Nathan Bedford Forrest
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| Nickname | Old Bed[1] – Wizard of the Saddle[1] Devil Forrest[2] |
| Birth date | 13 July 1821 |
| Place of birth | Chapel Hill, Tennessee |
| Death date | 29 October 1877 (aged 56) |
| Place of death | Memphis, Tennessee |
| Place of burial | Forrest Park, Memphis, Tennessee |
| Allegiance | United States of America Confederate States of America Ku Klux Klan |
| Service/branch | Confederate States Army |
| Years of service | 1861 – 1865 |
| Rank | Lieutenant General |
| Commands held | Forrest's Cavalry Corps |
| Battles/wars | American Civil War |
Nathan Bedford Forrest (13 July 1821 – 29 October 1877) was Confederate Army cavalry general in the American Civil War as well as the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in the early years of the Reconstruction era.
Life
Forrest was born near Chapel Hill, Tennessee. Before his father's death in 1837 the family had removed to Mississippi, and for some years thereafter it was supported principally by Nathan, who was the eldest son. Thus he never received any formal education (as witnessed by the uncouth phraseology and spelling of his war despatches), but he managed to teach himself with very fair success, and is said to have possessed considerable ability as a mathematician. He was in turn a horse and cattle trader in Mississippi, and a slave dealer and horse trader in Memphis, until 1859, when he took to cotton planting in north-western Mississippi, where he acquired considerable wealth.
At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, he volunteered as a private, raised a cavalry battalion, of which he was lieut.-colonel, and in February 1862 took part in the defence of Fort Donelson, and refusing, like Generals Floyd and Pillow, to capitulate with the rest of the Confederate forces, made his way out, before the surrender, with all the mounted troops there. He was promptly made a colonel and regimental commander, and fought at Shiloh with distinction, receiving a severe wound. Shortly after this he was promoted brigadier-general (July 1862). At the head of a mounted brigade he took a brilliant part in General Bragg's autumn campaign, and in the winter of 1862/1863, he was continually active in raiding the hostile lines of communication.
These raids have been the theme of innumerable discussions, and on the whole their value seems to have been overrated. At the same time, and apart from the question of their utility, Forrest's raids were uniformly bold and skilful, and are his chief title to fame in the history of the cavalry arm. Indeed, next to the generals James Ewell Brown Stuart and Philip Sheridan, he was the finest cavalry leader of the whole war. One of the most remarkable of his actions was his capture, near Rome, Georgia, after five days of marching and fighting, of an entire cavalry brigade under Colonel A. D. Streight (April 1863). He was present at the battle of Chickamauga in September, after which (largely on account of his criticism of General Bragg, the army commander) he was transferred to the Mississippi. Forrest was made a major-general in December 1863. In the spring of 1864 he raided as far north as Paducah, Ky. On the 12th of April 1864, he assaulted and captured Fort Pillow, in Tennessee on the Mississippi; U.S. black troops formed a large part of the garrison and according to northern propaganda many were massacred after the fort had surrendered.
The alleged "Massacre of Fort Pillow" has been the subject of much controversy and there is much conflicting testimony regarding it, but it seems probable that Forrest himself had no part in it. On the 10th of June Forrest decisively defeated a superior Federal force at Brice's Cross Roads, Miss., and throughout the year, though the greatest efforts were made by the Federals to crush him, he raided in Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama with almost unvarying success. He was once more with the main Confederate army of the West in the last disastrous campaign of Nashville, and fought stubborn rearguard actions to cover the retreat of the broken Confederates. In February 1865 he was made a lieut.-general, but the struggle was almost at an end and General James H. Wilson, one of the ablest of the Union cavalry generals, rapidly forced back the few Confederates, now under Forrest's command, and stormed Selma, Alabama, on the 2nd of April. The surrender of General Forrest and his whole command, under the agreement between General Richard Taylor and General E. S. Canby, followed on the 9th of May. After the war he lived in Memphis.
He sold his cotton plantation in 1867, and for some years was president of the Selma, Marion and Memphis Railroad. In 1867 he became Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.He died at Memphis, Tennessee, on the 29th of October 1877.
