Forrest Forrest and Human shield??

[12th Missouri Yankee]

At the Battle of Shiloh, there appears to be accounts of Forrest hoisting a Union soldier up by his collar and using him to block his back as he rode away already badly wounded on horseback from across the battle line. Do you think it was possible?? He already had a bullet lodged against his spine through his hip, must have been a heavy weight to grab too. There is always adrenalin to help out since he was in a battle.

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

That's a great question 12th.

There was an interesting thread about that last Spring.
http://civilwartalk.com/threads/did-forrest-use-a-yankee-as-a-shield-at-shiloh.98672/

 

[12th Missouri Yankee]

Thank you. Its an incredible story... makes sense and he was in dire need of a way out. I do not doubt his strength.

 

[diane]

It's kind of hard to say if this incident really happened or was different or was apocryphal! It makes its first appearance in the Forrest legend around 1902. Only one witness to it was still alive - Willie Forrest. There were many regular soldiers who were still alive, of course, and their accounts vary widely. One recorded that Colonel Forrest was shot in the back fleeing the enemy. He saw the same incident! Forrest may have escaped by hugging the horse's neck - but other CW generals died doing that very thing - Kearny and McPherson. It's also possible that chivalry was still a factor in the early war and the Federals decided not to shoot so brave a man. I think it did happen. Some people thought Forrest was a berserker in combat, fair to being crazy, but actually he never thought more clearly or more logically than when in that mode. He would know that he was a target as he rode away and it isn't outside the realm of possibility that, useless leg and all, he could have snagged a very surprised Union man off his feet. By the time he recovered to fight or argue about his position, he'd be dumped! Forrest only needed him for a few dozen yards, after all, to clear rifle range.

 

[Allie]

Re: "Why didn't he get shot dead if he wasn't using a shield?"

It's not really possible to overestimate the human capacity to miss at point-blank range when stressed. And researchers who have studied this say it was worse back then, not because of the weaponry, but because humans are just really terrible at shooting other humans. Read Mosby's bio - he makes it clear that this was the main advantage he and his men had in a fight - they hit what they aimed at, while the other guy mostly kind of stood there trying to get up to speed.

 

[diane]

Re: "Why didn't he get shot dead if he wasn't using a shield?"

It's not really possible to overestimate the human capacity to miss at point-blank range when stressed. And researchers who have studied this say it was worse back then, not because of the weaponry, but because humans are just really terrible at shooting other humans. Read Mosby's bio - he makes it clear that this was the main advantage he and his men had in a fight - they hit what they aimed at, while the other guy mostly kind of stood there trying to get up to speed.

That's quite true. Sherman's men were not seasoned veterans. Mosby, though, had a kind of chilling but effective logic. When he was criticized for having mostly teenagers as troopers he replied that they made the very best kind of soldiers - they were too young to understand the danger, and would do whatever they were told.

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

Re: "Why didn't he get shot dead if he wasn't using a shield?"

It's not really possible to overestimate the human capacity to miss at point-blank range when stressed. And researchers who have studied this say it was worse back then, not because of the weaponry, but because humans are just really terrible at shooting other humans. Read Mosby's bio - he makes it clear that this was the main advantage he and his men had in a fight - they hit what they aimed at, while the other guy mostly kind of stood there trying to get up to speed.

Very true.

Plus consider for the most part, these volunteer troops on both sides had not really been trained in individual marksmanship.

Massed volley fire was still the norm.

And if I may add . . . battle stress aside . . . unless one spends a substantial amount of time practicing at the range each week, an initial single rifle (or revolver) shot is likely to be way off mark for a static target . . . much less a moving one.

Did Forrest use a human shield ?
I have no idea.

However it does make for a good conversation.

 

[Nathanb1]

At the Battle of Shiloh, there appears to be accounts of Forrest hoisting a Union soldier up by his collar and using him to block his back as he rode away already badly wounded on horseback from across the battle line. Do you think it was possible?? He already had a bullet lodged against his spine through his hip, must have been a heavy weight to grab too. There is always adrenalin to help out since he was in a battle.

Possible....and possibly apocryphal, too. Physically, yes he could have, even wounded, given the right circumstances. Did he? We'll never know for sure, but like my cohorts say, it's fun to discuss.

 

[Patrick H]

Hard to know whether it's true, but it makes a much better story than saying he merely escaped being hit.

 

[12th Missouri Yankee]

It certainly has been a hot topic with my relatives, many think it incredible he could still ride while wounded let alone hoist up a man. Now can't you just see Forrest scaring those Yankees and riding off with guns blazing and a wounded horse.

 

[diane]

I don't think it's unbelievable that Forrest could still ride when he'd been shot. The Matlock Affair in Hernando, for example. Forrest was shot in the arm and stabbed twice as well as cut up and he kept coming - whipped all of them by himself alone. There were numerous witnesses to that, who had clear sight of the fight as it took place in the plaza. He wasn't the only guy tough enough to keep coming after a near-fatal shot - Pat Cleburne got into a similar altercation and was shot in the chest, which should have laid him out, but he shot one of his attackers dead and yelled for anybody else who wanted a piece of him to come try! Cleburne never really recovered from that, either.

 

[Desert Kid]

I don't think it's unbelievable that Forrest could still ride when he'd been shot. The Matlock Affair in Hernando, for example. Forrest was shot in the arm and stabbed twice as well as cut up and he kept coming - whipped all of them by himself alone. There were numerous witnesses to that, who had clear sight of the fight as it took place in the plaza. He wasn't the only guy tough enough to keep coming after a near-fatal shot - Pat Cleburne got into a similar altercation and was shot in the chest, which should have laid him out, but he shot one of his attackers dead and yelled for anybody else who wanted a piece of him to come try! Cleburne never really recovered from that, either.

