Forrest Should Nathan Bedford Forrest be considered "a great general and an honorable man"?

Should Nathan Bedford Forrest be considered "a great general and an honorable man"?


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Hurst doesn't make that argument.

"Can the same Forrest have 'ordered them shot down like dogs' and have 'run between our men and the Yanks with his pistol and sabre drawn,' perhaps even shooting one of his own men? Possibly. His temper may have undergone one of its characteristic waxings and wanings. Angered by the taunts of the black soldiers and especially by the Union refusal to surrender, necessitating the paying of more precious Confederate lives for this victory he had to have, he may have ragingly ordered a massacre and even intended to carry it out--until he rode inside the fort and viewed the horrifying result. Then, begged for his protection, he was probably both vain enough to be flattered and sensitive enough to respond. Even if Clark's assertion stemmed from a false assumption and Forrest ordered no massacre, he probably didn't have to; there was enough rancor between his men and the armed former slaves, as well as the Tennessee Unionists, that about all he had to do to produce a massacre was to issue no order against one. This seems particularly true in view of the terms of his habitual demand that the enemy surrender or die." [Jack Hurst, Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography, p. 177]
I am surprised you didn't mention p.176 as well.
Confederate Sergeant Clark said " he ordered them shot down like dog's" vs a quote from Confederate Samuel Caldwell who wrote to his wife of Forrest running in between his men with sabre and pistol drawn to protect Union soldiers from being massacred. You forgot to quote " Federal Captain Young of the 24th Missouri Cavalry that Forrest shot one of his own men to stop the massacre .
Even a black Union soldier stated that Forrest told his men to stop fighting.
I would urge others interested in Forrest and the question of Forrest's responsibility of the Ft.Pillow massacre to read Hurst's account in its entirety.
Leftyhunter
 
I am surprised you didn't mention p.176 as well.
Confederate Sergeant Clark said " he ordered them shot down like dog's" vs a quote from Confederate Samuel Caldwell who wrote to his wife of Forrest running in between his men with sabre and pistol drawn to protect Union soldiers from being massacred. You forgot to quote " Federal Captain Young of the 24th Missouri Cavalry that Forrest shot one of his own men to stop the massacre .
Even a black Union soldier stated that Forrest told his men to stop fighting.
I would urge others interested in Forrest and the question of Forrest's responsibility of the Ft.Pillow massacre to read Hurst's account in its entirety.
Leftyhunter

That is Hurst showing the evidence is mixed, not making the argument you claimed.
 
Hurst does make the point, and it's a valid one, that in the heat of a moment Forrest may well have said something along the lines of shoot everything in blue and in the next moment said don't do that. When his blood was up, it was up. However, the situation that was Ft Pillow was almost an entity of its own and did what such things do. Chalmers very much was to blame for not realizing he was losing control. JPK pointed out the gruesome things done outside the fort - Forrest denied any participation in that and claimed civilians outside of his control did those things. I think that is true. I also think it is true that a certain number of his troops sneaked off and helped do them.

One of the many reasons Forrest did not get his trial was because he could then point out Union failings in the administration of the territory they supposedly controlled. There were orders from Hurlbut to put pressure on civilians in the area. Hurst was supposed to be court-martialed at least four times, and at the time of Ft Pillow they were sitting down to start it yet again. Bradford was next in line. Forrest was there to remove a raiding base that should have been closed already per Sherman's instructions. Sherman would have had to answer why that was not done. As much as he wanted to get rid of Forrest, he did not want to get tangled up in the hangman's ropes himself. Forrest was the only general with substantial forces who was able to move in and out of Union controlled territory at this time, and so it became his job to eliminate this fort. He was the only one, Union or Confederate, who could do it. That is the real reason he was there.

Ft Pillow and the lack of charges or a trial enabled Lincoln to force Davis to give colored troops the same rights as POWs that white Union troops had - not return or sell them into slavery, not execute their officers, not turn them into laborers under dangerous conditions - like building earthworks under fire. After the war, the battle was very useful in preventing Forrest from being elected to any government office, and from being nominated for the Senate at the 1868 Democratic Convention. All the way there and all the way back it followed him like the Grim Reaper, from some punk in Ohio wanting to fight that 'butcher Forrest' to a prim Bible-carrying lady crashing into his hotel room to upbraid him about killing all those poor colored folk. When he killed a black man on his plantation in Mississippi, his home was surrounded by former USCT, many of whom were survivors of Ft Pillow. They wanted to see if justice would be done. Whatever Forrest's blame might be in the battle, it was something that shadowed him and never left for the rest of his life.
 