The military character of General Forrest, apart from questions of his technical skill, horsemastership and detail special to his arm of the service, was admittedly that of a great leader. He never commanded a large force of all arms. He was uneducated, and had neither experience of nor training for the strategical handling of great armies. Yet his personality and his natural soldierly gifts were such that General Sherman considered him "the most remarkable man the Civil War produced on either side." Joseph Johnston, the Confederate general whose greatness lay above all in calm and critical judgment, said that Forrest, had he had the advantage of a thorough military training, "would have been the great central figure of the war."
Battles
- Battle of Fort Donelson
- Battle of Shiloh
- First Battle of Murfreesboro
- Battle of Chickamauga
- Battle of Fort Pillow
- Battle of Brice's Crossroads
- Battle of Tupelo
- Second Battle of Memphis
- Third Battle of Murfreesboro
- Battle of Nashville
- Wilson's Raid
Battle of Fort Pillow in 1864
The battle was characterized by close-quarters combat, chaos, and the breakdown of command and control. Conflicting accounts of what actually occurred were given. Southern soldiers made claims such that the Union flag was still flying over the fort (indicating that no formal surrender had occurred) and that the Union soldiers, although fleeing, kept their weapons and frequently turned to shoot, forcing the Confederates to keep firing in self-defense.[3][4] Regardless, atrocity claims were widely publicized in Northern war propaganda. Furthermore, this occurred at a time when claims of Southern mistreatment of POWs in general were common in Northern war propaganda, which may have made Northern soldiers afraid to surrender. See Confederate revisionism: POW camps propaganda.
William Tecumseh Sherman, general of the Union Army, headed an investigation into the events and the extent of Forrest's culpability for it, in which Forrest was found blameless, as "he was to the rear, out of sight if not of hearing at the time" and "stopped the firing as soon as he could". Additionally, Sherman "was told by hundreds" of Union soldiers that they were treated well, while prisoners under Forrest, at various times during the war.[5]
Quotes
- “The crisis called for a man, and there he was; a born soldier, not of the mere dilatory or dilettante or martinet or bulldog order, but one who always carried a head on his shoulders, brimful of native brain capacity, of far-reaching intuition, grasping the thing to do, and never failing to do it.” – Wharton Jackson Green, U.S. Congressman from North Carolina and an officer in the Confederate States Army
Descendants and commemoration
His great-grandson, Nathan Bedford Forrest III., was shot down over Germany in 1943 as a brigadier general, pilot and terror bomber for the United States Army Air Forces and crashed his Boeing B-17 "Flying Fortress".
Today, Nathan Bedford Forrest is commemorated by a state park, high schools, and numerous memorials, although leftist and Negro groups (for example Black Lives Matter) have repeatedly insisted on renaming or demolition, often tragically successful.
Forrest (name)
In the USA, especially the south, Forrest has been used as a given name in honour of the Confederate Civil War general in the 20th century. This name was also borne by the title character in the movie "Forrest Gump" (1994) about a loveable simpleton and war hero played by star actor Tom Hanks. Use of the name had once again increased when the movie was released.
See also
External links
Encyclopedias
- Encyclopedia Britannica: Nathan Bedford Forrest
- Encyclopedia Britannica 1911 Edition: Nathan Bedford Forrest
- Encyclopedia.com: Nathan Bedford Forrest
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Language of the Civil War, John D. Wright, Greenwood Publishing Group, (2001), p. 210 & p. 326
- ↑ Slowly by Slowly, Patrick S. Beard, Xulon Press, 30 Jul 2009, p. 33
- ↑ Bailey, Ronald H., and the Editors of Time-Life Books. Battles for Atlanta: Sherman Moves East. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1985. ISBN 0-8094-4773-8.
- ↑ Cimprich, John, and Robert C. Mainfort, Jr., eds. "Fort Pillow Revisited: New Evidence About An Old Controversy", Civil War History 4 (Winter, 1982)
- ↑ William T. Sherman (1875). Memoirs of General William T. Sherman by Himself