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Zou,
How are you? It seems to me that he was a born leader- at everything hid did. I don't think that he was a nice guy at all- he didn't even look like he was a nice guy. But he was an incredible warrior. He eluded and bested armies time and time again. Was Fort Pillow a massacre? probably- but I sure both sides are guilty as the war was just terrible.
Thank you for the new thread. I definitely need an education in NBF. I am not happy with the perennial suppression of almost everything surrounding this man.
I can't remembr if I have posted this somewhere else in here; so my apologies if it is a repeat.
In April of 1863 General William S. Rosecrans of the Union Army was getting worried. He had begun to believe that he was outnumbered in Middle Tennessee. Despite the fact that his forces stood at a little over 80,000 men as compared to Braxton Bragg’s 49,000; he was convinced that he was outnumbered. “I am not , as you know, an alarmist,” he wired his superior, General Halleck,, “but I do not think it will do to risk as we did before.”
General Buck Van Dorn of the confederate cavalry with the aid of Nathan Bedford Forrest, who had recently been added to his force, had defeated Colonel John Coburn at Thompson’s station capturing some 1221 prisoners and Coburn himself. Coburn had planned on uniting with Phil Sheridan and his forces out of Franklin directly south of Nashville. They never made the junction as Van Dorn and Forrest combined for a sudden swift victory. Sheridan’s troops, hearing the boom of cannon, had pulled back towards Murfreesboro and out of danger or the day could have been much worse for Rosecrans.
Colonel Abel D. Streight, New York born commander of a regiment of Hoosier infantry, proposed to Rosecrans that a large body of mounted men, say 2000, be mounted for a quick and devastating raid into the unprotected vitals of the South. Rosecrans, who had been on the receiving end of more than one of these raids by Forrest and others was delighted at the chance to relieve the pressure he was facing since he was sure that he was outnumbered. He was convinced that such an action would effectively force Forrest and maybe even Bragg himself to fall back and defend the unprotected area of North Alabama and Northeastern Georgia. Rosecrans gave his approval to Streight’s plan and assigned him an additional 3 regiments of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois infantry. He also assigned him two companies of Alabama Unionists or “homemade Yankees” as their compatriots knew them. Being familiar with the territory they would traverse on their way to their objective, a cannon foundry and iron works in Rome, Georgia; they would be a vital part of the mission.
One of the problems with the plan showed itself immediately. There simply weren’t enough horses available to mount the men. A mounted cavalry raid without horses is a difficult proposition but Streight was so sure of the genius of his plan that he agreed to use the only mounts available, mules. He rationalized this substitution with the observation that “mules were not only more sure footed, they were more intelligent than horses as well.” Being from New York, this may have seemed rational but one can only wonder what the boys from Alabama that were going on this mission thought of the substitution. Mules may be smarter than horses but the saying of “smart as a mule” isn’t very well known in the south while every farm boy knows that “stubborn as a mule” is not an idle supposition. The second fly in the ointment was that there were only enough mules to mount 900 of the 2000 troops. Rosecrans explained that they could commandeer enough animals from “southern sympathizers” on the way to their starting point in the northeast corner of Mississippi to mount all the men.
Streight, his men, and his quartermaster mules boarded transports and steamed down the Cumberland to Palmyra where they disembarked for their march to Fort Henry. The march was in reality a horse stealing expedition and was fairly successful. The navy ship that was supposed to carry them from Fort Henry to Eastport was late so he was already 3 days behind schedule. Further complicating matters, it was discovered that a goodly portion of the mules were sick with distemper while many others were young and unbroken colts. He found that his converted infantrymen “were at first easily dismounted, frequently in a most undignified and unceremonious manner.” The foraging or “horse stealing” march had netted them some five hundred animals, which more than made up for the one hundred or so sick mules that died on the way.
After arriving at Eastport, he went to General Grenville M. Dodge’s headquarters to discuss their plans. Dodge had brought a 7500 man infantry column over from Corinth to serve as a blind for the departure of the cavalry raid. When Streight returned to his headquarters late that night he discovered that some 400 of the remaining mules had escaped from their crudely made corral and were roaming the countryside braying loudly in shrill tones that must have sounded much like laughter in the stillness of the night to the enraged Streight.
Streight lost two more days rounding up some 200 of the escaped mules (the rest were never recovered). He made up the rest by borrowing enough animals out of Dodge’s pack animal train to mount his men and got underway on April 22, already 5 days behind schedule before he even started.
