General Van Dorn, though heroic and brilliant at times, wasn’t perfect. He had a reputation as a seducer and a womanizer. While commanding in Spring Hill, Tennessee, he had an affair with Jessie Helen Kissack Peters. Jessie was married and despite this, the two of them carried on their passionate affair seemingly without fear of being caught.
The two would take walks through town alone together, go on carriage rides through the hills and forests of the area, and didn’t seem to mind if people knew about their affair or not.
Jessie’s jealous husband, Dr. George Peters, walked in on the two in bed together. Dr. Peters, being a man who traveled constantly with the state legislature of Tennessee, had returned to rumors of his wife’s affair with General Van Dorn. To determine if this was the truth, he told Jessie that he was leaving again but merely set up camp in the woods behind their house. He waited until he saw General Van Dorn enter through the front door. Dr. Peters charged in and found the two in bed together in the throes of passion.
Jessie begged for her husband to spare Van Dorn’s life and Van Dorn reminded Dr. Peters of his fate if he were to murder a General of the Confederacy.
Dr. Peters made Van Dorn swear that the affair would end and that he would write a letter to the town confessing the affair. In order to save his life, Van Dorn agreed.
When the affair did not end and no letter was written, Dr. Peters walked into Van Dorn’s office on May 7, 1863, and shot him in the back of the head. John B. Jones, a clerk in the Confederate war department in Richmond, summed it up succinctly: “General Van Dorn is dead, being killed by a man whose peace he had ruined.”
George divorced Jessie, but the two reunited a few years later and she took care of him into advanced age and to his deathbed. Jessie had a daughter in a time frame following Van Dorn’s death that has led many to believe that she was the daughter of the late General.
Doctor George Peters would die in Memphis, Tennessee in 1889. As Jessie was dressing for the funeral, she said, “Well, I never cared much for George, but I guess I owe him this much.”
Jessie Peters lived until 1921. They both rest in unmarked graves in Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee. Because of all their notoriety, their family chose not to mark their graves.
For critic ratings and published coverage, see reviews of The Legend of Van Dorn
Was Jessie really the reason George Peters killed Van Dorn? A modern theory claims Van Dorn instead impregnated Peters’ teenage daughter, Clara. Did Earl Van Dorn Impregnate George Peters’ Daughter Clara?