This is a great post, but your conclusions are flawed. Forrest was only part of the klan in Tennessee, a group that originated in Pulaski and became organized in Nashville.
I understand what you're saying, Larry, and to a great extent, you're correct.
"One story has it that between late 1866 and early 1867 Gordon, who soon would establish a law practice in Memphis, journeyed there to bring the Klan and its regulatory possibilities to the attention of Forrest. This version of the Klan's initial overture came from an unidentified Klan associate of John Morton, and it holds that Forrest accepted Gordon's news emphatically, saying, 'That's a good thing; that's a dam*ed good thing. We can use that to keep the n*****s in their place.' The story purports to have come to its unidentfied teller through Morton himself, and adds that Forrest quickly went to Nashville, sought out Morton, and asked him about the Klan and how to join. It continues that he was driven by Morton out into the countryside, where Morton offered to administer him the oath; at which point, the story concludes, Forrest laughed loudly, slapped Morton on the back, and said: 'Why you dam*ed little fool, don't you know I'm head of the whole dam*ed thing?'
"Morton's own version of Forrest's preliminary induction into the Klan, a sidling gift to posterity in the form of a magazine article reprinted in the appendix of his memoirs, doesn't mention Gordon, saying only that Forrest came to Nashville 'when rumors of the Kuklux Klan first spread over Tennnessee.' Arriving there, he found Morton and told him he knew the Klan was 'organized in Nashville, and I know you are in it. I want to join.' The magazine article, whose details writer Thomas Dixon Jr. later disclosed came from Morton himself, says Morton then drove Forrest to a wooded area out of town, administered him a preliminary Klan oath, and told him to go to a room at the Maxwell House Hotel later that evening to learn the rest of the Klan's secrets. The conclusion of this story has Morton then driving Forrest back into town to meet his fiancée, whom Forrest advised: 'Miss Annie, if you can get John Morton, you take him. I know him. He'll take care of you.'
"The truth may lie in a combination of these accounts." [Jack Hurst, _Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography,_ pp. 284-285]
"In April 1867, one such association of ex-Confederates met in Nashville to organize. This budding organization was the Ku Klux Klan, and its popularity was increasing rapidly. At some point concurrent with this meeting, Bedford Forrest traveled to Nashville to attempt to join it. He visited with his former artillery chief, John Morton, who was Grand Cyclops of the Nashville Den. Morton apparently administered a preliminary oath to his former superior and directed him to return to the Maxwell House for a more formal ceremony. One of the original members of the Klan, James R. Crowe, wrote nearly forty years later, 'After the order grew to large numbers we found it necessary to have someone of large experience to command. We chose General Forrest.' Another man who became a member of the Klan in Memphis later observed, 'N. B. Forrest 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.' " [Brian Steel Wills, A Battle From the Start: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest, pp. 335-336]
However:
"There never has been any serious doubt that the first and only Grand Wizard was General Nathan Bedford Forrest. He never admitted the fact in so many words, but his later statements to the press and to a Congressional committee in 1871 help to confirm the notion which was almost universally shared by members and nonmembers alike." [Allen W. Trelease, White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction, p. 19]
William T. Blackford was the probate judge in Hale County, Alabama. He was an active Republican politician who was very effective in getting blacks out to vote for Republicans, and he worked to ensure blacks retained their rights. In January of 1871, the local KKK raided his home in Greensboro, which was the county seat, but he escaped. It happened that Forrest came to Greensboro on business. "Nathan Bedford Forrest arrived in Greensboro soon after the raid, and Blackford asked for his protection. The general gave him a highly confidential and vastly impressive account of the size, prowess, and methods of the Ku Klux Klan; like most of Forrest's pronouncements, it did not suffer from understatement. He urged the judge to resign, indicating that it was hopeless to remain and try to breast the tide." [Allen W. Trelease, _White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction,_ p. 305]
Alabama is not Tennessee. Forrest was based in Tennessee--that's where he lived, after all, but his reach extended to the Klan throughout the south.
He ordered that group DISBANDED and ceased.
Such is Forrest's claim. He put out an order on January 25 that curtailed Klan activity, but it specified "it was not to be understood as a complete disbandment of the Klan; on the contrary, the organization should hold together more firmly than ever before to guard against any emergency." [Allen W. Trelease, _White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction,_ p. 180]
To the extent that Forrest wanted to curtail the Klan's activity, take a look at who controlled the real power in Tennessee in 1869. Forrest and the conservatives pulled the strings.
Far as we can tell, that happened.
See the above. And it was not just Forrest, but the entire conservative leadership of Tennessee.
"It is impossible to reconcile all these accounts. But it is clear that the Conservative gentry of Tennessee renounced the Ku Klux Klan and severed their connection with it by the summer of 1869. Their peers in Arkansas, Texas, and northern Alabama were following the same course, as were the White Camellias in Louisiana. But in many places Conservatives would find the Klan a usable instrument for up to two more years." [Allen W. Trelease, _White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction,_ p. 184]
But again, Forrest's reach went beyond Tennessee.
Regards,
Cash