Nathaniel Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821 –
October 29, 1877) was a Confederate Army general during the American Civil War. Perhaps the most highly regarded cavalry and
partisan (guerrilla) leader in the war,
Forrest is regarded by many military historians as that conflict's most innovative and successful general. His tactics of
mobile warfare are still studied by modern soldiers. Forrest is also one of the war's
most controversial figures. He was accused of war crimes at the Battle of Fort Pillow for having led Confederate soldiers in a massacre of unarmed black
Union troops.
After the war he became Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.[1]
Early life
Nathan Bedford Forrest was born to a poor family in Chapel Hill, Tennessee. He
was the first of blacksmith William Forrest's twelve children with Miriam "Maddie" Beck. After his father's death, Forrest became
the head of the family at the age of 17, and, through hard work and determination, was able to pull himself and his family up
from poverty. In 1841 (age 20), he went into business with his uncle in Hernando,
Mississippi. His uncle was killed there during an argument with the Matlock brothers, but Forrest shot and killed two of
them with his two shot pistol and wounded the two others with a knife someone threw to him. Ironically, one of the wounded men
survived and served under Forrest during the Civil War.[2]
Forrest was to become a businessman, an owner of several plantations and a
slave trader based on Adams Street in Memphis. In
1858 Forrest (a registered Democrat) was elected as a Memphis city
alderman.[3] Forrest
provided financially for his mother, put his younger brothers through college, and, by the time the Civil War broke out in 1861,
he had become a millionaire and one of the richest men in the American South.
Military career
After war broke out, Forrest returned to Tennessee and enlisted as a private in the
Confederate States Army. On July 14,
1861, he joined Captain J.S. White's Company "Q", Tennessee Mounted Rifles.[4] Upon
seeing how badly equipped the CSA was, Forrest made an offer to buy horses and equipment for a regiment of Tennessee volunteer soldiers with his own money.
His superior officers and the state governor, surprised that someone of Forrest's wealth and
prominence had enlisted as a soldier of the lowest rank, commissioned him as a colonel. In
October of 1861 he was given command of his own regiment, "Forrest's Tennessee Cavalry
Battalion". Forrest had no prior formalized military training or
experience. He applied himself diligently to learn, and having an innate sense of successful tactics and strong leadership abilities, Forrest soon became an exemplary soldier. In Tennessee, there
was much public debate concerning the state's decision to join the Confederacy, and both the CSA and the Union armies were actively seeking Tennessean recruits.[5] Forrest sought men eager for battle, promising them that they would have "ample opportunity to kill
Yankees."
Forrest was also physically imposing— six-foot, two-inches tall (1.88 m), 210 pounds (95 kg) —very large for the day, and as
such could be very intimidating. He also used to great effect his skills as a hard rider and fierce swordsman. (He was known to
sharpen both the top and bottom edges of his heavy saber.)
It has been surmised from contemporaneous records that Forrest may have personally killed more than thirty men with saber,
pistol and shotgun.
Cavalry command
Forrest first distinguished himself at the Battle of Fort Donelson in
February 1862, where his cavalry captured a Union artillery battery and then had to
break out of a Union Army siege headed by Ulysses S. Grant. During a meeting with
superiors, Forrest found them intransigently opposed to his idea of getting his soldiers out of the fort across the
Cumberland River. Forrest angrily walked out, declaring that he had not led his men
into battle to surrender. He proved his point when he rallied nearly 4,000 troops and led them across the river, sparing their
lives so they could fight again. A few days later, with the fall of Nashville
imminent, Forrest took command of the city, which was the home for millions of dollars in heavy machinery used to make
Confederate weapons. He had the machinery and several important government officials hastily transported out.
A month later, Forrest was back in action at the Battle of Shiloh (April 6 to April 7, 1862). Once again he found
himself in command of the Confederate rear guard after a lost battle, and again he distinguished himself. Late in the battle, in
an incident itself called Fallen Timbers, he charged and drove through the Union
skirmish line. Finding himself in the midst of the enemy without any of his own troops around
him, he first emptied his pistols and then pulled out his saber. A Union infantryman on the ground beside him fired at Forrest,
hitting him in the side with a rifle shot that lifted him out of his saddle. The ball went through his pelvis and lodged near his
spine. Steadying himself and his mount, he used one arm to lift the Union soldier by the shirt collar and then wielded him as a
human shield before casting his body aside. Forrest is acknowledged to have been the last man wounded at the Battle of
Shiloh.