He reached Tuscumbia, Alabama on the 24th and called a 2 day rest halt before resuming his march at 11 PM on the 26th. During the rest, he culled some 500 men from his command for various reasons, not the least of which was that some of the men had neglected to hobble their mules and they were again roaming the countryside in force, with loud braying protests at their forced enlistment in the cavalry.
By the 29th ,after 2 more days of travel in rain, he was camped at Day’s Gap, a narrow defile piercing a lofty ridge at the beginnings of the Appalachians. He was halfway to his destination and was out of the flatlands where cover was scarce. The next morning the sun came out brightly and they renewed their march confident, dry and secure in the knowledge that they were completely undetected by the Confederates. At least they believed they were undetected. As Streight neared the crest of the gap he heard the unmistakable sound of cannon and musketry in his rear.
It was Forrest. He had received word of Dodge’s movements at Spring Hill, Tennessee and had covered 140 miles in the last 4 days. He had correctly discerned the danger of Streight and his 2000 man detachment and had not been fooled by Dodge’s movements. He had divided his forces at Town Creek to cover any possible movements by Dodge and driven towards where he thought Streight would be. By this time he had some 1000 men to Streight’s 1500 and had traveled many miles in a short time but he had caught Streight’s rear and he determined to hang onto it.
Streight and his men were cutting a swath of horse thieving across the country-side and were steadily replacing the mules with fresh horses from the unpicked over part of the South they were traveling through. He had Forrest outnumbered and had the advantage in the hilly terrain of turning back in ambush at numerous good locations.
The first such ambush shortly beyond Day’s Gap captured two 12-pound howitzers under the command of Lieutenant Wills Gould, and wounded Forrest’s brother, Captain William Forrest. Forrest arrived on the scene in time to fly into a towering rage that 2 of his guns had been lost. He ordered the men to dismount and tie their horses to the saplings in the thin piney woods. He raged at the men and told them that “didn’t need to leave anyone to hold the horses because they would have no need of horses if they didn’t get his guns back.” The battle lasted until 11 that morning but Streight slipped off with the bulk of his men.
Forrest kept up the pressure and Streight was forced to deploy and fight again at a ridge known as Hog Mountain. From an hour before dark until after 10 PM the two sides engaged in a brisk firefight. Forrest ordered his men to “shoot at anything blue and keep up the scare.” The battle lasted until late into the night and Forrest himself, in the thickest part of the fighting as usual, had 3 horses shot from under him. Streight once again slipped away with the bulk of his force during a lull in the action but Forrest recovered the guns the loss of which had so angered him.
Forrest, once again was compelled to divide his force and send part of his men back towards Town Creek to make sure that Dodge had not attacked the drastically weaker force in his front and was not in fact coming up behind him. He need not have worried as Dodge had almost immediately after the departure of Streight headed back to Corinth, alarmed at unconfirmed reports of “that devil Forrest” operating in his rear.
Streight continued across Alabama, periodically laying ambushes for Forrest. The battle continued through Blountsville, Gadsden, Turkeytown and across the Warrior River. Forrest, for his part, continued the attack against the superior force in his front. Streight’s men were not allowed any respite as one ambush after another failed. They burned a bridge at the Coosa river and Forrest, with the aid of a young sixteen year old girl named Emma Samson found a ford nearby and continued the attack. At Blount’s plantation they lay another ambush at night and Streight’s second in command, Colonel Hathaway, was killed. Streight and his men set another ambush in a thicket a half mile to the rear and it too failed when Forrest discovered it and started a flanking move around it.
Streight sent Captain Milton Russell with 200 of his best mounted men ahead to Rome with orders for them to seize the bridge across the Oostenhaula River there and hold it until the command could come up.
After another delaying battle at Centre, Streight and his men reached the ferry across the Chattooga River, only to discover that Captain Russell had neglected to leave a guard and local citizens had spirited the ferry away. He turned north towards a bridge at Gaylesville some eight miles upstream. The timber in the area had all been cut and burned for charcoal to supply the nearby Round Mountain Iron Furnace which made charcoal pig for the foundry at Rome. The old “choppings” were a maze of converging wagon tracks around piles of underbrush and unused tree limbs and in the confusion of the night many of the men wandered lost and confused for hours. It was daylight by the time the command made it across Dyke’s bridge before burning it and pushed on to Cedar Bluff. There his exhausted men collapsed all along the roadside and he determined to rest and provision the men. At 9 oclock that morning, Sunday, May 3rd he halted at the plantation of Mrs. Lawrence in Cherokee County, Alabama. He was 20 miles from his destination.
