Forrest Article on Forrest.

There were those who didn't want black neighbors even before Jim Crow laws. You live over there and not here doesn't have to be codified, after all, to be segregation.
Not being the guy who invented Jim Crow is not the same as opposing segregation. I assume you have a story such as someone didn't want to let someone else in the same building as them or living next door to them, and Forrest somehow intervened in the matter.
 
Cutting through the mythology that has built up around Forrest is quite a task - it's true that most people who dislike or even hate this general cite Ft Pillow, KKK and slave trading. For many, that's enough. So, it should be the same thing with Sherman. He was famously biased against blacks - didn't want them in his army and grumbled about Massachusetts using blacks to fill their quotas. He believed they could not be soldiers and shouldn't be used as bullet stoppers for whites. He said, "The n-r is an excellent fellow, as such. But he is not fit to vote with, live with, marry with or associate with me or mine!" The Knights of the Golden Circle thought he was their poster boy - he turned down their offer of membership. We have that nightmarish incident at Ebenezer Creek. Ellen, the wife, was trying to set up housekeeping in Louisiana and complained to her husband about a lack of good help - his response was he guessed they'd have to buy a n-r! We won't even mention Sherman's overall Indian policy...

Well, let's see about Forrest. After he began to understand the old South was gone forever, his racial attitudes began to change. He supported black education, voting rights, businesses, and opposed segregation. Not that he didn't have some ulterior motives - he knew the black vote was necessary to restoring Democrats to power in Tennessee. Got to make friends amongst the coloreds! But it did go further than that. After his health deteriorated to the point any political ambitions he might have had were over and he was reasonably out of that area, and the Democrats were back in power, he still supported black rights and all of that. Why 'pretend' any more if your objectives have been achieved and you're no longer in that field? And, Forrest knew better than Sherman that black men could indeed make good soldiers. He fought enough of them at the end and was beaten by them at least once. He may not have admitted it - at least not out loud - but he knew it anyway. And that meant a whole lot of things that he had believed all his life about the blacks was completely wrong.

The question has been asked why like this messy guy? He's not hero material. (He wasn't messy until others found various reasons to muss him up, incidentally.) That's kind of like asking why like any of the rebel generals - they rebelled, they owned slaves, they were...a lot like Forrest. But lots of us have our favorite rebels, don't we? It doesn't mean you support somebody's ideas just because you find them fascinating. (And, no, it's not something about liking the 'bad boys' - that's trivializing the subject.) I find Napoleon fascinating, too, but that doesn't mean I view him as a hero. Forrest is, as Sherman succinctly noted, one of the most remarkable men our CW produced. He still is.

Exhibit A in what I was talking about.

Forrest was no paragon of civil rights. He was, however, smart enough to know that maintaining Democrats in power meant maintaining support. Forrest was about racial control. If black votes could be controlled he had no problem with blacks voting. If they couldn't be controlled, then he had a huge problem with it.
 
historian |hiˈstôrēən|

noun

an expert in or student of history, esp. that of a particular period, geographical region, or social phenomenon

Neither one fits it. Burns is a filmmaker. Foote was a novelist who wrote a single narrative of the war. He was not an expert in the 19th Century, and I would argue his expertise in the Civil War was very limited, as he didn't do any primary source research and relied on old and in some cases discredited secondary sources. And my Webster's Dictionary defines it as "a student or writer of history; esp one that produces a scholarly synthesis." Neither Burns nor Foote produced a scholarly synthesis of the subject. Foote himself maintained he wasn't a historian.
 
This has been an interesting and informative thread and it occurs to me that I know virtually nothing about Forrest. I'd like to get your recommendations on the best military history (still in print) on Forrest's campaigns. Thanks in advance.
 
Neither one fits it. Burns is a filmmaker. Foote was a novelist who wrote a single narrative of the war. He was not an expert in the 19th Century, and I would argue his expertise in the Civil War was very limited, as he didn't do any primary source research and relied on old and in some cases discredited secondary sources. And my Webster's Dictionary defines it as "a student or writer of history; esp one that produces a scholarly synthesis." Neither Burns nor Foote produced a scholarly synthesis of the subject. Foote himself maintained he wasn't a historian.
All science trembles at the searing logic of your fiery intellect :D
 
Excellent. Do you agree with the Jordan and Pryor assessment as the best available on his campaigns?

