Slough was 40 years old at the time. He served as a lieutenant in Company C of the 1st North Carolina Regiment of Foot Soldiers during the Mexican War. The men spent most of their time in Mexico serving under Maj. Gen. Zachary Taylor in the area south of the Rio Grande, near the villages of Camargo and Saltillo. Slough became involved in a major controversy when he joined several other officers in calling for the resignation of their commander, Lt. Col. Robert T. Paine. The regiment took no part in any fighting but suffered the death of 38 men from fever after they drank tainted water. Many others died or were rendered unfit for duty from various other diseases.⁴

Following the Mexican War, Slough held the position as Clerk of the Courts in Cabarrus County. While serving an arrest warrant, he was severely wounded in his leg, the effects of which remained “evident in his halting step.” When his home state left the Union, Slough joined the 20th North Carolina as a captain of a company from that county and was promoted to the rank of major a little more than one year later. He commanded temporarily the 20th North Carolina during the fierce fighting at Malvern Hill in early July of 1862. “A braver man never lived,” one soldier from the regiment remarked in a letter to a Wilmington newspaper. “This has been demonstrated, and is acknowledged by all.”⁵

Despite the strong opposition from the company officers, Iverson displayed his usual stubbornness by moving ahead with his plans for Devane to take over command of the regiment. “The major of the Regiment is a brave man but I do not think him qualified to fill and discharge the important duties of a colonel,” he wrote to Adjutant General Cooper during mid-December. “Nor do I know of an officer in the Regiment who can properly discharge those duties.” Iverson further argued that “some of them may in time become able and competent I do not doubt but consulting solely the good of the service, I am constrained to object to the appointment of any one of them to the position of Col.”

He insisted that the appointment of Devane by President Davis represented the only possible solution to the problems in the regiment. “I know this gentlemen to be a man of ability, a good officer and unobjectionable in every respect,” Iverson remarked. “He is from the state of North Carolina and was at one time in the 20th Regt as Captain.” He emphasized that “the service will not suffer in his hands, and I believe that he will pass any board of examination that may be called.” Iverson called on the adjutant general to endorse the appointment “by forwarding this letter with your own remarks.”⁶

Once word spread that Iverson had submitted Devane’s nomination to the War Department in Richmond, his opponents in the regiment immediately moved to thwart the plan. Captain Brooks reported to his brother that Iverson had improperly recommended Devane to the president for appointment as the new commander of the 20th North Carolina. He explained that, when the officers of the regiment found out about it, they submitted a protest to Cooper “against Genl Iverson’s recommendation and he refused to forward it.”

Rather than passing their list of complaints up the chain of command, Iverson returned it with his own comments. He brusquely informed Maj. Slough and the other officers that such a protest “was not admissible” under any circumstances. He refused to budge from his position unless they toned down their language considerably. Iverson added, however, that “when the officers shall send a respectful communication through these Headqrtrs it will be forwarded with great pleasure.” Brooks noted that the officers responded by sending the letter “over hiss head.”⁷

The officers from the regiment declared in the letter that they were “not willing to submit to a one man power.” Most of all, they steadfastly objected to Iverson’s assertion that, because Lieutenant Colonel Toon had declined promotion, no officer of lower rank in the regiment could be promoted. “Sir this Reg’t has been through a number of hard fought battles and through some of them without the assistance of Col now Gen Iverson, and we cannot tamely submit to the reflections, the insult cast upon the officers of this Regiment,” they argued. “We say we cannot. Nay, we will not.”

They forcefully spelled out their case for reversing Iverson’s decision. The officers insisted that the only fair way to select a new colonel was through a board of examination. “Sir, give us justice,” they pleaded. “It is all we ask. If the officers at the head of the list are incompetent go through the whole line and if all are found to be incompetent their will be time enough to make an appointment outside of the regiment.” The extent of their disapproval was obvious from the fact that the document had been signed by all but four of the 30 officers present in the regiment.⁸

The reaction from Iverson was not long in coming. On December 27, he retaliated by arresting all those whose names appeared on the protest. “At this time, there is quite a stir in our Regt,” Lt. Oliver Mercer told his father. “26 officers under arrest and I am one of the No.” Brooks reported to his brother that Asst. Adj. Gen. Don Halsey came “over to the regiment and arrested all the officers that sign the protest which was 26 of us.” He added that “we protested against having a Col appointed over us who was not in our Regiment and upon this he arrested us.”