Meanwhile, Captain Russell and his men arrived at Rome. At least close enough to see it through their field glasses. Forrest had sent messengers north from Gadsden and around Streight’s command to Rome. He had correctly guessed it to be their destination and warned the people of Rome of their approach. When they arrived they could see the barricades of cotton bales and wagons that the home guard had erected at the approach to the city. They questioned several local people they found in the area and were told that Rome was “full of rebels.” Ascertaining that it was useless to attack under these conditions, they turned back to warn Streight.
Forrest had rested most of his force the night before while a small contingent attacked the rear of Streight’s dazed and exhausted force as they made their way through the “choppings” around the furnace at Round Mountain. The next morning, his men somewhat refreshed, Forrest forded the river near where the burned out remains of Dyke’s Bridge were and managed to drag two cannon across the river with teams of horses and long ropes. They dragged the guns across the bottom of the river in a method they had become adept at while chasing Streight and his command across the state. They arrived in front of Streight’s drawn up forces shortly after he arrived at the plantation.
Streight “found it impossible to keep the men awake long enough to be fed.” When his pickets were driven in shortly thereafter “a large portion of my best troops actually went to sleep while lying in line of battle under a severe skirmish fire.”
Forrest, by this time had fewer than 600 men in his command. While he was not sure of Streight’s strength, he knew it exceeded his own. He sent Captain Henry Pointer of his staff forward with a flag of truce to demand immediate surrender “to stop the further and useless effusion of blood.”
Streight had captured a Sergeant William Haynes of the Fourth Tennessee the day before and had closely questioned him on Forrest’s numbers. Haynes had assured Streight that Forrest had not only his own brigade, but also Roddey’s and Armstrong as well as one or two others. He received word back from Captain Russell that Rome was too strongly fortified to be taken and his own regimental commanders urged him to hold a conference with Forrest and ask for terms.
Forrest came forward and they met in a small little patch of woods on a ridge overlooking another ridge shortly in their front that eased down into a small hollow out of sight of the ridge they were standing on. Streight refused to surrender unless Forrest could demonstrate that he was indeed forced with a superior force. Forrest refused and again asked for his immediate and unconditional surrender. At this juncture Ferrell’s battery, with it’s two guns that had been dragged across the bottom of the Chattooga river that morning topped the ridge behind Forrest. Streight protested against movement of troops near the ridge where a flag of truce was in affect and Forrest ordered Captain Pointer to order the artillery back.
The two guns did go back, back around the edge of the ridge out of sight of the hill where negotiations were being conducted and then back over the same ridge they had just cleared. They carried out this maneuver the whole time the conference was going on.
Forrest was standing with his back to the ridge while he watched Streight during the negotiations count the guns as they circled and reappeared with different teams pulling them.
“Name of God! How many guns have you got? There’s fifteen I’ve counted already!” Streight exclaimed.
Forrest slowly turned his head in the direction of the ridge and said, “I reckon that’s all that kept up……” He periodically during the conference gave Captain Porter orders for dispositions of a large imaginary command and Biffle and McLemore, off the flanks, marched their men around and around the conical hills in their front.
Streight, in the face of such overwhelming forces, and with an exhausted and dispirited command surrendered on the condition that his men would be treated as prisoners of war and that his officers be allowed to keep their side arms and personal baggage. Forrest agreed.
The prisoners surrendered at Lawrence plantation numbered 1,266. With Russell’s men, who surrendered on their march back from Rome; the total came to almost 1,500 men that surrendered that day to Forrest and his 600.
The two commands had fought constantly in a running battle over some 100 miles of mountainous terrain, riddled with rivers and large creeks. They had done so in a space of 4 days and nights of almost continuous running battles.
Forrest was beginning to take on an almost mythical reputation as “the wizard of the saddle.”
June 13, 1863 Nathan Bedford Forrest, fresh from his exploits in the Harpeth River valley in Tennessee and the capture of a large band of Federal Cavalry under Colonel Abel Streight in Alabama, was at his headquarters in Columbia, Tennessee. On this particular day he had agreed to a meeting with Lieutenant A. Wills Gould of Morton's Battery under his command.
Forrest had transferred the young Lieutenant and had previously refused to see the young man to discuss the reasons for his transfer. There were rumors in camp that Forrest was still irritated at the loss of two of his guns in an engagement with Streight during his ill-fated raid into Rome, Georgia. Forrest had assuredly been irritated at the loss of the guns, which were under the command of Gould, but some considerable time had passed since the incident with no reaction from Forrest. A more likely explanation of the transfer was his dissatisfaction with Gould's performance in and around Franklin in more recent encounters. Whatever the details of the cause, an angered and indignant Gould sought the interview with Forrest to explain what he considered an unjust reflection caused by the transfer upon himself.
They met at the Masonic Building in Columbia. The only witnesses to the incident were four young boys who were following Forrest in the abject hero worship that little boys are prone to. During the interview Forrest was absently twirling a small penknife on a retaining string while Gould stood with his hand thrust into the pocket of a linen duster that he wore over his uniform. The gist of the conversation can only be imagined, as Forrest, known for his blunt speaking, was probably anything but placating to Gould's protests. Whatever the reasons, Gould became quite heated in his conversation and Forrest abruptly terminated the interview and turned on his heel to leave. As he did so, Gould pulled a pistol from within the linen duster pocket, thrust it against Forrest's left side and fired. Forrest, an uncommonly tall and strong man, seized and grabbed Gould's pistol armed hand, opened the penknife in his right hand with his teeth and stabbed the hapless Gould in the abdomen before turning him loose. Gould, mortally wounded, ran from the building bleeding profusely. Forrest had been shot at point blank range through the side with a large caliber handgun. One can only imagine Gould's surprise in Forrest's ability to immobilize him with one hand long enough to open a penknife in his teeth and stab him.
After a hasty examination of Forrest's wound by a surgeon summoned from nearby, the doctor indicated that the wound might in fact prove to be fatal. This further enraged the wounded Forrest, "No ****ed man shall kill me and live!" he swore. Without waiting for treatment, he broke away from the surgeon and ran into the street. Snatching a pistol from the saddle holster of a horse standing nearby he started to search the street for Gould.
Gould had run across the public square and into a tailor shop where he collapsed on a low bench near the back door. Two doctors, hastily summoned had begun to examine his stab wound when Forrest stormed in the front door. Gould rolled off the bench and stumbled to his feet before running out the back door of the shop into the alley behind. Forrest followed and loosed a shot at the running Gould, which ricocheted off another building and struck a luckless dutch trooper belonging to Armstrong's personal escort in the fleshy part of the leg. Gould made it into a tall patch of weeds behind the alley where he collapsed again, still bleeding profusely from his stab wound. Bystanders that had gathered managed to convince the angry Forrest that Gould was in fact dying and his rage quickly faded.
Forrest was taken back inside where the doctors discovered the bullet in his side had not hit any vital organs. The doctors then proposed to cut it out when the impatient Forrest interrupted them, "It's nothing but a ****ed little pistol ball! Let it alone, and go get Lieutenant Gould. Take him to the Nelson House and make him as comfortable as you can. Spare nothing to save him. And, by God, when I give an order like that I mean it!!"
Lieutenant Gould died several days later but not before asking to see General Forrest. Forrest, himself still in bed, was carried to the hotel where the two officers were reconciled before Gould's death. Forrest was back in the saddle and in command of his troops twelve days later.
Forrest was less than enamoured of Braxton Bragg from the very first. After Chickamauga he had desperately wanted to press the attack and had been ignored in his requests. He was then sent to intercept what was reported to be an attack coming from the direction of Knoxville that never appeared. Forrest engaged some enemy cavalry and attacked them before driving them across the Tennessee River some eighty miles above Chattanooga. Marching back towards the Hiwassee river Forrest recieved a dispatch from Bragg ordering him to turn over his force to Wheeler. Unbeknownst to Forrest, Bragg was planning on using Wheeler to attack Union supply lines. Forrest complied with the order but sent an letter of protest to Bragg against losing the command of a force that he had raised and trained himself. Obtaining an interview with Bragg several days later Forrest was promised that he would recieve his command back as soon as they returned from their objective with Wheeler and was given a leave of absence to visit his wife in La Grange, Georgia which was southwest of Atlanta.
While at La Grange Forrest recieved further orders which gave command of all the cavalry in the Army of Tennessee to Wheeler. This order was issued very shortly after his interview with Bragg. Forrest and Wheeler were not on good terms at all and Forrest had earlier vowed that he would never serve under Wheeler in a very public manner. He was enraged over the loss of troops that he had raised and trained and saw the order as a personal affront.
Abandoning his leave upon receipt of the order, Forrest immediately set out for Chattanooga and another interview with Bragg. Finding Bragg at his headquarters at Missionary Ridge, Forrest took his staff surgeon as a witness and accosted Bragg in his tent.
Bragg, seeing Forrest enter, arose and offered his hand which Forrest refused to shake.
"I am not here to discuss civilties or compliments with you, but on other business." Forrest started out. Highlighting his words with a rigid index finger that he stabbed in the direction of Bragg, Forrest continued. "I have stood your meanness for as long as I intend to. You have played the part of a ****ed scoundrel, and are a coward, and if you were any part of a man I would slap your jaws and force you to resent it. You may as well not issue any more orders for me, for I will not obey them....and I say to you that if you ever again try to interfere with me or cross my path it will be at the peril of your life." Forrest then turned abruptly and left the tent.
As they were leaving the area the witness that Forrest had carried to the interview said, "Well you are in for it now."
Forrest disagreed, "He'll never say a word about it, he'll be the last man to mention it. Mark my words he'll take no action in the matter. I will ask to be relieved and transferred to a different field, and he will not oppose it."
Forrest's transfer was submitted and approved by Bragg with no notice of the insubordination that had taken place.
Irish, you absolutely amaze me with your knowledge and ability to state the facts. What da*n good reading about General Forrest. Now, after the war, for what little known fact is he well known for in the Mississippi Delta (did that make any sense?)
Give you a hint. It involved quite a few Union officers.
My cousin is a direct descandent of the great general making me by a descendant although not direct. To say that he was not a nice man at all is completely false.
At fort pillow, there is some strong evidence to support the fact that he actually stopped the killing of those men. If anyone has the chance, you can see for yourself in the manuscript room at the tn state library in nashville. The cw collection of manuscripts has i think 2 or 3 items of men who were there and wrote detailed accounts of the affair. A massacre? probably. On the scale of Sherman or Payne? not even close. A war crime? Sherman didn't think so. Sherman thought nothing of the matter atall.
A patriot? absolutely. Again reviewing unpublished and never before seen letters and manuscripts at the library of congress, (forgive me for forgetting the box number and record number) one can view on microfilm 2 letters each from Forrest to Sherman and from Sherman to Forrest several years after the war. Appearently there was talk of invading Cuba and Sherman was I believe sec. or War. Forrest wrote and said that he would do whatever was in his power to fight for the "union" as he called it and would be at Sherman's pleasure to send him on any assignment he wished. Sherman downplayed the talk of invasion but alluded to the posibility and thanked him for his willingness to take up arms on the same side. Sherman and Forrest on the same side? Arafat and Bin Laden and Hussein would fear them more than they have ever feared anything in their lives.
It is to be noted that Forrest was not well received in west tn at all by the everyday person before the war. After the war, he surely was.
He did in fact know of his reputation to yankees and even though he was very illiterate and uneducated, he relished in the fact that the carpetbaggers were terrified of him. Once a nice churchgoing loyalist traveled on a rainy night to his home and asked "are you general forrest the butcher of Pillow?" he replied that he was and she brandished a cross in fear of him actually being the devil. She asked if he was in fact the devil and if he did indeed massacre those people at Pillow. He replied in a very civil chivalrous manner "Yes maddam I sure did. I had the blood and flesh of those yankee men for my dinner and cooked with my eggs their wives and children for breakfast." She supposedly ran away screaming and needing to be baptised again for fear of perishing and ending up sweating for eternity. He just laughed off the incident and turned to one of the black houseworkers in his room and said that it is not good to lie but he could not refrain from the amusement. That story was actually told to members of the west tn historical society by the black servant who let the woman in the house, or one of the black housekeepers who witnessed the ordeal. He also told it on a few occasions to his grandaughter and it is believed at a united daughters of the confederacy dinner in either memphis or arkansas a few years before his death.
I am to you all,
Your most humble servant,
Jason Corlew
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