Nathan Bedford Forrest

77
Nathan Bedford Forrest bigraphy, stories - Confederate Army general

Nathan Bedford Forrest : biography

July 13, 1821 – October 29, 1877

Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821 – October 29, 1877) was a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army during the American 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. He served as the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.Foner (1988) p. 342. Hurst (1993) pp. 285, 287–288. , Sociological Quarterly, January 1999.

A cavalry and military commander in the war, Forrest is one of the war’s most unusual figures. Less educated than many of his fellow officers, Forrest had already amassed a fortune as a planter, real estate investor, and slave trader before the war. He was one of the few officers in either army to enlist as a private and be promoted to general officer and division commander by the end of the war. Although Forrest lacked formal military education, he had a gift for strategy and tactics. He created and established new doctrines for mobile forces, earning the nickname The Wizard of the Saddle.

Forrest was accused of war crimes at the Battle of Fort Pillow for allowing forces under his command to conduct a massacre upon hundreds of black Union Army and white Southern Unionist prisoners. Union Major General William T. Sherman investigated the allegations and did not charge Forrest with any improprieties. In their postwar writings, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee both expressed their belief that the Confederate high command had failed to fully utilize Forrest’s talents.Foote, p. 1053

Postwar years

Business ventures

With slavery abolished after the war, Forrest suffered a major financial setback as a former slave trader. He became interested in the area around Crowley’s Ridge during the war and settled in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1866 Forrest and C. C. McCreanor contracted to finished the Memphis & Little Rock Railroad. He built a commissary in a town forming along the rail route which most residents were calling "Forrest’s Town," incorporated as Forrest City, Arkansas in 1870.

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.

Nearly ruined as the result of the failure of the Selma, Marion and Memphis Railroad in the early 1870s, Forrest spent his final days running a prison work farm on President’s Island in the Mississippi River. There were financial failures across the country in the Panic of 1873. Forrest’s health was in steady decline. He and his wife lived in a log cabin they had salvaged from his plantation.

Offers services to Gen. Sherman

During the Virginius Affair of 1873 Forrest wrote a letter to the then General-in-Chief of the United States Army William Tecumseh Sherman. Forrest had known some of the southern filibusters on the vessel as friends and offered his services to Sherman in case of war with Spain. Sherman, who in the Civil War had recognized what a deadly foe Forrest was, wrote back a reply after the crisis had settled down. He thanked Forrest for the offer and said that had war broken out he would have considered it an honor to have served side-by-side with him.

Ku Klux Klan Membership

Forrest was an early member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Historian and Forrest biographer Brian Steel Wills writes, “While there is no doubt that Forrest joined the Klan, there is some question as to whether he actually was the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.”Wills p. 336 The KKK (the Klan) was formed by veterans of the Confederate Army in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1866 and soon expanded throughout the state and beyond. Forrest became involved sometime in late 1866 or early 1867. 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. The organization had grown to the point where an experienced commander was needed, and Forrest fit the bill. In Room 10 of the Maxwell, Forrest was sworn in as a member.Hurst pp. 284-285. Wills p. 336. Wills quotes two KKK members who identified Forrest as a Klan leader. James R. Crowe stated, “After the order grew to large numbers we found it necessary to have someone of large experience to command. We chose General Forrest.” Another member wrote, “N. B. Forest of Confederate fame was at our head, and was known as the Grand Wizard. I heard him make a speech in one of our Dens.”