Death of Nathan Bedford Forrest's Brother at the Battle of Okolona February 23, 2022 Map of Okolona Battlefield core and study areas by the American Battlefield Protection Program. [14] He and his twin sister, Fanny, were the two eldest of 12 children. "[126] A memorial to him, the first Civil War memorial in Memphis, was erected in 1905 in a new Nathan Bedford Forrest Park. Nathan Bedford Forrest bust at Old Live Oak Cemetery in Selma, Ala. Universal Images Group via Getty By Connor Towne O'Neill July 13, 2020 10:00 AM EDT C onfederate General Nathan Bedford. [248] Brett Joseph Forrest, a direct descendant of Nathan, spoke in support of the bust's removal. Not realizing that the rest of his men had halted their charge when they reached the full U.S. brigade, Forrest charged the brigade alone and soon found himself surrounded. Conflicting accounts of what occurred were given later.[87][88][89]. Their great-grandfather, Shadrach Forrest, moved between 1730 and 1740 from Virginia to North Carolina, where his son and grandson were born; they moved to Tennessee in 1806. In Room 10 of the Maxwell, Forrest was sworn in as a member by John W. The Blue Raiders' athletic mascot was changed to an ambiguous swash-buckler character called the "Blue Raider" to avoid association with Forrest or the Confederacy. Nathan B. Forrest III was born in Memphis, Tenn., in April 1905. August 12, 2021. [18], Forrest had success as a businessman, planter, and enslaver. [141][142] Brian Steel Wills quotes two KKK members who identified Forrest as a Klan leader. Forrest protested that sending such untrained men behind enemy lines was suicidal, but Bragg insisted, and Forrest obeyed his orders. [193][194] The Sons of Confederate Veterans threatened a lawsuit against the city. [204][205] A monument to Forrest at a corner of Veterans Plaza in Rome, Georgia was erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1909 to honor his bravery for defending Rome from U.S. Army Colonel Abel Streight and his cavalry.[206]. There, with the labor of over a hundred prison convicts, he grew corn, potatoes, vegetables, and cotton profitably, but his health steadily declined. In April 1864, in what has been called "one of the bleakest, saddest events of American military history",[5] troops under Forrest's command at the Battle of Fort Pillow massacred hundreds of troops, composed of black soldiers and white Tennessean Southern Unionists fighting for the United States, who had already surrendered. The Klan's activity infiltrated the Democratic Party's campaign for the presidential election of 1868. Nathan Bedford Forrest birth b: 13 Jul 1821 in Bedford then now,TN 2. Newspaper correspondent Sylvanus Cadwallader, who traveled with Grant for three years during his campaigns, wrote that Forrest "was the only Confederate cavalryman of whom Grant stood in much dread". [118] When Hood's battle-hardened Army of Tennessee, consisting of 40,000 men deployed in three infantry corps plus 10,000 to 15,000 cavalry, was all but destroyed on December 1516, at the Battle of Nashville,[119] Forrest distinguished himself by commanding the Confederate rear guard in a series of actions that allowed what was left of the army to escape. [77][78][79], Fort Pillow, located 40 miles (64km) upriver from Memphis (near Henning, Tennessee), was initially constructed by Confederate general Gideon Johnson Pillow on the bluffs of the Mississippi River, and taken over by U.S. forces in 1862 after the Confederates had abandoned the fort. Born into a poor settler family, Nathan had a twin sister, Fanny. Nathan Bedford Forrest In The Civil War Forrest volunteered as a private in the Confederate Army on June 14, 1861, but at the request of Tennessee's governor, Isham G. Harris, he raised and equipped an entire cavalry battalion at his own expense; the former private was made a lieutenant colonel. In all, the maneuver cost Forrest 96 men killed and 396 wounded. McCreanor contracted to finish the Memphis & Little Rock Railroad, including a right-of-way that passed over the ridge. [12][13] Forrest was the first son of Mariam (Beck) and William Forrest. [11], Nathan Bedford Forrest was born on July 13, 1821, to a poor settler family in a secluded frontier cabin near Chapel Hill hamlet, then part of Bedford County, Tennessee, but now encompassed in Marshall County. In the battle of Fallen Timbers, he drove through the U.S. skirmish line. I heard him make a speech in one of our Dens". Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821 October 29, 1877) was a prominent Confederate Army general during the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1867 to 1869. [235], In the 1990 PBS documentary The Civil War by Ken Burns, historian Shelby Foote states in Episode 7 that the Civil War produced two "authentic geniuses": Abraham Lincoln and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Despite having no formal military training, Forrest rose from the rank of private to lieutenant. [43] In October 1861, Forrest was given command of a regiment, the 3rd Tennessee Cavalry. [246] In a nearly unanimous vote on July 7, the Memphis City Council passed a resolution in favor of removing the statue and securing the couple's remains for transfer. [80] Forrest had reached the fort at 10:00 am after a hard ride from Mississippi,[80] and his horse was soon shot out from under him, causing him to fall to the ground. Nathan Bedford Forrest. [23], Forrest was well-known as a Memphis speculator and Mississippi gambler. [50], A few days after the Confederate surrender of Fort Donelson, with the fall of Nashville to U.S. forces imminent, Forrest took command of the city. [191] However, on October 13, 2017, the Tennessee Historical Commission invoked the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act of 2013 and U.S. Public Law 85-425: Sec. On April 21, Capt. Nathan Bedford Forrest. [197] It is now the site of the Arnold Engineering