Forrest recovered from the injury soon enough to be back in the saddle by early summer to command a new brigade of green
cavalry regiments. In July, he led them back into middle Tennessee after receiving an order from the commanding general,
Braxton Bragg, to launch a cavalry raid. It proved another stunning success. On Forrest's
birthday, July 13, 1862, his men descended on the Union-held city
of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and, in the First Battle of Murfreesboro, defeated and captured a force of twice their number.
The raid into Murfreesboro, which was undertaken to rescue civilians taken hostage and scheduled to be executed in retaliation
for Union military casualties, included some of the armed Black Southerners who rode with Forrest. This was documented in the
official report of the Union commander:
"The forces attacking my camp were the First Regiment Texas Rangers [8th Texas Cavalry, Terry's Texas Rangers, ed.], Colonel
Wharton, and a battalion of the First Georgia Rangers, Colonel Morrison, and a large number of citizens of Rutherford County,
many of whom had recently taken the oath of allegiance to the United States Government. There were also quite a number of negroes
attached to the Texas and Georgia troops, who were armed and equipped, and took part in the several engagements with my forces
during the day." - Federal Official Records, Series I, Vol XVI Part I, pg. 805, Lt. Col. Parkhurst's Report (Ninth Michigan
Infantry) on General Forrest's attack at Murfreesboro, Tenn, July 13, 1862
Murfreesboro proved to be just the first of many victories Forrest would win; he remained undefeated in battle until the final
days of the war, when he faced overwhelming numbers. But he and Bragg could not get along, and the Confederate high command did
not realize the degree of Forrest's talent until far too late in the war. In their postwar writings, both Confederate President
Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee
lamented this oversight.
Forrest's early successes gained a promotion (July) to brigadier general, and he
was given command of a Confederate cavalry brigade. In battle, he was quick to take the offensive, using speedy deployment of
horse cavalry to position his troops, where they would often dismount and fight. He usually sought to circle the enemy flank and
cut off their rear guard support. These tactics foreshadowed the mechanized infantry tactics used in World War II and had little relationship to the formal cavalry traditions of reconnaissance, screening, and mounted assaults with sabers.
Mobile cavalry warfare
In December 1862, Forrest's veteran troopers were reassigned by Bragg to another officer, against his protest, and he was
forced to recruit a new brigade, this one composed of about 2,000 inexperienced recruits, most of whom lacked even weapons with
which to fight. Again, Bragg ordered a raid, this one into west Tennessee to disrupt the communications of the Union forces under
General Grant, threatening the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Forrest protested that to send these untrained men behind enemy lines was suicidal, but Bragg insisted, and Forrest obeyed his
orders. On the ensuing raid, he again showed his brilliance, leading thousands of Union soldiers in west Tennessee on a "wild
goose chase" trying to locate his fast-moving forces. Forrest never stayed in one place long enough to be located, raided as far
north as the banks of the Ohio River in southwest Kentucky,
and came back to his base in Mississippi with more men than he had started with, and all of
them fully armed with captured Union weapons. As a result, Grant was forced to revise and delay the strategy of his
Vicksburg Campaign significantly.
Forrest continued to lead his men in smaller-scale operations until April of 1863, when the Confederate army dispatched him
into the backcountry of northern Alabama and west Georgia to deal with an attack of 3,000 Union cavalrymen under the command of Col. Abel Streight. Streight had orders to cut the Confederate railroad south of Chattanooga, Tennessee, which would have cut off Bragg's supply line and forced him to retreat
into Georgia. Forrest chased Streight's men for 16 days, harassing them all the way, until Streight's lone objective became
simply to escape his relentless pursuer. Finally, on May 3, Forrest caught up with Streight at
Rome, Georgia, and took 1,700 prisoners.
