Grant wrote in his memoirs that Forrest, in his report of the battle, had "left out the part which shocks humanity to read". Tippah County, Mississippi native Jeffery Edward Forrest was a younger and purportedly favorite brother of Nathan Bedford Forrest. [102] The Chicago Tribune said Forrest and his brothers were "slave drivers and woman whippers", while Forrest himself was described as "mean, vindictive, cruel, and unscrupulous". [171], Forrest testified before the Congressional investigation of Klan activities on June 27, 1871. When was Nathan born? In 1869, Forrest expressed disillusionment with the lack of discipline in the white supremacist terrorist group across the South,[8] and issued a letter ordering the dissolution of the Ku Klux Klan as well as the destruction of its costumes; he then withdrew from the organization. Consequently, his role at Fort Pillow was a stigmatizing one for him the rest of his life, both professionally and personally,[229][230] and contributed to his business problems after the war. The illness also claimed Forrest's twin sister, Fanny. Congressman, RI: Biographies of the Civil War: 1: Apr 19, 2021: Committee Recommends Statue of Nathan Forrest Be Placed in Museum, Not in Public: Concerns About Civil War Monuments and Sites . Subsequently, then-Mayor A C Wharton urged that the statue of Forrest be removed from the Health Sciences Park and suggested that the remains of Forrest and his wife be relocated to their original burial site in nearby Elmwood Cemetery. . [189] In 1904, the remains of Forrest and his wife Mary were disinterred from Elmwood and moved to a Memphis city park that was originally named Forrest Park in his honor but has since been renamed Health Sciences Park. [170], During the presidential election of 1868, the Ku Klux Klan, under the leadership of Forrest, and other terrorist groups, used brutal violence and intimidation against blacks and Republican voters. [170] These developments worked to the advantage of the Republicans, who focused on the Democratic Party's alleged disloyalty during and after the Civil War. He is remembered both as a self-educated, innovative cavalry leader during the war and as a leading southern advocate in the postwar years. [94] These statements were contradicted by U.S. Army survivors and by the letter of a Confederate soldier who graphically recounted a massacre. [115] During Hood's Tennessee Campaign, he fought alongside General John Bell Hood, the newest commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, in the Second Battle of Franklin on November 30. The plans triggered outrage, and around 20 protesters attempted to block the construction of the new monument by lying in the path of a concrete truck. [181], In response to the Pole-Bearers speech, the Cavalry Survivors Association of Augusta, the first Confederate organization formed after the war, called a meeting in which Captain F. Edgeworth Eve gave a speech expressing strong disapproval of Forrest's remarks promoting inter-ethnic harmony, ridiculing his faculties and judgment and berating the woman who gave Forrest flowers as "a mulatto wench". [95][96][97], Following the cessation of hostilities, Forrest transferred the 14 most seriously wounded United States Colored Troops (USCT) to the U.S. steamer Silver Cloud. [221] He grasped the doctrines of mobile warfare[222] that would eventually become prevalent in the 20th century. "[146] Forrest was the Klan's first and only Grand Wizard, and he was active in recruitment for the Klan from 1867 to 1868. This monument stands as testament of our perpetual devotion and respect for Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest assisted in maintaining order. [169] The Democratic Party platform denounced the Reconstruction Acts as unconstitutional, void, and revolutionary. MEMPHIS, Tenn., Oct. "[71][72] The story that Forrest confronted and threatened the life of Bragg in the fall of 1863, following the battle of Chickamauga, and that Bragg transferred Forrest to command in Mississippi as a direct result, is now considered to be apocryphal. [53], A month later, Forrest was back in action at the Battle of Shiloh, fought April 67, 1862. [33], Forrest had twelve brothers and sisters; two of his eight brothers and three of his four sisters died of typhoid fever at an early age, all at about the same time. Forrest was elevated in Memphiswhere he lived and diedto the status of folk hero. [48][49] Forrest distinguished himself further at the Battle of Fort Donelson in February 1862. Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis at the Battle of Brices Crossroads in northeastern Mississippi. Grant . Nathan Bedford Forrest In The Civil War Forrest volunteered as a private in the Confederate Army on June 14, 1861, but at the request of Tennessee's governor, Isham G. Harris, he raised and equipped an entire cavalry battalion at his own expense; the former private was made a lieutenant colonel. [117] He eventually attempted, but it was too late. [171][172] Forrest played a prominent role in the spread of the Klan in the Southern United States, meeting with racist whites in Atlanta several times between February and March 1868. He was not as successful in railroad promotion as in war, and, under his direction, the company went bankrupt. On May 9, 1865, at Gainesville, Forrest read his farewell address to the men under his command, urging them to "submit to the powers to be, and to aid in restoring peace and establishing law and order throughout the land. Beliefs/Organizations. The Confederates tried to storm the fort but were