{⋆★⋆} LG Forrest, Nathan Bedford

Nathan Bedford Forrest

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:CSA1stNat:

Nathan Bedford Forrest
amassed substantial wealth as a cotton plantation owner, horse and cattle trader, real estate broker, and slave trader in Tennessee before the war began. In June 1861, he enlisted in the Confederate Army, one of the few officers during the war to enlist as a private and be promoted to general without any prior military training. As an expert cavalry leader, Forrest was given command of a corps and established new doctrines for mobile forces, earning the nickname "The Wizard of the Saddle". His methods influenced future generations of military strategists, although the Confederate high command is seen by some commentators to have underutilized his talents. In April 1864, in what has been called "one of the bleakest, saddest events of American military history", troops under Forrest's command massacred Union troops who had surrendered at the Battle of Fort Pillow.

Born: July 13, 1821

Birthplace: Chapel Hill, Bedford County, Tennessee

Father: William Forrest 1801 – 1837
(Buried: Beck Cemetery, Benton County, Mississippi)​
Mother: Miriam Beck Forrest 1802 – 1867
(Buried: Camp Family Cemetery, Navasota, Texas)​
Wife: Mary Ann Montgomery Forrest 1826 – 1893
(Buried: Health Sciences Park, Memphis, Tennessee)​
Married: September 23, 1845 in Hernando, Mississippi

Children:

William Montgomery Forrest 1846 – 1908​
(Buried: Elmwood Cemetery, Memphis, Tennessee)​
Frances “Fannie” Ann Forrest 1849 – 1854​
(Buried: Elmwood Cemetery, Memphis, Tennessee)​

Occupation before War:

Businessman in Hernando, Mississippi​
Businessman, Planter and Slaveholder​
Owner of Several Cotton Plantations in West Tennessee​
Slave Trader in Memphis, Tennessee​
Mississippi Speculator and Gambler​
Alderman for the City of Memphis, Tennessee​
Captain of a Boat that ran from Vicksburg Mississippi to Memphis, Tennessee​

Civil War Career:
Lt. General Forrest.jpg


1861: Enlisted as a Private in Josiah White's Tennessee Company​
Offered to buy horses and equipment for Confederate Army in Tennessee​
1861: Lt. Colonel of Confederate Mounted Rifles in Tennessee​
1861 – 1862: Lt. Colonel of 3rd Tennessee Cavalry Regiment​
1861: Participated in the Battle of Sacramento, Kentucky​
1862: Showed Bravery during Battle of Fort Donelson, Tennessee​
1862: Colonel of 3rd Tennessee Cavalry Regiment​
1862: Commander of the City of Nashville, Tennessee​
1862: Commander of Confederate rear guard at Battle of Shiloh​
1862: Wounded during the Battle of Shiloh
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1862: Led Cavalry troops into Middle Tennessee on a Cavalry Raid​
1862: Confederate Commander during First Battle of Mufreesboro, Tennessee​
1862 – 1863: Brigadier General of Confederate Army Cavalry​
1862 – 1863: Leader of Forrest's Expedition in West Tennessee​
1863: Confederate Commander during Battle of Day's Gap, Alabama​
1863: Participated in the Battle of Chickamauga, Tennessee​
1863 – 1865: Major General of Confederate Army Cavalry​
1864: Confederate Commander during Battle of Paducah, Kentucky​
1864: Led his troops in the Capture of Fort Pillow, Tennessee​
1864: Led his troops during the fighting at Battle of Brice's Crossroads​
1864: Tactically defeated during the Battle of Tupelo, Mississippi​
1864: Successfully won the Second Battle of Memphis, Tennessee​
1864: Successful during the Battle of Johnsonville, Tennessee​
1864: Participated in Hood's Tennessee Campaign​
1864: Led a raid against the Mufreesboro, Tennessee Garrison Successfully

1865: Lt. General of Confederate Army Cavalry​
1865: Led the confederate troops in Alabama against Wilson's Raid​
1865: Led troops during the Battle of Selma, Alabama unsuccessfully​
1865: Surrendered to the Union Army on May 8th at Gainesville, Alabama​

Occupation after War:

Contractor to finish Memphis & Little Rock Railroad​
Builder of Commissary in Memphis, Tennessee​
President of Marion and Memphis Railroad Company​
Ran a Prison Work Farm on President's Island on Mississippi River​
Early member of the Ku Klux Klan​
1868: Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan​
1869: Abolished the Ku Klux Klan​
1875: Delivered a Speech at Order of Pole Bearers Association​

Died: October 29, 1877

Place of Death: At Forrest's brother's home, in Memphis, Tennessee

Age at time of Death: 56 years old

Cause of Death: Diabetes

First Burial Place: Elmwood Cemetery, Memphis, Tennessee

Disinterred: to Forrest Park, Memphis, Tennessee in 1904, renamed Health Sciences Park in 2013

Exhumed: from Health Sciences Park on June 3, 2021 and buried temporarily in Munford, Tennessee

Reinterred: Elm Springs Estate, Columbia, Tennessee on September 18, 2021

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Wait a sec, his mother is buried in Navasota? Well I guess we got her and Emma Sansom.

