Stiles/Akin
Sergeant Major
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2016
- Location
- Atlanta, Georgia
I agree.Thanks for posting this! I've always wondered if that quote was authentic - there's still room for doubt, naturally. But Giles Buckner Cooke was on Lee's staff and assistant inspector general.
Didn't Sherman also acknowledge that Forrest was a great soldier as well?
He did.
"Sherman bumped into him on the Mississippi quite by accident. There wasn't anyone to record the conversation and Forrest never did allude to it, but Sherman said they did discuss his march through Georgia and what Forrest said he would have done made Sherman's hair stand up! He replied he had been afraid of that very thing...
Any hint, anywhere, by anyone, just what those tactics by Forrest would have been??? Would be great to know...........
Respectfully,
William
View attachment 166827
Thanks for posting this! I've always wondered if that quote was authentic - there's still room for doubt, naturally. But Giles Buckner Cooke was on Lee's staff and assistant inspector general.
We batted around whether this quote was real or not quite a bit on another thread. I think it's real.
To summarize the evidence for the quotes' authenticity, we know it was supposed to have taken place on December 4, 1866 in Lee's office at Washington College. We have confirmation from Major Giles Cooke and two students, John Graham and J. W. Ewing claimed to have witnessed the quote. What we didn't have was anything from the principals, Lee and Lord Garnet Wolseley.
@cash found it hard to believe that Wolseley would not have used the quote in some of his writing....either about Lee or about Forrest. This is an explanation of why we don't have anything on the quote from Wolseley.
Lee wrote to another Englishman in August, 1866. Lee responds to a request to publish parts of their conversation. On the envelope which was found on Lee's desk after his death is written:
"Herbert C Sanders asks permission to publish his conversation with me August 22d - Refused"
In the letter Lee wrote that their conversation was "was entirely for your own information, and was in no way intended for publication....I have an objection to the publication of my private conversations, which are never intended but for those to whom they are addressed. I cannot, therefore, without an entire disregard of the rule which I have followed in other cases, and in violation of my own sense of propriety, assent to what you propose. "
That would explain the lack of the use of the quote by another English visitor. The entire letter can be found in Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee by Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son.
We batted around whether this quote was real or not quite a bit on another thread. I think it's real.
To summarize the evidence for the quotes' authenticity, we know it was supposed to have taken place on December 4, 1866 in Lee's office at Washington College. We have confirmation from Major Giles Cooke and two students, John Graham and J. W. Ewing claimed to have witnessed the quote. What we didn't have was anything from the principals, Lee and Lord Garnet Wolseley.
@cash found it hard to believe that Wolseley would not have used the quote in some of his writing....either about Lee or about Forrest. This is an explanation of why we don't have anything on the quote from Wolseley.
Lee wrote to another Englishman in August, 1866. Lee responds to a request to publish parts of their conversation. On the envelope which was found on Lee's desk after his death is written:
"Herbert C Sanders asks permission to publish his conversation with me August 22d - Refused"
In the letter Lee wrote that their conversation was "was entirely for your own information, and was in no way intended for publication....I have an objection to the publication of my private conversations, which are never intended but for those to whom they are addressed. I cannot, therefore, without an entire disregard of the rule which I have followed in other cases, and in violation of my own sense of propriety, assent to what you propose. "
That would explain the lack of the use of the quote by another English visitor. The entire letter can be found in Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee by Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son.
Don't hurt yourself with all that leaping.
Did Lee ever mention Forrest in any primary source?
LOL...I'll be careful with the leaping but don't you work up a sweat in moving the goal posts.
The statement by Lee didn't ring true for me which is why I researched it. I found the newspaper version to be very weak but the conversation with Wolseley had two witnesses as well as a when and where. Even though it didn't surface until years after the meeting it had more meat that many "quotes." Still, it bothered me (and you) that I could not find Wolseley using it. The letter from Lee explains that point to me which makes it more acceptable to me.
I am still surprised that Lee would assert that Forrest to be the "greatest military genius" of the war but I changed my mind about whether he said it.
Why would he say this? Maybe he was humoring his visitor, maybe he didn't want to nominate an opponent or one his subordinates in the ANV, maybe his modesty wouldn't allow him to say what he really thought...maybe that was what he believed. I don't know.
I am done researching this but if something new arises I could change my mind again...that's the way I am