The Wizard of the Saddle

NRO ^ | July 20, 2007 | W. Thomas Smith Jr.

[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.

[PAR35]

There is one redeeming factor to General Forrest. He knew when the war was over

And when would that have been? After Lee surrendered and went into retirement, when Davis was imprisoned, after even Watie ceased fighting, General Forrest helped organize the guerrilla forces that wore down the occupation until it was finally ended.

[gandalftb]

He was in command. There are many accounts written by the confederate officers there that establish the massacre happened.

[gandalftb]

He was in command. Period. His own subordinates wrote home about it, their letters are preserved. No BS.

[LeoWindhorse]

I knew exactly who this thread was referring to the instant I saw it. There was only one!
My own great Uncle proudly rode with Forrest from ‘63 until the final day . I sure wish he were still around to hear stories from today !

[gandalftb]

Forrest either ordered his men to accept no surrender or his Confederates lost control but in either case, they began to slaughter black soldiers. The casualty list confirms a massacre. Confederates suffered 14 killed and 86 wounded, while the Union force lost 231 killed and 100 wounded; only 58 of the 226 surviving Union prisoners were black soldiers.

The U.S. Congress’s Committee on the Conduct of the War investigated, and after much testimony from survivors—including horrifying accounts of black soldiers being buried alive—it denounced the Confederate actions as murder and atrocity. Forrest’s most complimentary biographer, Brian Steel Wills, concluded that the committee’s findings were valid and that Forrest was responsible for the slaughter.

Check it out:
Brian Steel Wills, A Battle from the Start: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest, 1992

See also:
Albert Castel, The Fort Pillow Massacre: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence, Civil War History, 1958

I accept that Forrest was a capable officer and certainly his bravery is unquestioned. The fly in the buttermilk is that Forrest fought in the west, the Confederacy surrendered in the east.

[stainlessbanner]

Captain Henderson who accompanied by a flag of truce presented Forrest's terms for surrender which include the same fair treatment for black and white federal soldiers. The Federals twice refused generous terms and prepared to fight.

Elias Fall's a negro soldier testified at the Congressional Committee that General Forrest expressly gave orders to stop shooting, and that, "after peace was made," an office told a "Secesh soldier," if he did that again (shoot), he would arrest him.

The burned bodies you refer to probably came from the Federals burning the fort or the New Era gunboat shelling the Confederates as they buried Union soldiers following the battle.

Thomas Addison's testimony was unreliable as well.

Also if you look at the questioning of the committee, the questions were phrased in a leading fashion.

[dixiechick2000]

Thank you for posting that!

Setting the record straight bump!

[wardaddy]

Folks have such strong opinions on Forrest but it’s just white racist bogeyman stuff.

They really know nothing about him, they should educate themselves and learn a bit.

Forrest was very sensitive about killing civilians on his battlefields and on many occasion to the consternation of his men he took great personal risk to escort women, children(especially children) and the elderly or infirm from the field of fire...and I mean sustained volley fields of fire aimed directly at his hulking six foot two imposing figure.

He had just done that exactly with a widow woman and her small children during the battle when his brother Jeffrey was killed.

There is a lot of written works on Forrest by his peers...volumes.

The only constant criticism that is valid is that he had a vicious temper once riled. He would flush greatly....probably early diabetes high blood pressure and ...then he would take names and kick ass.

Amazingly he fought the war at an age when most men of that era were dead....he was in his 40s and spent nearly 5 years on horseback and camp and fought an incredible amount of battles for sometimes months on end fight after fight. He would move his whole troop without sleep over 100 miles day or night with no sleep on horseback. He was a master at vine rope bridges improvised to cross all those rivers and sloughs up near Oxford where we schooled once....the Sunflower, Coldwater etc....with cannon and supply trains...the Federals who wonder how in the hell he got back across the rivers behind him when he would advance deep into their territory and strike and then return back to his lairs in north Mississippi

It killed him the end, it’s a wonder he lasted 12 years after the war, he was simply used up.

He is one of the most incredible military commanders ever produced in this nation and even in Western civilization for horse soldiers.....he fought both as cavalry and dragoon.

A remarkable man.

[dixiechick2000]

He was a remarkable man.

Wish we had more like him today.

Rather, I wish the political climate would allow men such as he to be in charge.

[Stonewall Jackson]

It has even been speculated that some aspects of the German Blitzkrieg were patterned after some of Forrest's operations.

I inherited a picture from my grandfather of then-Colonel Irwin Rommel when he was visiting the United States in 1937/38 to study the cavalry tactics of the Civil War. From what my grandfather could remember, Rommel concentrated on Forrest, Morgan, Wheeler, and Stewart.

At the time, my grandfather was a sergeant in the Mississippi National Guard (he later accepted a commission in the regular Army) and his horse-drawn artillery was conducting maneuvers with some other horse units in Western Tennessee and Rommel and several other German officers were observers during these maneuvers.

Years later, in the early 1950's, my grandfather commanded an ACR battalion on the East-West German border and became good friends with a German officer who had been Rommel's aide during that study tour and he gave my grandfather the picture to remember the event.

[stainlessbanner]

IIRC, Forrest became the man of the family at 15 or 16 years old (and he also had a twin sister). He learned business and the ways of the horseman from his uncle.

