Nathan Bedford Forrest

Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821 – October 29, 1877) was a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. He is remembered both as a self-educated, innovative cavalry leader during the war and as a leading southern advocate in the postwar years. He served as the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, a secret vigilante organization which launched a reign of terrorism against African-Americans, Northerners who had moved to the postwar South, Southerners who supported the Union, and Republicans during the Reconstruction era in the Southern United States.

A cavalry and military commander in the war, Forrest is one of the war's most unusual figures. Less educated than many of his fellow officers, Forrest had amassed a fortune prior to the war as a planter, real estate investor, and slave trader. He was one of the few officers in either army to enlist as a private and be promoted to general officer and division commander by the end of the war. Although Forrest lacked formal military education, he had a gift for strategy and tactics. He created and established new doctrines for mobile forces, earning the nickname The Wizard of the Saddle.

He was accused of war crimes at the Battle of Fort Pillow for allowing forces under his command to conduct a massacre upon hundreds of black Union Army and white Southern Unionist prisoners. In their postwar writings, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee both expressed their belief that the Confederate high command had failed to fully utilize Forrest's talents.

Read more about Nathan Bedford Forrest:  Early Life, Military Career, War Record and Promotions, Posthumous Legacy

Famous quotes containing the words nathan, bedford and/or forrest:

    She’s loose! She’ll tear the roof off!
    Mark Hanna, and Nathan Hertz. Nurse (Eileen Stevens)

    When, said Mr. Phillips, he communicated to a New Bedford audience, the other day, his purpose of writing his life, and telling his name, and the name of his master, and the place he ran from, the murmur ran round the room, and was anxiously whispered by the sons of the Pilgrims, “He had better not!” and it was echoed under the shadow of the Concord monument, “He had better not!”
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Stupid is as stupid does.
    Eric Roth, U.S. screenwriter. Directed by Robert Zemekis. Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks)