Fort Pillow from New York Times

Barrycdog

Major
Joined
Jan 6, 2013
Location
Buford, Georgia
Forrest.jpg

forrest2.jpg
 
What's the date on that, Barry? I think that was written about the same time he wrote a letter to a friend - think this letter is at Corsicana - where he was frustrated that he could not answer 'charges as black as the hearts of the men who made them.' He was more than a little bitter about Ft Pillow.
 
The problem with a lot of these articles is--thanks to the journalistic standards of the day--some of them were made up of whole cloth.

My favorite was a NY Times article during the war where the reporter claimed to have interviewed Forrest face to face, then described him as having a full beard with no mustache, being short and stocky, sallow and with coarse, homely features. Pretty obvious he never laid eyes on even a photo of Forrest, let alone talked to him personally.
 

That's about what I thought! Forrest always considered Ft Pillow to be an albatross around his neck and felt it was the reason he couldn't get back on his feet after the war. The family system, though, was disrupted - not so much the whole society - but the Forrest family, like many others in the area, helped each other forward. Most of the family men were dead after the war, and Forrest was a crippled, middle-aged vet. That was likely more the reason.
 
My favorite was a NY Times article during the war where the reporter claimed to have interviewed Forrest face to face, then described him as having a full beard with no mustache, being short and stocky, sallow and with coarse, homely features. Pretty obvious he never laid eyes on even a photo of Forrest, let alone talked to him personally.

I like the one with the wild claims supposedly by Forrest--where he remembered being so sick talking to the reporter he remembered he stopped and threw up repeatedly during the "interview."
 
I like the one with the wild claims supposedly by Forrest--where he remembered being so sick talking to the reporter he remembered he stopped and threw up repeatedly during the "interview."

Yes, that one the reporter did indeed talk to him but Forrest had one of his head-exploding migraines. He told the guy he couldn't talk, he was going home to be sick but the reporter insisted. He couldn't have gotten much between upchucks! Forrest read the article and wondered who had been interviewed because it sure wasn't him!

Another one I liked was Kilpatrick's contribution. He never missed an opportunity to bad mouth Forrest and finally got a challenge - mano y mano, any time you think you got a set. Kilpatrick airily said he didn't consider Forrest a gentleman and therefore could refuse the challenge. But he then wrote a letter to the NY Times stating he'd gone into a bar and found Forrest drunk and smacked him around enough he slunk out the door. :laugh: Kilpatrick would have to stand on a stool to punch Forrest in the kneecap.

 
Yes, that one the reporter did indeed talk to him but Forrest had one of his head-exploding migraines. He told the guy he couldn't talk, he was going home to be sick but the reporter insisted. He couldn't have gotten much between upchucks! Forrest read the article and wondered who had been interviewed because it sure wasn't him!

Another one I liked was Kilpatrick's contribution. He never missed an opportunity to bad mouth Forrest and finally got a challenge - mano y mano, any time you think you got a set. Kilpatrick airily said he didn't consider Forrest a gentleman and therefore could refuse the challenge. But he then wrote a letter to the NY Times stating he'd gone into a bar and found Forrest drunk and smacked him around enough he slunk out the door. :laugh: Kilpatrick would have to stand on a stool to punch Forrest in the kneecap.


Yeah, long-distance yammering. :smile: But what can you expect for a guy who shifts all the blame on a dead man? (Just got through reading Eric Wittenberg's excellent book on Ulric Dahlgren--no one has to make Killcavalry look bad...he does it himself).
 
Yes, that one the reporter did indeed talk to him but Forrest had one of his head-exploding migraines. He told the guy he couldn't talk, he was going home to be sick but the reporter insisted. He couldn't have gotten much between upchucks! Forrest read the article and wondered who had been interviewed because it sure wasn't him!

Another one I liked was Kilpatrick's contribution. He never missed an opportunity to bad mouth Forrest and finally got a challenge - mano y mano, any time you think you got a set. Kilpatrick airily said he didn't consider Forrest a gentleman and therefore could refuse the challenge. But he then wrote a letter to the NY Times stating he'd gone into a bar and found Forrest drunk and smacked him around enough he slunk out the door. :laugh: Kilpatrick would have to stand on a stool to punch Forrest in the kneecap.


Heh. Like he'd come close enough to GET punched. :smile:
 
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