He wound up getting shot in the face some years later during the war also.

 

[12th Missouri Yankee]

Makes you wonder how he healed so well if he was heading towards diabetes in years ahead. Wounds are so much harder to heal and fight off infection with diabetes.

 

[diane]

Makes you wonder how he healed so well if he was heading towards diabetes in years ahead. Wounds are so much harder to heal and fight off infection with diabetes.

I don't think he had it at the beginning of the war. Stress can kick it into gear and he had enough of that to pave a walkway to the moon. Around the time of Brice's Crossroads he started having fainting spells and migraines. That was probably when it began.

 

[Allie]

I don't think he had it at the beginning of the war. Stress can kick it into gear and he had enough of that to pave a walkway to the moon. Around the time of Brice's Crossroads he started having fainting spells and migraines. That was probably when it began.

Is there a thread anywhere about Forrest's health? I'd love to hear what you know.

As I understand it, he did have something of a sweet tooth after the war, but there's more than one way to get diabetes. Anything that damages the pancreas can do it - didn't he have malaria at one point?

 

[Bowen]

According to Glenn Tucker in his book "High Tide at Gettysburg" (page 161), Lt. William Dorsey Pender (later mortally wounded at Gettysburg as a Confederate Major General) of the U.S. dragoons in the pre-war Army while campaigning against the Indians in the Battle of Spokane Plains was attacked while he was on horseback by an Indian Chief with a hatchet. Pender pinioned the mans arms, lifted him up and rode off with him and reached his own lines where he dropped the Indian like a sack of potatoes. Of course unlike Forrest, he was not wounded, yet the incident shows what a powerfully strong man filled with adrenaline may accomplish.

 

[diane]

Is there a thread anywhere about Forrest's health? I'd love to hear what you know.

As I understand it, he did have something of a sweet tooth after the war, but there's more than one way to get diabetes. Anything that damages the pancreas can do it - didn't he have malaria at one point?

Forrest had typhoid when he was a kid, the same thing that killed all his sisters and the other set of twins. That may have been what killed his father five years after he had it. When he was 20 he went down to Texas with a company of dragoons to help out with the independence war and was too late for the fighting - he caught malaria and was very sick for a long while. That was one of the reasons his uncle took him on in his livery business - wasn't all that strong for more physical work. Either of those diseases could do damage to the pancreas and other organs, and also tend to recur from time to time. He doesn't seem to have had much of that although he might have had a round of malaria after being shot at Tupelo. Forrest was far from unhealthy, as some are with recurring malaria or other illnesses that hang out for years. Once he was over the initial bout he seemed to gain strength fairly fast and was considered unusually strong even for his size and build. A good part of that was his own initiative - he loved sports and athletic endeavors, and went to it with gusto! It wasn't until the last couple years of the war that his health began to show the wear and tear, and that was when he first asked for leave to see about his properties and to get well. Never fully recovered at any point after the war, and his health seemed to just go downhill, slowly at first then with alarming speed until his death in 1877.

 

[Bowen]

Is there a thread anywhere about Forrest's health? I'd love to hear what you know.

As I understand it, he did have something of a sweet tooth after the war, but there's more than one way to get diabetes. Anything that damages the pancreas can do it - didn't he have malaria at one point?

I don't know about malaria and there is no evidence of a sweet tooth, Diabetes is often genetic. I think the war years with its physical and emotional stresses combined with hard campaigning contributed to his early death.

 

[diane]

I don't know about malaria and there is no evidence of a sweet tooth, Diabetes is often genetic. I think the war years with its physically and emotional stresses combined with hard campaigning contributed to his early death.

I think that's a good point. Forrest had been shot four times and had other injuries like dislocating the same shoulder three times. A few years after the war he was almost unable to use his right arm and often had his son or wife write for him. The evidence of the sweet tooth is Forrest's wife was concerned about her husband's 'unnatural' as she called it love of sweets, especially pies. I haven't seen where any of his family died of it - as you say, it can be genetic - but then it may have been diagnosed as something else. Bad water did in a number of them! It's thought Forrest might have had malaria from bad water on President's Island when he died but it was more likely the late stages of diabetes. He couldn't hold anything on his stomach and basically starved to death, the cause of death listed as diarrhea.

 

[Allie]

I think that's a good point. Forrest had been shot four times and had other injuries like dislocating the same shoulder three times. A few years after the war he was almost unable to use his right arm and often had his son or wife write for him. The evidence of the sweet tooth is Forrest's wife was concerned about her husband's 'unnatural' as she called it love of sweets, especially pies. I haven't seen where any of his family died of it - as you say, it can be genetic - but then it may have been diagnosed as something else. Bad water did in a number of them! It's thought Forrest might have had malaria from bad water on President's Island when he died but it was more likely the late stages of diabetes. He couldn't hold anything on his stomach and basically starved to death, the cause of death listed as diarrhea.

Typhoid = bad water; malaria = mosquitoes. Both abundant on President's Island. Also yellow fever, of course.

I wasn't aware that adult-onset diabetes had such a strong genetic component. I looked it up. Thanks for educating me, Bowen!

Incidentally, there was a big hoopla a couple of years ago when a large alligator was discovered in McKeller lake, sunning itself on President's Island. I wonder if they had occasional alligators back in the day.