repulsed; they rallied and made two more attempts, both of which failed. Trusted by millions of genealogists since 2003 Trusted information source for millions of people worldwide He then mounted a second horse, shot out from under him, forcing him to mount a third horse. After serving as the president of the Selma, Marion and Memphis Railroad, he settled on managing a plantation manned by convict labour. The Blue Raiders' athletic mascot was changed to an ambiguous swash-buckler character called the "Blue Raider" to avoid association with Forrest or the Confederacy. Nathan Bedford Forrest (grandfather) Nathan Bedford Forrest II (August 1871 - March 11, 1931) was an American businessman who served as the 19th Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans from 1919 to 1921, [1] [2] [3] and as the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan for Georgia. Nathan Bedford Forrest. Nathan Bedford Forest was a well-known confederate general and early leader of the Ku Klux Klan (Tilinghast 1). [239], A 2011 Mississippi license plate proposal to honor him by the Sons of Confederate Veterans revived tensions and raised objections from Mississippi NAACP chapter president Derrick Johnson, who compared Forrest to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. 7,500. 731-593-6445. [231], Whether the massacre was premeditated or spontaneous does not address the more fundamental question of whether a massacre took place it certainly did, in every dictionary sense of the word. John Goodwin, of Forrest's cavalry command, forwarded a dispatch listing the prisoners captured. [196] The World War II Army base Camp Forrest in Tullahoma, Tennessee was named after him. [102] The Confederate press steadfastly defended Forrest's reputation. [50], A few days after the Confederate surrender of Fort Donelson, with the fall of Nashville to U.S. forces imminent, Forrest took command of the city. Forrest became well known for his early use of maneuver tactics as applied to a mobile horse cavalry deployment. In the ensuing raids, he was pursued by thousands of U.S. soldiers trying to locate his fast-moving forces. Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-1877) was a Confederate general during the Civil War (1861-65). The Confederates destroyed much of the U.S. Army's supplies and railroad tracks in the area. [80] Booth and his adjutant were killed in the battle, leaving Fort Pillow under the command of Major William Bradford. -- Nathan Bedford Forrest #Military #Firsts "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. Debate over the memory of this incident formed a part of sectional and racial conflicts for many years after the war, but the reinterpretation of the event during the last thirty years offers some hope that society can move beyond past intolerance. High schools named for Forrest were built in Chapel Hill, Tennessee and Jacksonville, Florida. The Klan's activity infiltrated the Democratic Party's campaign for the presidential election of 1868. [208] At the time the school was all white, but now more than half the student body is black. Achilles Clark, a soldier with the 20th Tennessee cavalry, wrote to his sisters immediately after the battle: The slaughter was awful. [77][78][79], Fort Pillow, located 40 miles (64km) upriver from Memphis (near Henning, Tennessee), was initially constructed by Confederate general Gideon Johnson Pillow on the bluffs of the Mississippi River, and taken over by U.S. forces in 1862 after the Confederates had abandoned the fort. Although the KKK appears in several fictions (for example, Absalom! The Tennessee Historical Commission denied removal on October 21, 2016, under the authority granted it by the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act of 2013, which prevents cities and counties from relocating, removing, renaming, or otherwise disturbing without permission war memorials on public property. [186] His eulogy was delivered by his recent spiritual mentor, former Confederate chaplain George Tucker Stainback, who declared in his eulogy: "Lieutenant-General Nathan Bedford Forrest, though dead, yet speaketh. [235], In the 1990 PBS documentary The Civil War by Ken Burns, historian Shelby Foote states in Episode 7 that the Civil War produced two "authentic geniuses": Abraham Lincoln and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest's Confederate forces were accused of subjecting captured U.S. Army soldiers to extreme brutality, with allegations of back-shooting soldiers who fled into the river, shooting wounded soldiers, burning men alive, nailing men to barrels and igniting them, crucifixion, and hacking men to death with sabers. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he raised a cavalry and fought with. This is the story of the Confederate cavalry leader that Shelby Foote called one of the authentic geniuses produced by the American Civil War. His eulogy was delivered by his recent spiritual mentor, former Confederate chaplain George Tucker Stainback, who declared in his eulogy: "Lieutenant-General Nathan Bedford.. 