Forrest served with the main army at the Battle of Chickamauga
(September 18 to September 20 1863), where he pursued the retreating Union army and took hundreds of prisoners. Like several others under Bragg's
command, he urged an immediate follow-up attack to recapture Chattanooga, which had fallen a few weeks before. Bragg failed to do
so, and not long after, Forrest and Bragg had a confrontation (including death threats against Bragg) that resulted in Forrest's
re-assignment to an independent command in Mississippi.
Battle of Fort Pillow
Forrest went to work and soon raised a 6,000-man force of his own, which he led back into west Tennessee. He did not have the
resources to retake the area and hold it, but he did have enough force to render it useless to the Union army. He led several
more raids into the area, from Paducah, Kentucky, on March
25 1864, to the controversial Battle of Fort
Pillow on April 12 1864. In that battle, Forrest demanded
unconditional surrender, or else he would "put every man to the sword", language he frequently used to expedite a surrender. The
battle's details remain disputed and controversial to this day. What is known is that Forrest's men stormed the lightly guarded
fort, inflicting heavy casualties on its defenders who quickly fell into disarray as the Union command—already short several
officers—collapsed.
Union commanders at Ft. Pillow had sheltered the white troops in "bombproofs" - dugout pits shielded with heavy timbers and
earth - while placing the Colored Troops on the walls where they would bear the brunt of the assault and casualties. Only when
the Colored Troops had been overrun and the fighting fell to white Union troops did the Union forces break and stream to the
riverbanks and the support of Union river gunboats.
Conflicting reports of what happened next are the source of controversy. Some alleged that the Confederates targeted several
hundred African-American soldiers inside the fort, though one battle account says the
killing was indiscriminate and another said that the deaths were directly ordered by Gen. Forrest. Only 90 out of approximately
262 blacks survived the battle. Casualties were also high among white defenders of the fort, with 205 out of about 500 surviving.
After the battle, reports surfaced of captured soldiers being subjected to brutality, including allegations that they were
crucified on tent frames and burnt alive.
Forrest's men were alleged to have set fire to Union barracks with wounded Union soldiers inside, but the report of Union LT
Daniel Van Horn (Numbers 16. Report of Lieutenant Daniel Van Horn, Sixth U. S. Colored Heavy Artillery, of the capture of Fort
Pillow - Federal Official Records, Series I, Vol. 32, Part 1, pp. 569-570) credited that act to orders carried out by Union LT
John D. Hill.
LT Van Horn also reported that, "There never was a surrender of the fort, both officers and men declaring they never would
surrender or ask for quarter."
His entry in the American National Biography says: "The congressional
committee investigating the battle concluded that Forrest had taken advantage of a truce to reposition his forces and that he had
allowed his troops to commit the slaughter. The committee heard testimony that some wounded Union troops were intentionally
burned in their barracks, while other wounded were buried alive."
Following the cessation of hostilities Forrest transferred the 14 most seriously wounded United States Colored Troops (USCT)
to the U.S. Steamer Silver Cloud. He also forwarded 39 USCT taken as prisoners to higher command.
An investigation by Union general William T. Sherman did not find any fault
with Forrest. However, the United States
Congress Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War concluded that Forrest's men did in fact fire on men who had
surrendered.[citation needed]
Brice's Crossroad
The battle at Brice's Crossroads is favored as one of Forrest's greatest accomplishments. Forrest set up a position for an
attack to repulse a pursuing force commanded by General Samuel D. Sturgis. Sturgis had
been sent specifically to impede Forrest from destroying Union supplies and fortifications. When Sturgis' Federal army came upon
the crossroad they were ambushed by Forrest's elite cavalry. In a desperate movement, Sturgis ordered his infantry to advance to
the front line to counteract the cavalry. The infantry, tired and weary from the march to the front, were quickly broken and sent
into mass retreat. Forrest, seizing the opportunity, sent a full charge after the retreating army and thus caused one of the most
embarrassing and costly retreats for the Union side, capturing 16 artillery pieces, 176 wagons and 1,500 stands of small arms. In
all, the maneuver had cost Forrest 96 men killed and 396 wounded, however the day was far worse for his enemy with 223 killed,
394 wounded and 1,623 men missing. This had been an especially deep blow to the black regiment under Sturgis' command, who had in
the hasty retreat, stripped off commemorative badges that read "Remember Fort Pillow" to hold from further aggravating the
Confederate force pursuing them.