Forrest was the only General to capture a naval force with cavalry. He was an amazing commander with little or no knowledge of Napoleon's tactics nor formal West Point training. I would have paid money to see 6'2 NBF giving 5'5 Wheeler the business - would hate to be on receiving end of that one.

[norton]

Isn’t that Stewart?

[lentulusgracchus]

And the man who should have been second in command of Confederate forces after Lee.

Third in command, after Longstreet and Lee. Longstreet should have been Lee's boss and Davis's commander-in-chief and right-hand man in Richmond, because:

• Lee had a theater focus. He thought strategically, but at the campaign level.
• Lee was a better field commander than Longstreet, who had liabilities and tended to plod
• Longstreet had a wider picture of the war and, at Davis's elbow and with seniority, would have been in position to help the Western commanders more to resist the strategic, and fatal, "Anaconda Plan"
• Longstreet, with recent quartermastering experience out West, would have been, in Richmond, in a key position to prevent the atrocious hoarding of the commissary that starved field armies and Union prisoners alike, and he'd have had the expertise to husband, deploy, and extend the Confederacy's precious resources of war materiel and supplies

[lentulusgracchus]

That is a very interesting family memo. I think I'll pass it along to my cousin. Have you ever written a letter about it (and included maybe a copy of the photo as documentation) to any Army historical outfits? That's a fact, or detail maybe, worth preserving.

You say the photo was actually taken during the visit to the U.S.?

my grandfather commanded an ACR battalion

ACR = ?

[Mr. Lucky]

It would be helpful were you to give a citation to these accounts.

[afnamvet]

Thank you for the ping kind sir. General Forrest was the consummate cavalryman.

[Stonewall Jackson]

Yes, the photo was taken at a National Guard training facility somewhere in Western Tennessee.

ACR stands for Armored Cavalry Regiment. He commanded the 2nd Battalion of the 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment.

[stand watie]

as i said, check out the memoirs of the UNION officers & you'll see that you have been LIED TO & "played for a FOOL" by the REVISIONIST left.

i repeat: the so-called "massacre" NEVER happened. period. end of story.

PITY that evidently you're too dumb to know that.

free dixie,sw

[gandalftb]

To: stand watie
Forrest either ordered his men to accept no surrender or his Confederates lost control but in either case, they began to slaughter black soldiers. The casualty list confirms a massacre. Confederates suffered 14 killed and 86 wounded, while the Union force lost 231 killed and 100 wounded; only 58 of the 226 surviving Union prisoners were black soldiers.

The U.S. Congress’s Committee on the Conduct of the War investigated, and after much testimony from survivors—including horrifying accounts of black soldiers being buried alive—it denounced the Confederate actions as murder and atrocity. Forrest’s most complimentary biographer, Brian Steel Wills, concluded that the committee’s findings were valid and that Forrest was responsible for the slaughter.

Check it out:
Brian Steel Wills, A Battle from the Start: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest, 1992

See also:
Albert Castel, The Fort Pillow Massacre: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence, Civil War History, 1958

I accept that Forrest was a capable officer and certainly his bravery is unquestioned. The fly in the buttermilk is that Forrest fought in the west, the Confederacy surrendered in the east.

65 posted on 07/21/2007 10:16:56 PM PDT by gandalftb (Blessed be the Lord that teaches my hands for the war, and my fingers to fight. (Sniper Jackson))
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[rustbucket]

Elias Fall's a negro soldier testified at the Congressional Committee that General Forrest expressly gave orders to stop shooting, and that, "after peace was made," an office told a "Secesh soldier," if he did that again (shoot), he would arrest him.

Here is what the Memphis Argus (Memphis was in Federal hands at the time) said of the Fort Pillow battle as reported in the New Orleans Daily Picayune (New Orleans was also under Federal rule):

Capt. Young, Provost Marshall, was taken prisoner, slightly wounded, and paroled the liberty of their camps, and allowed to see his wife. He says that our troops [the Federals] behaved gallantly throughout the whole action, that our loss [Federals again] in killed will exceed 200; he also stated that Gen. Forrest shot one of his own men for refusing quarters to our men.

IIRC, there are a couple of documented occasions where Forrest personally shot one of his own soldiers in the heat of battle for not following his orders. You didn't want to encounter his temper.

Forrest also would threaten the enemy with annihilation if they didn't surrender. Here is what Union correspondence said Forrest sent them at the Battle of Murfreesborough:

MURFREESBOROUGH, July 13, 1862.

COLONEL: I must demand an unconditional surrender of your force as prisoners of war or I will have every man put to the sword. You are aware of the overpowering force I have at my command, and this demand is made to prevent the effusion of blood.

I am, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

N. B. FORREST,
Brigadier-General of Cavalry, C. S. Army.

The threat often worked. Forrest was known to treat prisoners fairly.

Forrest had a strong advantage at Fort Pillow which he pointed out to the Feds. He sent them a surrender offer twice. The Union soldiers in Fort Pillow were holding out for reinforcements from visible Federal boats on the Mississippi and didn't accept Forrest's offers. Forrest sent part of his force down to the river to successfully block the Union reinforcements.