Lt. George E. Dixon - SCV Camp No. 1962

Nelson Alexander Eller enlisted May 30, 1861 as a Private in Co. K, ("Rowan Rifles Guards") 4th Regt. N.C. Troops, Confederate States of America at Smithville by Captain McNealy for the "duration of the war."

He was active in the battles of Seven Pines, Cold Harbor (Gaines' Mill), and South Mountain before being captured at the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg). He was then imprisoned at Fort Delaware, Delaware. Later he was sent for exchange from Fort Delaware to Aikens Landing, Virginia, October 2, 1862 and returned to Co. K., 4th Regiment North Carolina Troops May 30, 1861 at the age of 19.

He was then wounded and captured May 3, 1862 during the Battle of Chancellorsville. Nelson Alexander Eller's name appears as a signature to a "Parole of Prisoners of War" dated Office of the Provost Marshal General, Army of the Potomac, May 4, 1863.

He was admitted May 7, 1863 to "Lincoln U.S.A. General Hospital, Washington, D.C." Complaint: Vulnus sclopeticum (gunshot wound); Remarks: Flesh of right side – battle riffle ball – S – dressing. He was later sent to Old Capital June 16, 1863. He was transferred for exchange to City Point, Virginia, where he was received on June 30, 1863.

Nelson Alexander Eller, Confederate: Appears on a Register of "General Hospital, Petersburg, Virginia," complaint; admitted: July 13, 1863; Returned to duty: August 3, 1863.

He fought in the Battle of the Wilderness before again being captured May 19, 1864 at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. He was then sent to the Old Capitol Prison, Washington, D.C. before being transferred to Fort Delaware June 15, 1864. He remained there until the end of the war subscribing to an "Oath of Allegiance" to the United States before being released June 19, 1865.

In a Decatur, Illinois newspaper story printed in 1913 about local Civil War veterans, it was reported that, "When the war was over, Mr. Eller was discharged and started for home with nothing but a shirt. An old army blanket was made to serve as a pair of trousers and a friend made him a pair of shoes from the uppers of an old boot."

Private Eller died July 25, 1930 following an illness of a few months and is buried in Liberty Cemetery, Bingham, Illinois.