Development Center. [228] According to this analysis, Forrest's troops were carrying out Confederate policy. [94] These statements were contradicted by U.S. Army survivors and by the letter of a Confederate soldier who graphically recounted a massacre. Bragg failed to do so, upon which Forrest was quoted as saying, "What does he fight battles for? CSA 18211877, one of the South's finest heroes. [171][172] Forrest played a prominent role in the spread of the Klan in the Southern United States, meeting with racist whites in Atlanta several times between February and March 1868. Eva, TN 38333. [159], In an 1868 interview by a Cincinnati newspaper, Forrest claimed that the Klan had 40,000 members in Tennessee and 550,000 total members throughout the Southern United States. Although he could not change the course for the confederate loss to the union, he did . [80] The fort was defended by 557 U.S. Army troops, 295 white and 262 black, under U.S. Army Maj. L.F. [112] Concerned about U.S. Army supply lines, Maj. Gen. Sherman sent a force under the command of Maj. Gen. Andrew J. Smith to deal with Forrest. Nathan Bedford Forrest War, Ku Klux Klan, League 168 Copy quote I loved the old government in 1861. As a slave trader how many slaves did Nathan Bedford Forrest sell? His mother, Miriam, then married James Horatio Luxton, of Marshall, Texas, in 1843 and gave birth to four more children.[36]. After his bloody defeat at Franklin, Hood continued to Nashville. Instead, he noted that the state legislature would not likely approve the plate anyway. [81] Forrest's men immediately took over the fort, while U.S. Army soldiers retreated to the lower bluffs of the river, but the USS New Era did not come to their rescue. Blood, human blood stood about in pools and brains could have been gathered up in any quantity. He denied membership, but his role in the KKK was beyond the scope of the investigating committee, which wrote: "Our design is not to connect General Forrest with this order (the reader may form his own conclusion upon this question)". Richard L. Fuchs, author of An Unerring Fire, concluded: The affair at Fort Pillow was simply an orgy of death, a mass lynching to satisfy the basest of conductintentional murderfor the vilest of reasonsracism and personal enmity. [63][64][65], Not all of Forrest's exploits of individual combat involved enemy troops. [233], The site is now a Tennessee State Historic Park. The historical record does not support his repeated denials that he knew a massacre was taking place or that he even knew a massacre had occurred at all. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The infantry, tired, weary, and suffering under the heat, were quickly broken and sent into mass retreat. In 1978, Middle Tennessee State University abandoned imagery it had formerly used (in 1951, the school's yearbook, The Midlander, featured the first appearance of Forrest's likeness as MTSU's official mascot) and MTSU president M. G. Scarlett removed the General's image from the university's official seal. Plan in Mississippi raises hackles", "Proposed Mississippi License Plate Would Honor Early KKK Leader", "Group Wants KKK Founder Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest on License Plate", "Haley Barbour Won't Denounce Proposal Honoring Confederate General, Early KKK Leader", "Bust of Civil War General Stirs Anger in Alabama", "Petition Against Selma's Ku Klux Klan Monument", "Mayor Wharton: Remove Nathan Bedford Forrest statue and body from park", "Nathan Bedford Forrest statue won't be relocated", "Tennessee House Punishes Memphis For Confederate Statue Removal", "Nathan Bedford Forrest's descendant: Move the bust from Tennessee's Capitol Featured letter", "Gov. Nathan Bedford Forrest died in Memphis, Tennessee on October 29, 1877. Bedford Forrest, the great Confederate cavalry officer, died at 7:30 o'clock this evening at the residence of his brother, Col. Jesse Forrest. [132] According to Forrest biographer Jack Hurst, writers present at the public viewing of Forrest's body and the funeral procession noted many black citizens among them. Nathan Bedford Forrest's critics have called him everything from a violent backwoodsman, illiterate redneck, and cruel slaver, to a crooked politician, unfaithful husband, and simple-minded hillbilly. The Civil War scholar Bruce Catton writes: Forrest used his horsemen as a modern general would use motorized infantry. A Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan 'Grand Wizard' has been exhumed and moved from a park where a statue of him once stood in Memphis, Tennessee. [174] Grant lost Georgia and Louisiana, where the violence and intimidation against blacks were most prominent. 1825 Pilot Knob Road. The Confederates tried to storm the fort but were repulsed; they rallied and made two more attempts, both of which failed. Nathan Bedford Forrest. The Tennessee Historical Commission denied removal on October 21, 2016, under the authority granted it by the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act of 2013, which prevents cities and counties from relocating, removing, renaming, or otherwise disturbing without permission war memorials on public property. As of 2007[update], Tennessee had 32 dedicated historical markers linked to Nathan Bedford Forrest, more than are dedicated to all three former Presidents associated with the state combined: Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and Andrew Johnson. Park Office / Visitor Center. Mary Frances . An expert cavalry leader, Forrest was given command of a corps and established new doctrines for mobile forces, earning the nickname "The Wizard of the Saddle". Gene Kizer, Jr. Forrest probably organized a statewide Klan network in Georgia during these visits. [13] Forrest's family lived in a log house (now preserved as the Nathan Bedford Forrest Boyhood Home) from 1830 to 1833. 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