Conclusion of the war
Forrest's greatest victory came on June 10 1864, when his
3,500-man force clashed with 8,500 men commanded by General Samuel D. Sturgis at the
Battle of Brice's Crossroads. Here, his mobility of force and superior
tactics won a remarkable victory, inflicting 2,500 casualties against a loss of 492, and sweeping the Union forces completely
from a large expanse of southwest Tennessee and northern Mississippi.
One month later, Forrest suffered his first and only major tactical defeat at the Battle of
Tupelo. Concerned about his supply lines, William T. Sherman sent a
force under the command of General Andrew J. Smith to deal with Forrest. The Union
forces sent Forrest from the field, but his forces were not wholly destroyed and he continued to be an obstacle to the Union
efforts in the West for the remainder of the war.
Forrest led other raids that summer and fall, including a famous one into Union-held downtown Memphis in August 1864 (the
Second Battle of Memphis), and another on a huge Union supply depot at
Johnsonville, Tennessee, on October 3
1864, causing millions of dollars in damage. In December, he fought alongside the Confederate
Army of Tennessee in the disastrous Franklin-Nashville Campaign. He once again fought bitterly with his superior officer,
demanding permission from John Bell Hood to cross the river at Franklin and cut off John M. Schofield's Union army's
escape route. After the bloody defeat at Franklin, Hood continued to Nashville while Forrest led an independent raid against the
Murfreesboro garrison. Forrest engaged Union forces near Murfreesboro on December 5, 1864 and was soundly defeated at what would
be known as the Battle of the Cedars. After Hood's Army of Tennessee was all but destroyed at the Battle of Nashville, Forrest again distinguished himself by commanding the Confederate rear-guard in
a series of actions that allowed what was left of the army to escape from the disastrous Battle of Nashville. For this, he earned promotion to the rank of lieutenant general.
In 1865, Forrest attempted, without success, to defend the state of Alabama against the destructive Wilson's Raid. His opponent, Brig. Gen. James H. Wilson, was one
of the few Union generals ever to defeat Forrest in battle. He still had an army in the field in April, when news of Lee's
surrender reached him. He was urged to flee to Mexico, but chose to share the fate of his men,
and surrendered. On May 9 1865, at Gainesville Forrest read his farewell address to his troops.[6] He was later cleared of any violations of the rules
of war in regard to the massacre at Fort Pillow, and was allowed to return
to private life.
In the four years of the war, reputedly a total of 30 horses were shot out from under Forrest and he may have personally
killed 31 people. "I was a horse ahead at the end," he said.
N.B. Forrest's Farewell Address To His Troops, May 9, 1865
The following text is excerpted from General Forrest's farewell address to his troops. It is a particularly sobering prelude
to the experiences the South had during Reconstruction.
Civil war, such as you have just passed through naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred, and revenge. It is our duty
to divest ourselves of all such feelings; and as far as it is in our power to do so, to cultivate friendly feelings towards those
with whom we have so long contended, and heretofore so widely, but honestly, differed. Neighborhood feuds, personal animosities,
and private differences should be blotted out; and, when you return home, a manly, straightforward course of conduct will secure
the respect of your enemies. Whatever your responsibilities may be to Government, to society, or to individuals meet them like
men.
The attempt made to establish a separate and independent Confederation has failed; but the consciousness of having done your
duty faithfully, and to the end, will, in some measure, repay for the hardships you have undergone. In bidding you farewell, rest
assured that you carry with you my best wishes for your future welfare and happiness. Without, in any way, referring to the
merits of the Cause in which we have been engaged, your courage and determination, as exhibited on many hard-fought fields, has
elicited the respect and admiration of friend and foe. And I now cheerfully and gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to the
officers and men of my command whose zeal, fidelity and unflinching bravery have been the great source of my past success in
arms.
I have never, on the field of battle, sent you where I was unwilling to go myself; nor would I now advise you to a course
which I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers, you can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your
honor, and the Government to which you have surrendered can afford to be, and will be, magnanimous.