Brooks expressed outrage that “officers of this Regt who have fought through a number of hard fought Battles and took scars upon there bodys that Yankee musket balls have placed upon them” were passed over for promotion in favor of an outsider. Most of all, Brooks argued that it was a shame “for Genl Iverson to tell the President of the Confederate States that there was no officer in the Regt fit to be promoted to the position of Col when there is the brave old Nelson Slough who fought through the Mexican war as an officer and has commanded this Regt in the hard fight at Malvern Hill.”

The officers based their protest on the specific grounds that Iverson had violated their rights by nominating Devane. “The vacancy caused by Iverson’s promotion, he (Iverson) wanted to fill by appointment, which is contrary to law,” Lieutenant Mercer explained. “And we all protested against it, feeling that our self and Regt’l pride had not all vanished, so Gen. I-n has arrested us all and preferred charges against us and will court martial us. Everybody looks upon us as doing right and honorable.” He pointed out that “there were only a few officers who did not sign the document.”

Captain Brooks remained just as adamant about his opposition to their brigade commander. Brooks stated defiantly that he was “unwilling to have the rights that congress had gave us taken away to please Genl. Alfred Iverson.” In a letter to his parents, the captain pledged that “if the same thing was to be done tomorrow morning we would do it with grate pleasure.” Although confined to quarters, the officers of the 20th North Carolina continued defying Iverson. “Quite a jolly crowd,” was how Mercer described the mood in a letter home. “We have a big time. Nothing to do. Ivenson is very unpopular with the Brigade already.”⁹

In a further complication for Iverson, the officers persuaded two of the most prominent lawyers in the state—Col. William P. Bynum from the 2nd North Carolina and Col. Alfred M. Scales from the 13th North Carolina—to join Capt. William J. Stanley from their own regiment as defense counsels. Bynum had graduated from Davidson College in 1842 and built a thriving law practice in Lincoln County. Scales was a graduate of the University of North Carolina and spent several years as the state solicitor in Rockingham County. He later turned to politics, serving in the North Carolina General Assembly and in the U.S. Congress from 1857 to 1859.¹⁰

With their assistance, the officers grew even more confident that they could successfully resist Iverson’s appointment of an outsider as the new commander of the regiment. Almost to a man, they remained defiant and ready to take on their former regimental commander. “Don’t be uneasy about us,” Lieutenant Mercer declared in a letter to his family. “We have good counsel and will come out right.” Brooks told his father that “you and mother may be well assured that our cases are in good hands for Scals and Biham is as smart as [the] Gen or J. Davis.”¹¹

On December 30, Iverson notified Cooper in Richmond that he had decided to withdraw Devane’s nomination. “Lieut Col Devane will have too much delicacy to accept a position when there is so much opposition to him,” he admitted. Nevertheless, he continued to blame his subordinates for all the problems. “The officers of the Regiment seem to have entirely misapprehended my motives in making the recommendation and to believe that instead of trying to do the Regiment a service, I have endeavored to do it injury,” he insisted. Iverson noted that he had “arrested all the officers concerned in the protest for a grave military offence that of combination to pass censure upon my official actions.”¹²

Although William Devane’s appointment was no longer an issue, Iverson demonstrated his poor judgment by waiting almost one entire month before releasing the officers from arrest. “We are free from them again and got out ‘honorably,’” Mercer cheerfully informed his sister on January 29. Major Slough gleefully told a friend on the same day that “General Iverson has withdrawn the charges against the officers of this regiment, including myself.” Slough and Brooks then agreed to a compromise in which they waived their rights of seniority in favor of Capt. Thomas F. Toon, the half brother of their former lieutenant colonel.¹³

In an apparent act of petty retaliation, however, Confederate authorities soon afterward turned down Col. Bynum’s application to leave his regiment so that he could take the post of solicitor in his home judicial district. The dispute remained unresolved until Governor Vance complained directly to Secretary of War Seddon in late February. “I beg leave to protest against this disrespect towards the civil government of N.C.,” he declared. The governor went on to note that “common courtesy, it seems to me, requires that his resignation should be accepted, and I am confident that upon a consideration of the whole matter it will be done at once.” Even then, the government did not formally approve Bynum’s resignation until the 21st of March.¹⁴