Read P.166 of " Nathan Bedford Forrest a biography" Jack Hurst Vintage Civil War Library because I am not sure what your talking about.
Leftyhunter
The impression that Confederates only shot the black enemy at places like Ft. Pillow and at the Crater in Petersburg
 
The impression that Confederates only shot the black enemy at places like Ft. Pillow and at the Crater in Petersburg
Not so much that the Confederate soldiers didn't shoot white soldiers as well but that the Confederate soldiers only shot captured black soldiers. In the case of the Ft.Pillow massacre both white and black captured soldiers were killed. Black soldiers were killed in greater numbers. As you know at Ft.Blakely the USCT got some well deserved payback against the Confederate .
Leftyhunter
 
Hurst does make the point, and it's a valid one, that in the heat of a moment Forrest may well have said something along the lines of shoot everything in blue and in the next moment said don't do that. When his blood was up, it was up. However, the situation that was Ft Pillow was almost an entity of its own and did what such things do. Chalmers very much was to blame for not realizing he was losing control. JPK pointed out the gruesome things done outside the fort - Forrest denied any participation in that and claimed civilians outside of his control did those things. I think that is true. I also think it is true that a certain number of his troops sneaked off and helped do them.

One of the many reasons Forrest did not get his trial was because he could then point out Union failings in the administration of the territory they supposedly controlled. There were orders from Hurlbut to put pressure on civilians in the area. Hurst was supposed to be court-martialed at least four times, and at the time of Ft Pillow they were sitting down to start it yet again. Bradford was next in line. Forrest was there to remove a raiding base that should have been closed already per Sherman's instructions. Sherman would have had to answer why that was not done. As much as he wanted to get rid of Forrest, he did not want to get tangled up in the hangman's ropes himself. Forrest was the only general with substantial forces who was able to move in and out of Union controlled territory at this time, and so it became his job to eliminate this fort. He was the only one, Union or Confederate, who could do it. That is the real reason he was there.

Ft Pillow and the lack of charges or a trial enabled Lincoln to force Davis to give colored troops the same rights as POWs that white Union troops had - not return or sell them into slavery, not execute their officers, not turn them into laborers under dangerous conditions - like building earthworks under fire. After the war, the battle was very useful in preventing Forrest from being elected to any government office, and from being nominated for the Senate at the 1868 Democratic Convention. All the way there and all the way back it followed him like the Grim Reaper, from some punk in Ohio wanting to fight that 'butcher Forrest' to a prim Bible-carrying lady crashing into his hotel room to upbraid him about killing all those poor colored folk. When he killed a black man on his plantation in Mississippi, his home was surrounded by former USCT, many of whom were survivors of Ft Pillow. They wanted to see if justice would be done. Whatever Forrest's blame might be in the battle, it was something that shadowed him and never left for the rest of his life.
Once again Diane, I thank you for pointing out these facts.

Forrest's business venture into the slave trade was by no means an honorable profession.
But as has been said, Forrest was not born into the 'privileged' Southern Planter Aristocracy.


This horrible business was a way to lift his family out of a dirt poor existence.
Right or wrong/moral or immoral.

Terrible yes, but also only one of a few business options available for a man of his low social position.

I think the man himself was overall 'honorable' by the standards of his day.
Hot headed, short-tempered and a contradiction of himself at times . . . by all means yes.

Did Bedford have a personal sense of honor ?
I think so.

Of course not everyone will agree, but I'm not here to change anyone's opinion.

Forrest's courtship of his wife, pretty much answers the 'Honor' question . . . IMHO.

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https://civilwartalk.com/threads/mary-ann-montgomery-forrest.106263/.
 
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What bar does Forrest have to hit, then?

You see, this is why I often drag Sherman kicking and screaming into comparison with Forrest. Does the systematic and barbaric destruction of the Plains people seem less than the systematic and barbaric selling of slaves? Both were government sanctioned, after all. But no one has taken down Sherman's statue in New York.

As to Ft Pillow - if Forrest had decided not to fight the war at all and to head for Brazil to sit it out, that unsavory episode would have happened anyway. That's what the stark truth about it is - it's a horrible study in hate. Who dun it isn't nearly as important as why it happened.
Prewar Forrest made his living, and his money buying and selling human beings. That was his profession. After the war, he was part of the Klan. When the bar is set by guys like Lee and George Thomas, he doesn't clear it. That why I can't support the honorable part, although he was a very capable general.
 
Prewar Forrest made his living, and his money buying and selling human beings. That was his profession. After the war, he was part of the Klan. When the bar is set by guys like Lee and George Thomas, he doesn't clear it. That why I can't support the honorable part, although he was a very capable general.
He was widely copied, with respect to tactical methods.
The US military contemporaries seemed to cut him some slack. To them, he seemed to be on the honorable side of the ledger, with other guys that fought as uniformed soldiers. Morgan, Anderson, Ferguson, Quantrill, Wirz, and the Booth conspirators failed the basic test of following the rules of open conflict.
 
The were some dishonorable episodes. But I think he was warned that the Tennessee Klan was not going to be tolerated for long.
There was a risk of falling into the Jim Fisk, Orville Babcock, zone. Those types of men seemed to have accidents.
Van Dorn did not make out of the war, but Forrest did.
I wish the Forrest fans would provide information about what distinguished him from those people who became marked for an early demise.
 
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