Nathan Bedford Forest

[G Low]

All of Bedford's siblings who died with typhoid fever are buried in the Beck cemetery in Mississippi with Rev. Beck.

 

[G Low]

I believe that his mother being a preachers daughter, put the fear of God in him. He showed no fear similar to Stonewall Jackson. When you have strong faith you have no fear of death. And looking at all the wounds and tight places he got in, it's not hard to imagine that God was looking after him.

 

[DixieRifles]

His momma was Godly, same for his wife. He attended Church during the war and asked folk to pray for him. Its also said that he held reverence for Christians. It sounds to me li

We can not judge a person.
Sometimes a person is religious and say all the right words but you dont know if that was head knowledge passed down from years of his Mother taking him to church and making him learn his catechism.

 

[dfostermem]

At Ft Pillow during Flag of Truce, Capt Henderson, who was in party, states: "I think the report of our dispatch was that the officers would be paroled and allowed to retain their side arms and private property, and the men would be treated as prisoners of war." If his memory was correct, Forrest was saying that all the soldiers would be treated the same, regardless of race. That was probably not something that was expected and may provide a little hint about Forrest's character pre-conversion.

I personally believe the blame for the excessive deaths at Ft Pillow needs to be placed primarily on the Federal officers who refused to surrender when they were against impossible odds. Had they surrendered and a massacre occurred, then it would clearly be on the Confederates.

 

[G Low]

At Ft Pillow during Flag of Truce, Capt Henderson, who was in party, states: "I think the report of our dispatch was that the officers would be paroled and allowed to retain their side arms and private property, and the men would be treated as prisoners of war." If his memory was correct, Forrest was saying that all the soldiers would be treated the same, regardless of race. That was probably not something that was expected and may provide a little hint about Forrest's character pre-conversion.

I personally believe the blame for the excessive deaths at Ft Pillow needs to be placed primarily on the Federal officers who refused to surrender when they were against impossible odds. Had they surrendered and a massacre occurred, then it would clearly be on the Confederates.

True, they were forewarned. They were offered a choice, and chose an infusion of blood…and finding all those galvanized Yankees didn't help either.

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

don't know if NBF was a mason or not but the source is a 1957 book titled "10,000 Famous Freemasons" written by William R. Denslow. He was sponsored by the Missouri Lodge of Research. Harry S. Truman wrote an intro for the book. The methodology was to select 60,000 'celebrities' and work backwards to research a Freemason connection. They used the library of the House of the Temple, Supreme Council but acknowledge the difficulty in proving membership in a secret order even with these records. The thumbnail bio's provided for the celebrity masons are not researched and seem to be rather shoddy. The standard of proof of membership also seems to be somewhat flexible.

In any case Mr. Denslow states that NBF was entered as an apprentice in Angerona Lodge # 168 at Memphis, Tennessee.

That's probably true.

However, an entered apprentice is not a Mason.
That's only the first of three Masonic "degrees" one must obtain before becoming a Mason.
And that's no deep secret ... any Mason will gladly explain that fact.

And yeah, President Truman was a very active Mason ... even a Shriner. (an appendant social & benevolent sub group within the Freemasonry fraternity) .

So I can see Truman writing a forward to any Masonic publication.

But once again, I don't know if Forrest was a Mason or not.

Bedford was a very complex man.

 

[DanSBHawk]

At Ft Pillow during Flag of Truce, Capt Henderson, who was in party, states: "I think the report of our dispatch was that the officers would be paroled and allowed to retain their side arms and private property, and the men would be treated as prisoners of war." If his memory was correct, Forrest was saying that all the soldiers would be treated the same, regardless of race. That was probably not something that was expected and may provide a little hint about Forrest's character pre-conversion.

I personally believe the blame for the excessive deaths at Ft Pillow needs to be placed primarily on the Federal officers who refused to surrender when they were against impossible odds. Had they surrendered and a massacre occurred, then it would clearly be on the Confederates.

Forrest and his men murdered black US soldiers at Fort Pillow. During the same time period, there were other confederate murders of US black soldiers at Sussex VA and Plymouth NC. There is no justification for murdering black US Army soldiers. It was plainly an atrocity.

 

[G Low]

Forrest and his men murdered black US soldiers at Fort Pillow. During the same time period, there were other confederate murders of US black soldiers at Sussex VA and Plymouth NC. There is no justification for murdering black US Army soldiers. It was plainly an atrocity.