05 Feb 2023 19:31:11 The effort was spearheaded by Take 'Em Down 901, an organization dedicated to removing Confederate iconography founded by activist Tami Sawyer. . Bragg failed to do so, upon which Forrest was quoted as saying, "What does he fight battles for? He sidestepped some questions and pleaded failure of memory on others. Middle Tennessee. He led them into Middle Tennessee in July under orders to launch a cavalry raid. Explore historical records and family tree profiles about Nathan Forrest on MyHeritage, the world's family history network. Nathan Bedford Forrest had two brothers who also served as Confederate officers during the Civil War: Colonel Jeffrey Edward Forrest and Lieutenant Colonel Jesse Anderson Forrest. [246] In a nearly unanimous vote on July 7, the Memphis City Council passed a resolution in favor of removing the statue and securing the couple's remains for transfer. [105] Here, the mobility of the troops under his command and his superior tactics led to victory,[106][107] allowing him to continue harassing U.S. forces in southwestern Tennessee and northern Mississippi throughout the war. Bill Lee will no longer proclaim Nathan Bedford Forrest Day after legislature passes bill", "Memphis is digging up the remains of a Confederate general who led the early KKK", "Exclusive: Were General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife buried in Munford? As the Klan's first national leader, he became the Lost Cause's avenging angel, galvanizing a loose collection of boyish secret social clubs into a reactionary instrument of terror still feared today. [110] Sturgis ordered his infantry to advance to the front line to counteract the cavalry. Morton. [32] Although he was not formally educated, Forrest was able to read and write in clear and grammatical English. Meskipun para cendekiawan umumnya mengakui kemampuan Forrest dan keterampilannya sebagai pemimpin kavaleri dan pakar strategi militer, ia masih menjadi figur kontroversial dalam sejarah rasial, khususnya karena . [103][104], S.C. Gwynne writes, "Forrest's responsibility for the massacre has been actively debated for a century and a half. After these efforts failed, Klan violence and intimidation escalated and became widespread. Others have tried to remove Forrest's bust from the Tennessee House of Representatives chamber. There, with the labor of over a hundred prison convicts, he grew corn, potatoes, vegetables, and cotton profitably, but his health steadily declined. I loved the old Constitution yet. Tucker. [174] Grant lost Georgia and Louisiana, where the violence and intimidation against blacks were most prominent. "[255], On June 3, 2021, the remains of Forrest and his wife were exhumed from their burial place in the park, where they had been for over a century, to be reburied in Columbia, Tennessee. On November 4, 1864, during the Battle of Johnsonville, the Confederates shelled the city, sinking three gunboats and nearly thirty other ships and destroying many tons of supplies. Colonel Stephen G. Hicks: "if I have to storm your works, you may expect no quarter." [244] An online petition at Change.org asking the City Council to ban the monument collected 313,617 signatures by mid-September of the same year.[245]. The Fourteenth addressed citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws for formerly enslaved people, while the Fifteenth specifically secured the voting rights of black men. In July 2021, Tennessee officials voted to move Forrest's bust from the State Capitol to the Tennessee State Museum. 410 to overrule the city. Gen. James H. Wilson, defeated Forrest at the Battle of Selma on April 2, 1865. The day was worse for U.S. troops, who suffered 223 killed, 394 wounded, and 1,623 missing. Former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, who is black, blocked the move. The Civil War scholar Bruce Catton writes: Forrest used his horsemen as a modern general would use motorized infantry. [97] It was the Confederacy's publicly stated position that formerly enslaved people firing on whites would be killed on the spot, along with Southern whites that fought for the Union, whom the Confederacy considered traitors. Legacy. Under these laws enforced by Grant and the newly formed Department of Justice, there were over 5,000 indictments and 1,000 convictions of Klan members across the Southern United States. [90] Forrest's men were alleged to have set fire to a U.S. barracks with wounded U.S. Army soldiers inside[91][92] In defense of their actions, Forrest's men insisted that the U.S. soldiers, although fleeing, kept their weapons and frequently turned to shoot, forcing the Confederates to keep firing in self-defense. In June 2021, the remains of Forrest and his wife were exhumed from Health Sciences Park, where they had been buried for over 100 years, and a monument of him once stood. Congress and Grant passed the Enforcement Acts from 1870 to 1871 to protect the "registration, voting, officeholding, or jury service" of African Americans. [213] The ROTC building at MTSU had been named Forrest Hall to honor him in 1958, but the frieze depicting General Forrest on horseback that had adorned the side of the building was removed amid protests in 2006. Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821 - October 29, 1877) was a prominent Confederate Army general during the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1867 to 1869. [109] When Sturgis's Federal army came upon the crossroads, they collided with Forrest's cavalry. [171] Grant defeated Horatio Seymour, the Democratic presidential candidate, by a comfortable electoral margin, 214 to 80. A common report is that Forrest arrived in Nashville in April 1867 while the Klan was meeting at the Maxwell House Hotel, probably at the encouragement of a state Klan leader, former Confederate general George Gordon. Forrest's Career In an article published in The New-York Times immediately before the close of the war, the characteristic types of the soldiers of the South were sketched. White Americans who made up the KKK hoped to persuade black voters that returning to their