Posted on 07/20/2007 6:24:09 PM PDT by SuzyQ2
Forrest's soldiers loved him. His fellow generals admired him. His enemies were terrified at the mere mention of his name. Gen. Robert E. Lee said of his finest subordinate commanders, the most remarkable was one he "had never met" — Forrest. And U.S. and foreign military officers alike have studied Forrest’s campaigns over the decades since the end of the war. It has even been speculated that some aspects of the German Blitzkrieg were patterned after some of Forrest's operations.
(Excerpt) Read more at tank.nationalreview.com ...
I speak as a Texan. Obviously I had someone else write this post for me.
You would profit from studying the words actually spoken by General Forrest himself on the subject of race relations rather than puking up the consensus feelings of contemporary race pimps.
Start with the speech given by General Forrest at the 1875 convention of the Pole Bearers, the forerunner of the NAACP.
“War means fighting. And fighting means killing.”
- Nathan Bedford Forrest
So much for confederate gallantry.
Forrest was in constant conflict with superiors and subordinates and was a raider, mainly. He was demoted many times, ordered the massacre of all the Black prisoners at Fort Pillow.
If he hadn't paid for his mounted battalion with his own money from slave trading, he likely would have never had a command.
And Mr. Sherman was an enemy to the Confederacy. Your point?
...do not think that confederate ideology is the future of conservative thought in America in the 21st century.
The Confederate constitution, while closely resembling the U.S. version, contained certain changes to which 21st-century conservatives might be favorably disposed: term limits; a congressional super-majority requirement to pass spending or taxation bills; a requirement that the title of each legislative bill must accurately describe its contents; no riders were allowed to be attached to a bill. And acknowledgment of God in the Preamble.
If a Fort Pillow massacre occurred, there is no objective evidence that General Forrest ordered it.
In fact, the number of enemy he killed in close combat exceeded the number horses he had shot out from underneath him by one (most likely 31 enemy killed and 30 horses shot) leading him in later life to claim that he was “one up”.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Those numbers are from my memory of what I have read about him,,,It’s a very interesting read about his life,,,
That was one mean SOB !! His war service would make a
HollyWood-Action-Movie,,,
And,,,Yes he went through lots of horses,,,
“Pitch Into Them!” was one of his mottos...
In Mid-August, Forrest's command was trapped at Oxford, Mississippi, by a vastly superior Union Army commanded by General A. J. Smith. Forrest had not fully recovered from his most recent disabling wound (to his foot of all places) and knew that he could not withstand Smith's pressure for more than a few days. What choice did Forrest have?
He attacked Memphis, Tennessee
Forrest hand picked 2,000 troops for their endurance as well as for their knowledge of the city and sent them on a hell bent raid to Memphis. The primary goal of the raid was to cause Union General Washburn to believe that the city was under a serious siege and to recall General Smith's forces from Mississippi (collateral goals were to capture top Union officers and to free Confederate prisoners of war). The collateral goals were not achieved, but the primary objective was achieved in spades.
General Washburn was headquartered in the Gayso Hotel; a troop under the command of General Forrest's little brother William was sent to secure the hotel and search for the general. While most of the men dismounted and approached the hotel on foot, William Forrest burst through the front door and charged upstairs...on horseback.
General Washburn was convinced that a full scale invasion was under way and immediately recalled General Smith's forces to protect the city (Forrest had instructed his troops not to cut the telegraph line connecting Washburn to Smith).
it’s so discouraging to see what passes for conservatism today
“ordered the massacre of all the Black prisoners at Fort Pillow”
BS.
that entire reply demonstrates your complete lack of knowledge on the subject you are ranting about
Forrest shot a man who stabbed him...what would you do?
help him guide the knife?
Forrest was never demoted. He had his command changed from under him for many reasons mostly strategic which had little to do with him except when David and SD Lee sent him west after Bragg’s last debacle.