War is at its best barbarism."
"Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster." The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over."
W.T.Sherman

 

[DanSBHawk]

War is at its best barbarism."
"Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster." The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over."
W.T.Sherman

I'd wager that a person that believes the murdering of surrendered enemy troops is a normal and tolerable practice in war,... is also inevitably a person who is thinking about it in a very selective way.

I'm sure it would be a completely different story if it were Grant or Sherman having thousands of confederate prisoners murdered after Donelson or Shiloh or Vicksburg. But because the troops murdered at Fort Pillow were US troops, and black, then it is shrugged off by some people.

Fort Pillow was an atrocity. It was dishonorable and criminal. There is no defense or excuse for it.

 

[Peace Society]

Forrest massacring helpless people at Ft. Pillow makes me wonder about his religious conversation

That shows how much influence our beliefs have. Forrest ascribed to the popular belief that people with black skin were inherently inferior to people with white skin. It also shows how important personal Bible study is. If he had read for himself Acts 17:26 he might have realized everyone is the same under the skin - and treated them differently. Most people are content to let others determine their faith for them, so they end up with traditions that have no Biblical basis whatsoever.

 

[Peace Society]

" The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over."
W.T.Sherman

I think that is wishful thinking.

 

[Will Carry]

When he got his blood up, he was for certain sure Old Testament.

 

[G Low]

Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest was
not formally charged or prosecuted for war crimes related to the 1864 Fort Pillow Massacre, and some post-war inquiries, including one by General William Tecumseh Sherman, found insufficient evidence to hold him personally liable for the actions of his troops. However, this outcome remains highly controversial and widely disputed by historians.

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

When he got his blood up, he was for certain sure Old Testament.

Gawd yes !
Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah style Old Testament.

His very devout Christian wife was about the only influence that could calm him down.

 

[gc45]

Forrest may have been terrible in the eyes of many, but our Lord only holds us accountable to our actions after we accept him as Lord and Savior. The Sinner's prayer removes our burden of past sins although, many have lifelong troubles with them, I know I do at times. Some will not agree with any of this, not asking for that; but I go to my maker believing in him, his acceptance, and that my name is written in the lamb's book of life. I would think Forrest's name is there also, if he had given himself over to his Lord.

 

[ColonelBuckwalter]

Forrest massacring helpless people at Ft. Pillow makes me wonder about his religious conversation

Perhaps it took a terrible thing to bring him into the light.

There is also something to be said for Forrest's.... former career. He was not known to (is there any good way to say this?) sell humans that didn't have particular skill sets. If you wanted someone who could shoe a horse, Forrest was the man to go to. Part of that may well have involved religious training as well. Off thr top of my head both Lee and Jackson had small churches for their slaves on their property.

 

[KevMcNJ]

Semi-off topic question for anyone here.
I understand that slaves were valuable "property" and could cost thousands of dollars. Wouldn't it have been cheaper to hire locals to work for a few dollars a day? It was back-breaking work of course but any outside work was difficult back in the old days.

 

[Will Carry]

Semi-off topic question for anyone here.
I understand that slaves were valuable "property" and could cost thousands of dollars. Wouldn't it have been cheaper to hire locals to work for a few dollars a day? It was back-breaking work of course but any outside work was difficult back in the old days.

Excellent question sir! There was a town, up in the swamps north of Mobile, that was comprised of escaped slaves. No one wanted to go up into those swamps to get them AND they were hired as day labor. The history books call it Africatown, the locals had a different name for it, which I will not utter.

"Africatown, near Mobile, Alabama, is a historic community founded by formerly enslaved people from the Clotilda, the last known slave ship to arrive in the U.S.. While not a town for runaway slaves, this community was founded by survivors of the slave trade and became a place where they could establish a free society."

 

[G Low]

Forrest, like most southerners, felt that the Yankees and their cohorts were invaders, whose only goal was to destroy, defeat and devastate the south's ability to defend themselves. It was a do or die situation. He was considered a patriot standing up to the evil invaders.

 

[DanSBHawk]

If Forrest's late-life conversion was genuine, then that is between himself and his maker. He lived most of his life in ways that were not admirable or honorable. The slave-trading, the Fort Pillow atrocity, the KKK. I'm not aware of any respectable general, on either side, ever giving enemy garrisons an ultimatum to either surrender or face no quarter. That violated the laws of war even then. In my opinion, Forrest is not someone to admire or hold up as a Godly person.