pre-war state of bondage was in their best interest. Services were held at Court Avenue Presbyterian Church in Memphis before he was buried at Elmwood Cemetery. Nathan Bedford Forrest was certainly an extraordinary man, a Herculean hero of the American wilderness who has blotted his copybook amongst the politically correct because of allegations stemming from his capture of Fort Pillow and his part in the original Ku Klux Klan. [45] Forrest posted advertisements to join his regiment, with the slogan, "Let's have some fun and kill some Yankees!". #1. RebelForrest.com | "Rebel Forrest" is a one-hour documentary on Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-1877) and has been presented at film festivals in Knoxville. [203] The bust of Forrest was stolen from the cemetery monument in March 2012 and replaced in May 2015. Nathan Bedford Forrest High Resolution Photograph.jpg 861 1,385; 551 KB. Born into a poor settler family, Nathan had a twin sister, Fanny. The crowd of mourners was estimated to include 20,000 people. Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the U.S. Confederate States presidential election of 1861, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nathan_Bedford_Forrest&oldid=1138674019, Confederate States Army lieutenant generals, People of Tennessee in the American Civil War, Articles with dead external links from August 2018, Articles with permanently dead external links, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2007, All articles containing potentially dated statements, Pages using Sister project links with wikidata namespace mismatch, Pages using Sister project links with hidden wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Raids in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi, early December 1862 early January 1863, Farewell address to his troops, May 9, 1865, This page was last edited on 10 February 2023, at 23:40. Forrest, who was a Freemason,[7] joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1867 (two years after its founding) and was elected its first Grand Wizard. But there is more to the story than that. Many in the United States, including President Grant, backed the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, which gave voting rights to Americans regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude". Afterwards, he admitted to 'gentlemanly lies'. [60][61], The U.S. Army gained military control of Tennessee in 1862 and occupied it for the duration of the war, having taken control of strategic cities and railroads. They commissioned him as a lieutenant colonel and authorized him to recruit and train a battalion of Confederate mounted rangers. Cassidy. 1887-1961. Parents and Siblings. [21][22] By the time the American Civil War started in 1861, he had become one of the wealthiest men in the Southern United States, having amassed a "personal fortune that he claimed was worth $1.5 million". On April 18, 2018, the Tennessee House of Representatives punished Memphis by cutting $250,000 in appropriations for the city's bicentennial celebration. Nathan Bedford Forrest Bust.jpg 2,150 2,688; 2.22 MB. Tennessee officials voted Thursday to remove the bust of a Ku Klux Klan and Confederate leader Nathan Bedford Forrest from the State Capitol and into the Tennessee State Museum. All of the sidewalks in the park were named after officers who served under himexcept for one, which was named for his war horse King Philip. The oldest of 12 children, Nathan Bedford Forrest was born July 13, 1821, in Chapel Hill, Tennessee. Words cannot describe the scene. The Horrors and Cruelties of the Scene Intensified. Sherman, who had recognized how formidable an opponent Forrest was in battle during the Civil War, replied after the crisis settled down. [234], Grant himself described Forrest as "a brave and intrepid cavalry general" while noting that Forrest sent a dispatch on the Fort Pillow Massacre "in which he left out the part which shocks humanity to read". Nathan Bedford Forrest Title Lieutenant General War & Affiliation Civil War / Confederate Date of Birth - Death July 13, 1821 - October 29, 1877 Nathan Bedford Forrest, one of the most polarizing figures of the Civil War era, was born July 13, 1821 in Chapel Hill, Tennessee - a small town on the Duck River. After the U.S. victory, Forrest commanded a Confederate rear guard. memorial page for Nathan Bedford Forrest (13 Jul 1821-29 Oct 1877), Find a Grave Memorial ID 355, citing National Confederate Museum at Elm . By then, all were fully armed with captured U.S. Army weapons. Nathan Bedford Forrest statue.jpg 2,048 1,536; 1.03 MB. The Nathan Bedford Forrest statue was removed along Interstate 65 on Tuesday, December 7, 2021, during in Nashville, Tenn. A few vehicles left the site and the security guard locked the gate. Nearly ruined as the result of this failure, Forrest spent his final days running an eight-hundred-acre farm on land he leased on President's Island in the Mississippi River, where he and his wife lived in a log cabin. [207] After several public forums and discussions, Westside High School was unanimously approved in January 2014 as the school's new name. Forrest protested that sending such untrained men behind enemy lines was suicidal, but Bragg insisted, and Forrest obeyed his orders. [129][130][131][132][133][134][135][136], Forrest was an early member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), which was formed by six veterans of the Confederate Army in Pulaski, Tennessee, during the spring of 1866[137][138][139] and soon expanded throughout the state and beyond.