Pardon, don't mean to intrude! That does seem to be the best for the campaigns. Jordan and Pryor got it straight from the horse's mouth! However, there is a lot to be desired from the biographical viewpoint. My recommendation there would be Jack Hurst. There are several older bios, too, that are excellent, but Hurst goes into things post-war that many of the others either didn't have information available to them, or chose to ignore. Happy hunting! He's a fun guy to learn about. :smile:
 
Than
Pardon, don't mean to intrude! That does seem to be the best for the campaigns. Jordan and Pryor got it straight from the horse's mouth! However, there is a lot to be desired from the biographical viewpoint. My recommendation there would be Jack Hurst. There are several older bios, too, that are excellent, but Hurst goes into things post-war that many of the others either didn't have information available to them, or chose to ignore. Happy hunting! He's a fun guy to learn about. :smile:
Thanks so much - that's just the intrusion I was looking for.
 
Not being the guy who invented Jim Crow is not the same as opposing segregation. I assume you have a story such as someone didn't want to let someone else in the same building as them or living next door to them, and Forrest somehow intervened in the matter.

Nope. No ancedotes, although I collect them like a dog collects fleas! He simply stated to anybody who asked or said something that he had no problem with blacks living around him and that it would be a good thing for both races to understand each other better.
 
Exhibit A in what I was talking about.

Forrest was no paragon of civil rights. He was, however, smart enough to know that maintaining Democrats in power meant maintaining support. Forrest was about racial control. If black votes could be controlled he had no problem with blacks voting. If they couldn't be controlled, then he had a huge problem with it.
All this was going on during reconstruction as well, so he kinda had to play nice. He died just as it was ending, so we will never know how his policies might have changed once he had free reign to do as he pleased (in daylight)
 
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what Forrest or Sherman said, it only matters what they did.

This quote speaks eloquently for what Sherman ultimately accomplished:

"Sherman’s actions ensured that a President with the moral high ground was secure, and that his Emancipation Proclamation was more than mere rhetoric. Sherman’s grand march to the sea firmly moved the Declaration of Independence and Constitution out of the hypocritical light that was cast on them by the South and transformed them into that beautiful apple of gold in a frame of silver that would serve as an example for all nations in years to come."

http://ashbrook.org/publications/guest-06-policz-sherman/

What did Forrest accomplish?

The question would better be 'What would Forrest have accomplished?" Sherman lived another 30 years longer than Forrest. He wasn't shot up and half-crippled by war injuries. (Although he had trouble with his mashed hand from Shiloh all his life.) The war made Sherman, it broke Forrest. Sherman had little in the old wallet when the war started; Forrest was worth a million and a half. After the war, Forrest was opening his wallet to let the flies out; Sherman was worth more than a million. Like Henry Heth told Cump, if it hadn't been for the war he'd be teaching school in a Louisiana swamp!

By the way, that's a great quote. Sherman did do that, with a little help from his friends. :smile:
 
All this was going on during reconstruction as well, so he kinda had to play nice. He died just as it was ending, so we will never know how his policies might have changed once he had free reign to do as he pleased (in daylight)

That's true. For some time right after the war Forrest didn't know if he'd be hung or exiled to Mexico. A lot of ex-Confederates were dodgy during Reconstruction, even Lee. Allowed to have free rein to do as he pleased? I'm not sure what you mean by that but Forrest was under constant surveillance, one way or another, from authorities either of Brownlow's conjuring or of the federal government's. O O Howard and George Thomas both watched him, for example. They - nor anyone else - ever found anything Forrest was doing that was wrong. When Brownlow began to make noises about arresting Forrest, the cavalryman simply showed up in Nashville at the governor's mansion and said if he (Brownlow) wanted him he knew where to find him - on his farm trying to make a living! Actually, there's no proof or evidence of Forrest doing anything at night except sleeping on his sheets, not wearing them. :smile:
 
That's true. For some time right after the war Forrest didn't know if he'd be hung or exiled to Mexico. A lot of ex-Confederates were dodgy during Reconstruction, even Lee. Allowed to have free rein to do as he pleased? I'm not sure what you mean by that but Forrest was under constant surveillance, one way or another, from authorities either of Brownlow's conjuring or of the federal government's. O O Howard and George Thomas both watched him, for example. They - nor anyone else - ever found anything Forrest was doing that was wrong. When Brownlow began to make noises about arresting Forrest, the cavalryman simply showed up in Nashville at the governor's mansion and said if he (Brownlow) wanted him he knew where to find him - on his farm trying to make a living! Actually, there's no proof or evidence of Forrest doing anything at night except sleeping on his sheets, not wearing them. :smile:
I mean if he is able to be that sneaky under the threat of death with all those people watching him, who knows what he would have done if they weren't watching him. Since he died just as reconstruction was ending we will never know.
 
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