N.B. Forrest, Lieut.-General
Headquarters, Forrest's Cavalry Corps
Gainesville, Alabama
May 9, 1865
War record and promotions
- Enlisted as private July 1861. (Company "E", Tennessee Mounted Rifles)
- Commissioned Lt. Colonel October 1861. (Raised 7th Tennessee Cavalry)
- Promoted, Colonel February 1862, Battle of Fort
Donelson.
- Wounded, Battle of Shiloh, April 1862.
- Promoted, Brig. General July 21, 1862, 3rd Tennessee Cavalry.
- First Battle of Murfreesboro, July 1862.
- Raids in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi, Fall 1862 – Spring 1863.
- Battle of Day's Gap, April – May 1863.
- Battle of Chickamauga, September 1863.
- Promoted, Major General, December 4,
1863.
- Battle of Paducah, March 1864.
- Battle of Fort Pillow, April 1864.
- Battle of Brice's Crossroads, June 1864.
- Raids in Tennessee, August – October 1864.
- Battle of Spring Hill, November 1864.
- Battle of Franklin, November 1864.
- Battle of Nashville, December 1864.
- Promoted, Lt. General, February 28,
1865.
- Final Address to his troops, May 1865.
Impact of Forrest's doctrines
Forrest was one of the first men to grasp the doctrines of "mobile warfare" that became prevalent in the 20th century.
Paramount in his strategy was fast movement, even if it meant pushing his horses at a killing pace, which he did more than once.
Noted Civil War scholar Bruce Catton writes:
Forrest ... used his horsemen as a modern general would use motorized infantry. He liked horses because he liked fast
movement, and his mounted men could get from here to there much faster than any infantry could; but when they reached the field
they usually tied their horses to trees and fought on foot, and they were as good as the very best infantry. Not for nothing did
Forrest say the essence of strategy was "to git thar fust with the most men."[7]
Forrest is often erroneously quoted as saying his strategy was to "git thar fustest with the mostest," but this quote first
appeared in print in a New York Times story in 1917, written to provide colorful
comments in reaction to European interest in Civil War generals. Bruce Catton writes, "Do not, under any circumstances whatever,
quote Forrest as saying 'fustest' and 'mostest.' He did not say it that way, and nobody who knows anything about him imagines
that he did." [8]
Forrest became well-known for his early use of "guerrilla" tactics as applied to a mobile horse cavalry deployment. He sought
to constantly harass the enemy in fast-moving raids, and to disrupt supply trains and enemy communications by destroying railroad
track and cutting telegraph lines, as he wheeled around the Union Army's flank. His success
in doing so is reported to have driven Ulysses S. Grant to fits of anger.
Many students of warfare have come to appreciate Forrest's somewhat novel approach to cavalry
deployment and quick hit-and-run tactics, both of which have influenced mobile tactics in the modern mechanized era. A
report on the Battle of Paducah stated that Forrest led a mounted cavalry of 2,500
troopers miles ( km) in only 50 hours.
One of Forrest's most famous quotes is "War means fightin', and fightin' means killin'."
Postwar years and Ku Klux Klan
-
After the war, Forrest settled in Memphis, Tennessee, building a house on a bank of the Mississippi River. With slavery abolished, the former slave trader suffered a major financial setback.
He later found employment at the Selma-based Marion &
Memphis Railroad and eventually became the company president. He was not as successful in railroad promoting as in war,
and under his direction the company went bankrupt.
It was during this time that he became the nexus of the nascent Ku Klux Klan movement. Upon learning of the Klan and its goals
of removing Northerners and reinstating the "true" Southern leaders, Forrest remarked, "That's a good thing; that's a damn good
thing. We can use that to keep the niggers in their place."[7] Delegates at an 1867 KKK convention in Nashville acclaimed him and named him the organization's honorary first Grand Wizard, or leader-in-chief. There has been no proof that Forrest willingly participated or accepted
this acclamation or that he actually functioned as a member of the Klan at any level.
In an 1868 newspaper interview, Forrest boasted that the Klan was a nationwide organization of 550,000 men, and that although
he himself was not a member, he was "in sympathy" and would "cooperate" with them, and could himself muster 40,000 Klansmen with
only five days' notice in reference to what some at the time saw as an impending conflict between the Unionist Reconstruction
militia controlling voting and the civilian population. He stated that the Klan did not see its enemy as blacks so much as
"carpetbaggers" (Northerners who came south after the war ended) and "scalawags" (white Republican Southerners).
