Who Was Nathan Bedford Forrest?
By
John C Abercrombie
Nathan Bedford Forrest is an extremely controversial person who has been in the news recently. While there are supporters, there are many troubled by his past as a Confederate general and slave trader among other things. This post will take a look at the man and his past.
Forrest was a Confederate general during the American Civil War. He had no formal military training but was personally and financially involved in the war. A private who financed the men with clothing, equipment and horses, he was promoted from private to lieutenant general. Despite no training he is considered to be a brilliant cavalryman and military leader. He was relentless in harassing Union forces. Forrest is also remembered for his controversial involvement in the Battle of Fort Pillow in April 1864 when troops under his command massacred scores of Black solders following the surrender by the Union troops. He is also widely remembered as a slave trader and the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
Nathan Bedford Forrest was born July 13, 1821 in Chapel Hill, Tennessee. His family was poor, and he received little formal education. At an early age, he went into business with his uncle, Jonathan Forrest in Hernando, Mississippi. Two years later his uncle was killed in a street brawl over a business dispute. Forrest responded by killing 2 of the murders using a pistol and a Bowie knife.
Forrest continued the business after his uncle was killed and found success as a planter before moving to Memphis, Tennessee where he made a fortune as a slave trader and his business only grew during the 1850’s. In 1858 he was elected a Memphis alderman and by 1860 owned 2 cotton plantations and was recognized as one of the wealthiest men in Tennessee.
At the start of the Civil War, which could disrupt the slave trade business, Forrest enlisted as a private in the Tennessee Mounted Rifles. Being wealthy, he equipped the unit using his own money. This allowed him to be promoted from private to lieutenant colonel and given his own battalion of 650 mounted troops.
Forrest eventually found success as a planter and owner of a stagecoach company. In 1852 he moved his young family to Memphis, Tennessee, where he amassed a small fortune working as a slave trader. His business continued to grow throughout the 1850s, and in 1858 he was elected a Memphis alderman. By 1860 Forrest owned two cotton plantations and had established himself among the wealthiest men in Tennessee.
As part of his recruiting, he published a recruiting notice in a Memphis newspaper including the line “Come on boys, if you want a heap of fun and to kill some Yankees.”
His most controversial event was. the Battle of Fort Pillow in Tennessee in April of 1864, where the forces under his command captured the federal garrison and Forrest’s men killed over 200 Union soldiers, a grossly disproportionate number of them Black former slave. Survivors of the “Fort Pillow Massacre” as the event became known as report that Forrest’s men ignored their surrender and murdered scores of unarmed troops. The Joint Committee on the Conduct of War investigated the incident and concluded that Forrest’s men had ignored the surrender of the soldiers at Fort Pillow and murdered scores of unarmed troops. They also agreed that Forrest’s men had committed an unjust slaughter.
After the war, Forrest began an association with the Ku Klux Klan, a not so well kept secret that terrorized Blacks. They also opposed Reconstruction. (Reconstruction was that period after the Civil War where the United States worked on government and social legislation that granted rights to Blacks.) Forrest served as the Klan’s first grand wizard. Forrest has both denied and admitted serving in the Klan. In 1874, he was overseeing a prison labor camp ear Memphis which could bring huge profits to the overseer.
Despite his history of slave trading and the massacre at Fort Pillow among other dishonorable actions there are many memorials to Forrest in Tennessee and other Southern states. Most erected more recently than most would suspect.
Of more recent unrest is the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest on display in the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville. A recent survey of historical markers found 32 dedicated to Forrest more than the total dedicated to the 3 former United States presidents associated with the state. Andrew Jackson, James K Polk and Andrew Johnson. July 13 is also recognized as “Nathan Bedford Forrest Day” in the state.
The history and memory of this slave trader and massacrer is hard to take by many including an overwhelming number of Black citizens, yet elected officials push these horrible memories on the citizens.
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Clip 1 from ‘The Forgotten Battle of Fort Pillow’
Clips from the documentary ‘The Forgotten Battle of Fort Pillow’ directed by Stan Armstrong.
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The River was Dyed with Blood
The battlefield reputation of Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, long recognized as a formidable warrior, has been shaped by one infamous wartime incident. At Fort Pillow in 1864, the attack by Confederate forces under Forrest’s command left many of the Tennessee Unionists and black soldiers garrisoned there dead in a confrontation widely labeled as a “massacre.” In The River Was Dyed with Blood, best-selling Forrest biographer Brian Steel Wills argues that although atrocities did occur after the fall of the fort, Forrest did not order or intend a systematic execution of its defenders. Rather, the general’s great failing was losing control of his troops.
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Fort Pillow Clip 3 – Attack on the Fort!
This clips shows the actual attack on Fort Pillow from the documentary ‘The Forgotten Battle of Fort Pillow’ directed by Stan Armstrong.
