Forrest Nathan Bedford Forrest Quotes

"I have stood your meanness as long as I intend to. You have played the part of a damned scoundrel, and are a coward, and if you were any part of a man I would slap your jaws and force you to resent it. You may as well not issue any more orders to me, for I will not obey them, and I will hold you personally responsible for any further indignities you endeavor to inflict upon me. You have threatened to arrest me for not obeying your orders promptly. I dare you to do it, and I say to you that if you ever again try to interfere with me or cross my path it will be at the peril of your life." General Forrest to General Braxton Bragg.
 
"I have stood your meanness as long as I intend to. You have played the part of a ****ed scoundrel, and are a coward, and if you were any part of a man I would slap your jaws and force you to resent it. You may as well not issue any more orders to me, for I will not obey them, and I will hold you personally responsible for any further indignities you endeavor to inflict upon me. You have threatened to arrest me for not obeying your orders promptly. I dare you to do it, and I say to you that if you ever again try to interfere with me or cross my path it will be at the peril of your life." General Forrest to General Braxton Bragg.
That is a good one as well. Bragg gave him what he wanted too.
 
" I have never on the field of battle sent you where I was unwilling to go myself, nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers, you can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the Government to which you have surrendered can afford to be and will be magnanimous"

That's from Forrest's Final Address to his troops, and while he probably didn't write it it was issued under his name so we might as well attribute it to him.
 
When Forrest was about to go into Cahaba to surrender, the governors of Mississippi and Tennessee (former Confederate governors, that is) met with him to see if he'd lead unsurrendered Confederates in Texas.

"Men" he said, "you may all do as you d-n please, but I'm a-going home. To make men fight under such circumstances would be nothing but murder. Any man who is favor of a further prosecution of this war is a fit subject for a lunatic asylum."
 
I have a book downloaded: "May I Quote You, General Forrest?" Edited by Randall Bedwell. It's a fun little thing, and very inexpensive....in case you want to pull out one of THAT GUY'S gems for a special occasion. :smile:
 
Got to admire a man who admits he's been fairly whupped and is willing to accept it and go home.
 
However much we differed with them while public enemies, and were at war, we must admit that they fought gallantly for the preservation of the government which we fought to destroy, which is now ours, was that of our fathers, and must be that of our children. Though our love for that government was for a while supplanted by the exasperation springing out of a sense of violated rights and the conflict of battle, yet our love for free government, justly administered, has not perished, and must grow strong in the hearts of brave men who have learned to appreciate the noble qualities of the true soldier.
Let us all, then, join their comrades who live, in spreading flowers over the graves of these dead Federal soldiers, before the whole American people, as a peace offering to the nation, as a testimonial of our respect for their devotion to duty, and as a tribute from patriots, as we have ever been, to the great Republic, and in honor of the flag against which we fought, and under which they fell, nobly maintaining the honor of that flag. It is our duty to honor the government for which they died, and if called upon, to fight for the flag we could not conquer.

--- Joint letter from Nathan Bedford Forrest and Gideon Johnston Pillow,
urging Confederate veterans to participate in Decoration Day activities,​
Memphis, 1875.​
 
" I have never on the field of battle sent you where I was unwilling to go myself, nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers, you can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the Government to which you have surrendered can afford to be and will be magnanimous"

That's from Forrest's Final Address to his troops, and while he probably didn't write it it was issued under his name so we might as well attribute it to him.
I dearly wish he's kept to that, and NEVER involved Himself with the KKK. We would have a lot less trouble with memorializing him today!

Kevin Dally
 
I dearly wish he's kept to that, and NEVER involved Himself with the KKK. We would have a lot less trouble with memorializing him today!

Kevin Dally

...and you wish that he, and many other Confederate veterans, had stood by the wayside and let Unionists take their homes, farms and the means to live and give to other Unionists just because they were in power and wanted to steal them? No, of course not. The KKK resisted those efforts and we would have joined those ranks, too, if we were alive back then.

Don't make the mistake of thinking the original KKK was the same organization as today. They are not.
 
Actually, Forrest did write his farewell address by dictating it. His handwriting couldn't be read much and it was a job anyway - his note to Emma Sansom, all of two lines, had 2/3 of the words misspelled. Used to teach illiterate folks on the rez to read and write and lots of them had little tricks to hide their illiteracy - Forrest employed one of them. He'd have a clerk write down what he said so's he could 'get the pitch right'! Nobody questioned why he needed to hear the pitch of a written message, of course, since nobody wanted to be flat and all over the place... Almost all his messages and speeches to his men were his own words - just spelled right!
 
...and you wish that he, and many other Confederate veterans, had stood by the wayside and let Unionists take their homes, farms and the means to live and give to other Unionists just because they were in power and wanted to steal them? No, of course not. The KKK resisted those efforts and we would have joined those ranks, too, if we were alive back then.

Don't make the mistake of thinking the original KKK was the same organization as today. They are not.

My God, what HISTORY are YOU reading?:O o:
Bovine Supposition Pal!

Kevin Dally
 
Caution!! We must always be aware of the sensibilities of others, no matter how ridiculous they might seem.
 
"I have stood your meanness as long as I intend to. You have played the part of a ****ed scoundrel, and are a coward, and if you were any part of a man I would slap your jaws and force you to resent it. You may as well not issue any more orders to me, for I will not obey them, and I will hold you personally responsible for any further indignities you endeavor to inflict upon me. You have threatened to arrest me for not obeying your orders promptly. I dare you to do it, and I say to you that if you ever again try to interfere with me or cross my path it will be at the peril of your life." General Forrest to General Braxton Bragg.

Free,

Where did you get that from? I'd like to get the primary source. That's great!!
 
Tmh10,

Thanks. If it was from Foote, then forget primary sources as he did not have footnotes or endnotes. But I love his 3 volumes nonetheless!
 
...and you wish that he, and many other Confederate veterans, had stood by the wayside and let Unionists take their homes, farms and the means to live and give to other Unionists just because they were in power and wanted to steal them? No, of course not. The KKK resisted those efforts and we would have joined those ranks, too, if we were alive back then.

If you had joined those ranks in that time, you would be just as wrong as if you were a present-day member of the organization.

Don't make the mistake of thinking the original KKK was the same organization as today. They are not.

From bad to worse does not lessen ill-feeling towards that terrorist organization, then or now.

Sincerely,
Unionblue
 
"I have stood your meanness as long as I intend to. You have played the part of a ****ed scoundrel, and are a coward, and if you were any part of a man I would slap your jaws and force you to resent it. You may as well not issue any more orders to me, for I will not obey them, and I will hold you personally responsible for any further indignities you endeavor to inflict upon me. You have threatened to arrest me for not obeying your orders promptly. I dare you to do it, and I say to you that if you ever again try to interfere with me or cross my path it will be at the peril of your life." General Forrest to General Braxton Bragg.
The book Failure in the Saddle: Nathan Bedford Forrest, Joseph Wheeler, and the Confederate Cavalry in the Chickamauga Campaign by David A. Powell has a chapter that disputes the claim that exchange between Forrest and Bragg ever happened. Powell goes into detail WHY it couldn't have taken place.

http://www.amazon.com/Failure-Saddle-Confederate-Chickamauga-Campaign/dp/1932714871/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348820382&sr=8-1&keywords=Failure in the Saddle

A good book on how the Confederate Cavalry was not as effective as it could have been!

Kevin Dally
 
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