In the interview Forrest described the Klan as "a protective political military organization...The members are sworn to
recognize the government of the United States...Its objects originally were protection against Loyal Leagues and the Grand Army
of the Republic..."
He also stated that "There were some foolish young men who put masks on their faces and rode over the country, frightening
negroes, but orders have been issued to stop that, and it has ceased."
Because of Forrest's prominence, the organization grew rapidly through making use of his name. The primary original mission of
the Klan was to counter with force the terror tactics being used by groups in Tennessee such as the Union League which were
directed by Unionist Tennesseeans against former Confederates and secessionist Tennesseeans under the blanket abuses of state
Reconstructionist governments. In addition to aiding Confederate widows and orphans of the war, some members of the new group
began to use force to prevent blacks from voting and to resist Reconstruction.
In 1869, Forrest, disagreeing with its increasingly violent tactics and specifically disagreeing with violent acts against
Blacks, ordered the Klan to disband, stating that it was "being perverted from its original
honorable and patriotic purposes, becoming injurious instead of subservient to the public peace." Many of its groups in other
parts of the country ignored the order and continued to function.
When Forrest testified before a Congressional investigation in 1871 ("The reports of Committees, House of Representatives,
second session, forty-second congress," P. 7-449) the committee concluded that Forrest's involvement with the Klan was to attempt
to order it to disband. They found no evidence that he had founded the Klan, that he had led the Klan or that he had acted to
advise it other than to make efforts to have it disband.
Nearly ruined as the result of the failure of the Marion & Memphis Railroad in the early 1870s, Forrest spent his final
days running a prison work farm on President's Island in the Mississippi River, his health in
steady decline. He and his wife lived in a log cabin they had salvaged from his plantation.
On July 5, 1875, Forrest became the first white man to speak to
the Independent Order of Pole-Bearers Association, a civil rights group whose members were former
slaves. Although his speech was short, he expressed the opinion that blacks had the right to vote for any candidates they wanted
and that the role of blacks should be elevated. He ended the speech by kissing the cheek of one of the daughters of one of the
Pole-Bearer members.[1][2]
Forrest died in October 1877, reportedly from acute complications of diabetes, in
Memphis and was buried at Elmwood Cemetery. In 1904 his remains
were disinterred and moved to Forrest Park, a Memphis city park.
Posthumous legacy
Forrest has a mixed legacy.
For many Tennesseans, Forrest remains a hero, a sentiment reflected in numerous memorials. Obelisks in his memory have been placed at his birthplace in Chapel
Hill and at Nathan Bedford Forrest State Park near Camden. A
statue of Forrest as a general stands in Memphis's Nathan Bedford Forrest Park, while a bust of
him sculpted by Jane Baxendale is on display at the state capitol building in Nashville. He is
also the namesake of Camp Forrest, a World War II
Army base in Tullahoma, Tennessee that is now the site of the Arnold Engineering Development Center. Perhaps most interesting is the spot just
off Interstate 65 south of Nashville where a massive but strange statue of Forrest on
horseback continues to stand. Here his face takes on a comical growl, and his oversized silver body sits atop an undersized
bronze mount. Both detractors and admirers of Forrest dislike this rendering with such intensity that in 2002 someone finally
shot at it. Tennessee has also dedicated thirty-two Nathan Bedford Forrest state historical markers. Even though the state claims
three Presidents of the United States of America as its
own—Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and
Andrew Johnson—Forrest has more markers and monuments in his honor than these three
presidents combined.[citation needed] Tennessee state law requires the governor to declare July 13 as "Nathan
Bedford Forrest Day."[9]
Standing next to an earlier monument to Confederate soldiers buried there, a monument to Forrest in the Old Live Oak Cemetery in Selma, Alabama reads "Defender of Selma, Wizard of the Saddle, Untutored Genius, The first with the most. This monument
stands as testament of our perpetual devotion and respect for Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. CSA 1821-1877, one of the south's
finest heroes. In honor of Gen. Forrest's unwavering defense of Selma, the great state of Alabama, and the Confederacy, this
memorial is dedicated. DEO VINDICE." Selma was the armory for the Confederacy,
providing most of the South's ammunition.
