunteers (predecessor of the Georgia Army National Guard). Promotion followed promotion until he attained the rank of captain in July, 1893.

The future Adjutant General was evidently an athletic young man, as evidenced by the following description of him from Memoirs of Georgia, vol. 1, published in 1895: "Mr. Nash is an agile athlete and before the cares of business accumulated on his shoulders he took great interest in the Atlanta gymnasium, and is now a warm supporter of lusty sports and robust, healthful exercise. He is exceedingly popular among the young men of the city, being admired for his sterling qualities, for his cordial, cheering characteristics, and the manly attractions that fasten friends as magnetism induces bits of steel." 3

War with Spain was declared in 1898 and Captain Nash and the Atlanta Rifles were part of the 2nd Georgia Volunteers, stationed at Tampa, Florida. At the conclusion of the Spanish-American war, he remained with the Georgia Guard and rose to the rank of brigadier general. In January 1913 he was appointed The Adjutant General of Georgia by Governor Joseph Merriwether Terrell, serving until November 1917 when he left for federal service following U. S. entry into World War I.

He entered officer's training camp at Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. as a student officer and was commissioned a major in the U. S. Army November 27th, 1917, reporting for duty afterwards to the 157th Depot Brigade at Camp Gordon, Ga. in north Atlanta. Nash next went to Camp McClellan, Ala., and was later assigned to the War Plans Division, General Staff in Washington, D. C. He was discharged February 18th, 1919. 4

Within a month of Nash's discharge, Governor Hugh M. Dorsey reappointed him to the post of Adjutant General. Hence on March 1st, 1919, General Nash again assumed the post of the Adjutant General of Georgia, a position he had held almost continuously since 1913. He remained the Adjutant General of Georgia until his tragic death in an automobile accident outside of Griffin, Ga on October 20, 1922.

On that October day in the fall of 1922, Nash and three other officers were returning from a barbecue given by Maj. G. E. Mallet and Capt. E. Settle in Jackson, Georgia. In the early evening on the narrow Georgia roads running between Butts county and Atlanta, Nash's car hit a "bad spot" in the road and "went over" an embankment. Nash died instantly; Lt. Hugh Madison Butler of Company F (Gate City Guards) died en route to the hospital; Major Charles Cox (a future adjutant general) sustained serious injuries; and Lt. Harry A. Heins, also of Company F, escaped injury. 5

Brigadier General Nash's flag draped casket lay in-state at the capitol on Saturday the 21st with The Atlanta Constitution reporting that his casket was viewed by thousands. On Sunday afternoon, the 22nd, the body, escorted by the Govemor's Horse Guards, Troop C, 108th Cavalry, Georgia National Guard, was taken to the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta. At the church two companies of the U. S. Army's 22nd Infantry from Ft. McPherson stood at "present arms" as the fort's regimental band played "Nearer My God To Thee". The commander of Fort McPherson and his staff also attended the services. 6

As the casket was removed from the church, members of the governor's staff, the Old Guard, and Spanish-American War veterans lined the church's pavilion. The Horse Guards escorted the cortege to Westview cemetery and there three volleys were fired by a squad of the 22nd Infantry as the body was interred.

Newspapermen of the day lauded Nash and wrote that "he would never be forgotten." Seventy-seven years later the athletic youth who rose to the position of Adjutant General of Georgia is a forgotten part of the Georgia National Guard's past. 7

1. Leo Frank, a Jewish businessman convicted of the murder and assault of Mary Phagan, was sentenced to death in 1913. Governor Slaton, after an exhaustive review of the case, was doubtful of Frank's guilt and commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. For his action Slaton's life was threatened and hence General Nash was ordered to mobilize the Guard to protect the Governor. In 1915, Ku Klux Klansmen dragged Frank from his cell in Marietta, Georgia and hung him. Among the many volumes on the Leo Frank case see Mary Phagan, The Murder of Little Mary Phagan, Far Hills, N.J.: New Horizon Press, 1987; and Leonard Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987.

2. For biographical sketches of General Van Holt Nash see the Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution, October 21-23, 1922, passim. See also John C. Edwards, "Georgia Guardsmen and the Politics of Survival 1915-1916" Georgia Historical Quarterly, LX, no 4, (winter 1976), 346. For other biographical data see "Summary Card Application for a Victory medal," microfilm, box 53 Deparunent of Archives and History, Atlanta; and, Franklin Garrett, Necrology, microfilm, drawer 314, box 31, frame 389, Georgia Department of Archives and History, Atlanta.

3. Memoirs of Georgia, containing historical accounts of the state's civil, military, industrial and professional interests, and personal sketches of many of its people. Atlanta, Ga., The Southern Historical Association, 1895, vol. 1.

4. The October 22, 1992 edition of the Atlanta Constitution indicates Fort McPherson, Ga., was the Officers' Training Camp rather than Fort Oglethorpe. Ibid, Oct. 22, 1922, passim.

5 Atlanta Constitution, Oct 21,1922, passim.

6. Ibid., Oct 23,1922, p. 1.

7. Ibid., Oct 21,1922, passim.