Was Nathan Bedford Forrest the Best Confederate Cavalry Leader in the West?

Military History Online ^ | 12/09/2007 | Laurence Freiheit

[indcons]

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Military history ping

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

A government that fears arms in the hands of it
people should also fear ROPE!
- Nathan Bedford Forrest about 1845

I like his quote above.

[stainlessbanner]

Dixie Ping!

[Memphis Moe]

Apart from the Ft. Pillow controversy, objective opinion is that he was a great military leader.

Ironically, according to some historians, one of Bedford’s greatest tactical military victories, Brice’s Crossroads, was, when considering the bigger picture, a victory for Sherman. Had Forrest not been tangling with Sturgis there, he might have been harassing Sherman in Georgia.

[StoneWall Brigade]

Thanks for the ping SB.

[StoneWall Brigade]

thats a beautiful picture of a truly gifted officer.

[ModelBreaker]

...”arguably” the best? There was no calvary commander on the confederate side fit to hold Forrest’s shorts.

[CurlyBill]

thats a beautiful picture of a truly gifted officer.

Agree... and this is coming from the descendant of a Confederate Cavalry Private.

[Pelham]

bookmark

[StoneWall Brigade]

Wow thats truly an honor your ancestor must have been quite the solider.

[lesser_satan]

Ping!

[Brad from Tennessee]

Forrest’s lack of a formal military education was eclipsed by his uncanny ability to improvise on the spot. He taught his men to build bridges from logs and vines that were strong enough to support a loaded wagon and horse drawn caissons and cannon. At Clifton, Tennessee he built rafts to ferry his force across the river, sunk the rafts with stones on the far side, then retrieved the rafts on their return and recrossed the river. After the Battle of Nashville, when Hood’s army was beaten, sick and starving on their retreat through the winter rain, Forrest organized a party to gather up every wagon and team in the area to carry the army south to safety.

As the article states he was also a master of deception.

Though Forrest was despised by the Union Army during the war, it was some Union officers who enabled Forrest to get his businesses going again following the war.

Forrest was also a leading political force in persuading the U.S. Congress to re-enfranchise all former Confederate veterans who lost their voting rights when the South surrendered. In the 1930's, German Army Colonel Irwin Rommel traveled to Shiloh and other military parks in the region in the course of studying Forrest's practice of mobile warfare.

[Bobalu]

Truly an intelligent, powerful and resourceful man.
The slave trading part is very distasteful though.
I’d like to think that if I had been born in that time I would have been an anti-slavery advocate....but how can any of us know for sure what we would have done?

If I had to face Forrest man to man I’d just run.

[Rockingham]

Good article. It could have benefited from some of Forrest’s maxims of war and a comparison with other leading CSA cavalry commanders. Print publication will no doubt require treatment of Forrest’s role with the Klan.

[LaMudBug]

...”arguably” the best? There was no calvary commander on the confederate side fit to hold Forrest’s shorts." --------------------------------------------------------- Yes there was. His name was Brig. Gen Frank C. Armstrong. Read the following as to what Gen Forrest had to say about Gen. Armstrong. The following is from: Evans, Clement, CONFEDERATE MILITARY HISTORY, VOL VIII, Confederate Publishing O., Atlanta, GA 1899. "In the organization of the cavalry corps of the army of Tennessee, following the Kentucky campaign, he commanded a brigade of Forrest's division, consisting of the Third Arkansas, Second Kentucky, First Tennessee, McDonald's battalion and Brady's escort company. Upon the organization of a corps under Forrest, he was put in command of a cavalry division including his brigade and Dibrell's . He rendered important service after the evacuation of Chattanooga, attached to Polk's corps, and on September 20th participated in the battle of Chickamauga in command of his division fighting dismounted. "The charges made by Armstrong's brigade while fighting on foot," said General Forrest, "would be creditable to the best drilled infantry." In command of a division including the brigades of W. Y. C. Humes and C. H. Tyler, he was in the East Tennessee campaign with Longstreet during the winter of 1863-64, in frequent battle, and was commended for gallantry by Gens. Joseph Wheeler and W. T. Martin." Confederate generals Earl Van Dorn and Nathan Forrest were present at Armstrongs wedding, 27 April 1863, Columbia, TN. Making broad general statements can make a person look like a dim bulb...

[Mike Darancette]

His rise from private to lieutenant general was clearly earned, not gained through political influence or social standing.

Not Many men that went from private soldier to colonel in one jump. Forrest after joining as a private outfitted a regiment of his own and was appointed a colonel by the politicians. The business that the article alluded to is slave trading. Why they chose these misstatements and omission I do not know.

Now that that stuff is out of the way Forrest was the greatest cavalry general of the civil war. He had the canny ability to ride his men hard and deploy them as infantry in strategic places to 'Hit em on the end'.

[nathanbedford]

Thanks for the ping.

This seems to be a good review of Forrest's military campaign.

I have tried to consider a couple of other perspectives on my about page.

[Liberty Valance]

Yes, probably.

[Republic_of_Secession.]

Nathan Bedford Forrest sounds quite similar to the notable Boer General Koos de la Rey from the Anglo-Boer War.