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River Run Red: The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil War
An account of the controversial April 1864 Civil War battle between Confederate cavalry leader Nathan Bedford Forrest and a garrison of Unionists and former slave artillerymen offers insight into how corruption and racism in occupied Tennessee played a role in the Confederate victory and how Forrest went on to found the Ku Klux Klan. By the author of Dark Midnight When I Rise. 30,000 first printing.
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Nathan Bedford Forrest Mutilated and Kill Black Soldiers
During the Civil war on April 12, 1864, we note the Fort Pillow Massacre. Fort Pillow is 40 miles from Memphis in Henning, Tennessee where Roots writer Alex Haley comes from. We note in 1863 President Abraham Lincoln encouraged former slaves to join the Union Army. Many of the first authorized soldiers came from Tennessee.
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Fort Pillow, a Civil War Massacre, and Public Memory
(Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War) At the now-peaceful spot of Tennessee’s Fort Pillow State Historic Area, a horrific incident in the nation’s bloodiest war occurred on April 12, 1864. Just as a high bluff in the park offers visitors a panoramic view of the Mississippi River, John Cimprich’s absorbing book affords readers a new vantage on the American Civil War as viewed through the lens of the Confederate massacre of unionist and black Federal soldiers at Fort Pillow. Cimprich covers the entire history of Fort Pillow, including its construction by Confederates, its capture and occupation by federals, the massacre, and ongoing debates surrounding that affair. He sets the scene for the carnage by describing the social conflicts in federally occupied areas between secessionists and unionists as well as between blacks and whites. In a careful reconstruction of the assault itself, Cimprich balances vivid firsthand reports with a judicious narrative and analysis of events. He shows how Major General Nathan B. Forrest attacked the garrison with a force outnumbering the Federals roughly 1,500 to 600, and a breakdown of Confederate discipline resulted. The 65 percent death toll for black unionists was approximately twice that for white unionists, and Cimprich concludes that racism was at the heart of the Fort Pillow massacre.
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Black Caucus Members Angry Over “Dishonest” Passage of Bill Mentioning Nathan Bedford Forrest
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American Massacre: Fort Pillow and the Day that Changed a War
The words of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest send a chilling message through history: “The river was dyed with the blood of the slaughtered for 200 yards…It is hoped that these facts will demonstrate to the Northern people that Negro soldiers cannot cope with Southerners.” He wrote these words in his official report to describe a battle of the American Civil War which came to be known as the Fort Pillow Massacre. American Massacre chronicles the Fort Pillow Massacre which occurred on April 12, 1864. Fort Pillow was an isolated Union fort in the backwaters of the Civil War on a bluff of the Mississippi River in west Tennessee manned by a force of about 600 black soldiers recently freed from slavery and white Tennessee Unionists. The battle remains a racially charged controversy to this day because of allegations that Confederate General Forrest ordered the massacre of black soldiers after they surrendered in order to terrorize blacks from enlisting in the Union army. This book provides an exciting, fast-paced and suspenseful narrative of the Fort Pillow Massacre and the key events leading up to it including Forrest’s raid into west Tennessee and Kentucky and first encounter with black troops in his attack on Paducah, Kentucky. Along the way it describes the struggle of African Americans for the right to serve in the Union Army while painting a vivid portrait of a divided region and its people in turmoil. Additionally, the book contains a strong element of creative nonfiction including dramatic prosecution and defense arguments for a fictional military commission war crimes trial of Nathan Bedford Forrest. A lighting rod of controversy in America to this day, slave trader, brilliant cavalry commander and Ku Klux Klan leader Forrest stands forever on the high bluff of the Mississippi River as a symbol of heroism to some and racial strife to others
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188 The Fort Pillow Massacre in 1864
This Week in US History This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at the Fort Pillow Massacre that took place April 12, 1864 during the Civil War. A Confederate force led by Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest overwhelmed the fort and when the 300 African American Union soldiers tried to surrender, they slaughtered them. It was an extraordinary war crime that was motivated by racist animosity. Not surprisingly, the movement to remove Confederate statues in recent years has taken particular aim at statues honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest, who not only perpetrated the Ft. Pillow Massacre, but after the war became the leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
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In the post on Nathan Bedford Forrest, we see a person who has inflicted pain on a great portion of American citizens, yet some people insist on honoring him and people like him. Forrest made his fortune buying and selling other human beings and commanding a troop that slaughtered many people at Fort Pillow. Forrest was a general of a country (Confederated States of America) engaged in war against The United States of America.
The people honoring Forrest are honoring an enemy of the United States of America with a horrific past that is completely insensitive to the plight of Blacks. It is time to examine this meanspirited message that is conveyed to many of our citizens.