There is absolutely no evidence that Forrest ordered the massacre of black (and local Tennessean Unionist with them) during that fight...in fact, there is Federal testimony to the contrary. The Union commander held a drunken command which refused to submit to overwhelming force, violated repeated truce flags and then made the tactical blunder of running into a hole (kind like the Crater Yankees) and got shot to pieces by the river where Forrest himself stopped it. It was a rout no doubt but the less than capable Federal leadership there brought it on himself.
He enlisted as a private and did indeed supply many forces in Memphis and North Mississippi with arms smuggled in from Kentucky and the old Midwest of Southern Indiana and Illinois at the outbreak of the war. Forrest was a very large landowner and cotton trader and known to be a reasonable man with his slaves. His records have been scoured and no Simon Legree was he. His slaves spoke warmly of him and his funeral was attended by more blacks than whites.
He helped form the original Klan to combat Union occupation and carpet baggers and the disenfranchisement of whites and the putting in office of sometimes illiterate blacks who were manipulated by corrupt Yankee administrators.
and I don’t blame him, and he left when they did and he saw the organization had become more than he intended
further, he gave a series of speeches about reconciliation with both the north and blacks...particularly with blacks
and he knew not to wage a guerrilla war because he (and other Southerners) viewed a victory at that cost as dishonorable
and he fought many Yankee forces much larger than his and won about every time except Donleson (where he escaped) and Selma at the end.
he was hardly just a raider.
any decent neo-abolitionist today should be grateful he did not have large forces under his command....which he did not because he was not a Pointer and had been born common
and btw....we are not re fighting the war...it’s over...if you don’t like our history then go find another thread where race baiters can breast beat till the cows come round...or try wideawakes...plenty of PC RINOs there
It appears that a Yankee officer at the battle disagreed with the claim that there was a massacre:
“The report of Lieutenant Daniel Van Horn, Sixth U. S. Colored Heavy Artillery confirmed this in which he reported: “There never was a surrender of the fort, both officers and men declaring they never would surrender or ask for quarter.”
http://37thtexas.org/html/grandfab.html
I think you need to learn more about him. He was a very complex person with little education. For instance, he used to tell the slaves that he was selling to “go find their future owners.” The slaves would go out and find out from other slaves who were the best masters and come back and tell Forest who they were. Forest would then, negotiate a agreeable price. The slaves got resonable owners, the owners got slaves that would not seek freedon, and Forest got a profit with little work. In fact some of his slaves staid with him after the civil war, after they were freed. He was not a saint, but he wasn’t evil either-a very unusual man. That he was “as hard as wood pecker lips” would be an understatement. There are several very good books about him.
Forrest was in constant conflict mainly with Braxton Bragg. He got along fine with Dick Taylor.
Oh, and your reading of the Fort Pillow incident is, shall we say, selective and incomplete.
Very nice post, wardaddy.
You’re right...we aren’t re-fighting the war.
But, revisionist history, and innocent mistakes,
by some needs to be countered with the facts.
I don’t have anything else to add except a “bump”...
and a “nice to see you.” ;o)
By the convention of trained military officers, close quarter combat was conducted with sabers; soldiers killed in combat would have suffered saber cuts while soldiers who were executed would have revealed powder burns.
The problem is: General Forrest ignored convention; his troops at Fort Pillow were armed with Navy Colts, not sabers. Anyone Union soldier killed in close combat at Fort Pillow would have had powder burns.
General Washburn was headquartered in the Gayso Hotel; a troop under the command of General Forrest’s little brother William was sent to secure the hotel and search for the general. While most of the men dismounted and approached the hotel on foot, William Forrest burst through the front door and charged upstairs...on horseback.
~~~~~~~~~~~
LOL,,,I think this was the “Spanked On The Rump” with the
flat-side of his saber story I read of,,,been too long,,,
LOL,,,We could all learn something from this bunch,,,
North or South...;0)
General Washburn escaped from the hotel in the 1864 version of his underpants. To compound the general’s terror, William Forrest gathered up Washburn’s uniform and took it as a trophy.
Total bullcrap, but that smear in the northern papers was the best the union forces could do to diminish Forrest, since they could never catch nor defeat him. So if you can't catch or defeat him, you create a false atrocity story about him. Par for the course. We understand.
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