She is, indeed! Ira Camp and his wife moved to Texas in the late 1840s from Mississippi - there was an effort to settle east Texas with cotton planters as the land was suitable for it but the Camps found it much more lucrative to be innkeepers. There were four major trails crossed at that spot. They ran the still well known Camp Inn, where Sam Houston was a regular. The Camps, the Becks and the Forrests were all from the same region of Tennessee and knew each other very well. Mariam's second husband - James (sometimes John) Luxton, who was a marshal, was killed by Union soldiers near their plantation just above Memphis. General Forrest moved his mother to the Camp's place for the duration of the war - she then moved back to Tennessee upon restoration of her property to her. Marshal Luxton's death had ramifications - one of his teenage sons, James (Matt) Madison, Forrest's half brother, killed the man who killed his father and went outlaw. He was one of Forrest's troops and his brother went after him with extreme prejudice - there's more to this than meets the eye!...so he went back to Texas. He had two brothers and a sister there - the Luxtons were Texans - and later became a marshal himself. However, Matt became very ill and was about to die, and when his mother Mariam heard of it she came immediately to take care of him. As she was getting out of the stage coach at Camp Inn, she stepped on a rusty nail and died of lockjaw a short time later. She called frequently for Bedford, but he was unable to leave Tennessee because of restrictions placed on his ability to travel by the governor of that state. @Nathanb1 knows a lot more about the Camps! Texas received a lot of refugees from Alabama and Mississippi in particular - Mississippi had gone from being the richest state in the Union to the poorest with meteoric rapidity.
 
Like I mentioned earlier there are a "zillion" Forrest Stories out there. It seems Texas did receive more than it's share of refugees right after the war and it seems during the war as well.
 
She is, indeed! Ira Camp and his wife moved to Texas in the late 1840s from Mississippi - there was an effort to settle east Texas with cotton planters as the land was suitable for it but the Camps found it much more lucrative to be innkeepers. There were four major trails crossed at that spot. They ran the still well known Camp Inn, where Sam Houston was a regular. The Camps, the Becks and the Forrests were all from the same region of Tennessee and knew each other very well. Mariam's second husband - James (sometimes John) Luxton, who was a marshal, was killed by Union soldiers near their plantation just above Memphis. General Forrest moved his mother to the Camp's place for the duration of the war - she then moved back to Tennessee upon restoration of her property to her. Marshal Luxton's death had ramifications - one of his teenage sons, James (Matt) Madison, Forrest's half brother, killed the man who killed his father and went outlaw. He was one of Forrest's troops and his brother went after him with extreme prejudice - there's more to this than meets the eye!...so he went back to Texas. He had two brothers and a sister there - the Luxtons were Texans - and later became a marshal himself. However, Matt became very ill and was about to die, and when his mother Mariam heard of it she came immediately to take care of him. As she was getting out of the stage coach at Camp Inn, she stepped on a rusty nail and died of lockjaw a short time later. She called frequently for Bedford, but he was unable to leave Tennessee because of restrictions placed on his ability to travel by the governor of that state. @Nathanb1 knows a lot more about the Camps! Texas received a lot of refugees from Alabama and Mississippi in particular - Mississippi had gone from being the richest state in the Union to the poorest with meteoric rapidity.

She is...it's on private property and you need some connections to visit, apparently. We tried a couple of times to get there, but the folks weren't home.


Well at least Emma Sansom's grave is easy to access and find, just down the road from me and you can't miss her headstone, its the tallest on there.
 
And for those interested in a more detailed biography of General Forrest, please check out his personal forum:


@diane @Nathanb1 @DixieRifles and myself spent many hours back in 2014, consolidating hundreds of Forrest threads that were "scattered" all over this website.

We all remain grateful to @CivilWarTalk and @ami for permitting us to create the Forrest forum.

Like him or not, that forum IS a very informative resource for those that wish to learn specific details about the man and his life.
 
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@diane @Nathanb1 @DixieRifles and myself spent many hours back in 2014, consolidating hundreds of Forrest threads that were "scattered" all over this website.
I don't recall helping very much. I tried to co-host a Category but I didn't understand how that all worked. I'm just not Managment material.
 
I don't recall helping very much. I tried to co-host a Category but I didn't understand how that all worked. I'm just not Managment material.
You helped start that forum as much as any of us !

Anything about Fort Pillow will always be a "lightening rod" when it comes to Forrest.

But you added some of the best Fort Pillow facts that I had ever read.




 
You helped start that forum as much as any of us !

Anything about Fort Pillow will always be a "lightening rod" when it comes to Forrest.

But you added some of the best Fort Pillow facts that I had ever read.
Thanks!

I am overdue a complete review of my data on Ft Pillow that I posted on my website. I’ve added some names and updated the status(KIA, MIA, etc) of others so I need to re-calcuate the Statistics. No change in results.
 
in what has been called "one of the bleakest, saddest events of American military history", troops under Forrest's command massacred Union troops who had surrendered at the Battle of Fort Pillow.

That is quite a leap from the whole story.

An example of the perpetuation of revised history to suit the victors then, and the you know who's of today.
 
It does sound like something Forrest would say but maybe I'm missing something here, when was Fitzhugh Lee in Mississippi?

STEPHEN LEE! At Harrisburg. That's like blowing the punch line of a joke. There is no proof that Forrest ever said that. I think it means that many officers of both armies learned from the same teachers, from the same books and perhaps they fought the same way. Forrest just had an amazing sense of...........help me out here I can't think of the word. He could almost see a battlefield from a birds eye view. (No that's not it) ......what's the word? He has a big pair of (can't say that on this forum).......
 
Well at least Emma Sansom's grave is easy to access and find, just down the road from me and you can't miss her headstone, its the tallest on there.
 

I still need to get out there and see her grave. I'm only around 15 miles away and never went by there. But I've been to see Forrest!
 
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