Forrest Nathan Bedford Forrest

The only Forrest bio I've read is the Wills' "Battle from the Start." Wanted to reopen the Middle Passage. Smuggled in kidnapped Africans. Owner and operater of "Slave R' Us." Slave owner. Klansman. I can see why he's featured in all those paintings by Mort Kustler and others.

I think to learn Forrest the man, you'll need to get about 20 different biographical opinions and then check a few facts. The story in total is fascinating. Could be my interest keeps going because I've worked on the restoration of his folks' house and barn down in Marshall County, Tennessee. With the help of many far more useful folks than myself, it's coming along.
 
Larry hit the nail on the head.....read 'em all (a lot are online, and E, you really need to think about some kind of e-reader (no pun intended) to cut down on the bookshelf problem. Yeah, holding them is great, but when you just want to read them for info---and then keep them.....no dusting, no moving boxes trying to find something...) so you can get a good sampling of good and bad. Morton does write some quite sharp criticisms of Forrest regarding his temper and his occasional tendency to let his mouth overrun his.....anatomy......That's why I liked it. If you read everything, good and bad, you eventually get the sense of the real man. And I know it's hard to understand, but precisely what I like about him is that he was so "bad" and then had the guts to admit how wrong he was on so many things. Since I'm not perfect and only know of one individual who was, I tend to admire that ability.
 
Larry hit the nail on the head.....read 'em all (a lot are online, and E, you really need to think about some kind of e-reader (no pun intended) to cut down on the bookshelf problem. Yeah, holding them is great, but when you just want to read them for info---and then keep them.....no dusting, no moving boxes trying to find something...) so you can get a good sampling of good and bad. Morton does write some quite sharp criticisms of Forrest regarding his temper and his occasional tendency to let his mouth overrun his.....anatomy......That's why I liked it. If you read everything, good and bad, you eventually get the sense of the real man. And I know it's hard to understand, but precisely what I like about him is that he was so "bad" and then had the guts to admit how wrong he was on so many things. Since I'm not perfect and only know of one individual who was, I tend to admire that ability.
I would even read what was being said about him in Harper's and Leslie's, not for facts, but for cultural context. The press may not have been accurate, but they certainly reflected the attitudes and shared experiences of their readers. [edit] One history test I recently did work on (I won't name the state) shows the kids editorial cartoons, posters, etc., then asks the kid to give a short answer or pick from multiple choice as to what the cartoonist or editor was trying to say.
 
The only Forrest bio I've read is the Wills' "Battle from the Start." Wanted to reopen the Middle Passage. Smuggled in kidnapped Africans. Owner and operater of "Slave R' Us." Slave owner. Klansman. I can see why he's featured in all those paintings by Mort Kustler and others.
He was a guy trying to make a few bucks. What's more American than that?
 
I ought to recuse myself. I have a few books on Forrest, but I haven't read them. I have been content in reading what he did in the battle-books; not who he was.

Yes, I'm a battle-book student. I have approximately 16-feet of biographies and diaries. I've read only a few of them. And about 35-feet of battle studies. Them I read, but time has a way of eroding memory of where I read it. I'm not about to consult my non-existent notes to give a book and a page number. Then there's another 24-feet of General Military and Reference.

Absent Sherman, Grant and Lincloln, I don't get into personalities -- and I'm pretty much overloaded on them. As noted, Eric Foner has a new one out on Lincoln. I'm tempted, but I just bought three others I won't get around to read. I'll start Stoker's "Stragegy and Design" sometime this month.
 
Do you have some by Edwin C. Bearss, or partnered with Bearss? He does masterful work with Forrest - and he doesn't particularly like him! I confess to being a history gossip, I love the personalities. (By the way, we seem to need a good Sherman thread. He's very like Forrest in many scary ways!)
 
McClernand, with Grant present, now found himself trapped between the two enemy lines. Amid cries that they should surrender Grant decided that they had "cut their way in and could cut their way out just as well."
From the Battle of Belmont thread 11/17/2010.

Amazing how great minds think alike.
 
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