There are also high schools named for Forrest in Chapel Hill,
Tennessee, and Jacksonville, Florida. However, in the latter case, the
Duval County School Board is controversially looking at renaming Forrest High
School in Jacksonville for any of a number of people, including Eartha White.
The Duval County School Board is hardly alone: recent years have seen attempts by black leaders in some localities to remove
or eliminate Forrest monuments, usually without success. In 2005, Shelby County
Commissioner Walter Bailey started an effort to move the statue over Forrest's grave and rename Forrest Park. Memphis Mayor
Willie Herenton, who is black, blocked the move. Others have tried to get a bust of Forrest in the Tennessee House of
Representatives chamber removed.[10]
At Middle Tennessee State University, the ROTC building is named after Forrest. The building's name has thus been the source of
controversy.
Forrest's great-grandson, Nathan Bedford Forrest III, also pursued a
military career, eventually attaining the rank of brigadier general in the
United States Army Air Forces during World War II. In 1943, N. B. Forrest
III was killed in action while participating in a bombing raid over Germany.
In popular culture
In the 1994 motion picture Forrest Gump, the eponymous Tom Hanks character states that he was named after his ancestor General Nathan Bedford Forrest, and there is
an edited sequence from the 1915 pro-Klan film, Birth of a Nation, showing
Forrest as the General in Klan robes.
In the alternative history/science fiction novel The Guns of the South
by Harry Turtledove, Forrest runs for president of the Confederacy in its 1867
election.
See also
References
Notes
- ^ He was not, as is sometimes mistakenly stated, a founder of the Klan. The
founders were John C. Lester, John B. Kennedy, James R. Crowe, Frank O. McCord, Richard R. Reed, and J. Calvin Jones. Horn,
Stanley F. Invisible Empire: The Story of the Ku Klux Klan, 1866–1871, Patterson Smith Publishing Corporation: Montclair, NJ,
1939, p. 9.
- ^ Confederate silver dollar site.
- ^ Domestic slave trade site.
- ^ Tennesseans in the Civil War
- ^ Blueshoe Nashville Travel Guide.
- ^ Bill Slater website
- ^ Catton, p. 160
- ^ Catton, pp. 160 - 161
- ^ Tennessee Code Annotated 15-2-101
- ^ Scott Barker, "Nathan Forrest: Still confounding, controversial,"
Knoxville News Sentinel, February 19, 2006.
Further reading
- Lytle, Andrew Nelson,"Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company" 1931. Republished in 1984 by J.S. Sanders & Co.
- Wyeth, John Allen, "That Devil Forrest", 1899 (original) republished in 1989 by Louisiana State University Press
- Carney, Court, "The Contested Image of Nathan Bedford Forrest", Journal of Southern History. Volume: 67. Issue: 3., 2001, pp
601+.
- Bearss, Edwin C Forrest at Brice's Cross Roads and in north Mississippi in 1864Dayton OH, Press of Morningside Bookshop,
1979
- Bearss, Ed, Unpublished remarks to Gettysburg
College Civil War Institute, July 1, 2005.
- Harcourt, Edward John, "Who Were the Pale Faces? New Perspectives on the Tennessee Ku Klux", Civil War History.
Volume: 51. Issue: 1, 2005, pp: 23+.
- Henry, Robert Selph, First with the Most, 1944.
- Hurst, Jack, Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography, 1993.
- Williams, Edward F. "Fustest with the mostest; the military career of Tennessee's greatest Confederate, Lt. Gen. Nathan
Bedford Forrest Memphis", Distributed by Southern Books 1969
- Tap, Bruce, "'These Devils are Not Fit to Live on God's Earth': War Crimes and the Committee on the Conduct of the War,
1864-1865," Civil War History, XLII (June 1996), 116-32. on Ft Pillow.
- Wills, Brian Steel, A Battle from the Start: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest, 1992.
- Catton, Bruce (1971). The Civil War. American Heritage Press, New York.
Library of Congress Number: 77-119671.
External links
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