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Forrest.CS
Pletwres from “Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company.”
Courtesy Minton, Balch & Company.
By ELMO SCOTT WATSON
0 MOST Americans the name of
Gen. Nathan Bedford
Confederate cavalry leader,
Forrest,
means
the synonym for the author of a
famous epigram on win
battles, His method was to “git
thar fust with the mostest -
But what they do not realize is
that Forrest more than just
the maker of a historic phrase a
icturesque character personally
how to
men.
was
and an successful
cavalry leader If he
recent biographer Is
his place among the
fcan military leaders, =a
as well as a master tactician and the man who,
had it not been for the jealousy of a superior
officer, might easil
The biographer
viewpoint is presented in the
Forrest and His Critter published
recently by Minton, Balch and company
Mr. Lytle has ample
mate of Forrest Ger
great cavalry dash-
ing “Jeb” Stuart. But at when
somebody asked Lee who was the greatest sol-
dier In his command, he
“A man I have never seen, sir. His name is
Forrest.” A similar tribute was paid to Forrest
by Jefferson Davis later. The
former president of, the Confederacy and Gov-
ernor Porter of were riding in the
funeral was carrying “Olid
ledford” to his grave. Turning to Davis Por-
ter said, “History has accorded to General For-
rest the first place as a cavalry leader in the
war between the states and has named him as
one of the half dozen soldiers of the
country.” To which graduate of West
Point and a professional soldier before he was
called to head a new American republic, replied,
“The trouble was that the generals commanding
in the southwest never appreciated Forrest until
it was too late. Their judgment was that he
was a bold and enterprising partisan raider
and rider, I was misled by them, and I never
knew how to measure him until I read his re.
ports of his campaign across the
river In 1864. This induced a study of his
earlier reports, and after that I was prepared
to adopt what you are pleased to name as the
Judgment of history.”
But to realize to the full the greatness of
Forrest one should turn to the words, not of his
friends, but of his enemies. Gen William
Tecumseh Sherman who campaigned against
him in the Western campaigns never made the
mistake of underestimating Lis ability and Sher.
man once exclaimed, “I am going to get Forrest
if it costs 10,000 lives and breaks the treasury!
There will never be peace in Tennessee until
Forrest Is dead!” But he never did get him,
and the “Wizard of the Saddie,” as the adoring
Southerners called him, went through four years
of spectacular leadership In war without a
defeat, a record almost unparelieled in history.
As for “critter company” it is the Tennes-
seean's name for Forrest's eavalry., Early in
the war, while Union troops were occupying
Tennessee Forrest “became overnight their par.
ticular ideal of what a soldier could be, They
could not understand strategic gains but they
ecou¥! understand his particular kind of fighting,
It was as plain and as heartening as sow-belly
and corn bread, The women now felt that they
had a defender. They began to threaten tyran«
nical Unlon officers with ‘Forrest will get you
for this’ and *I'll tell or Forrest on you! They
goon learned that he was a bogey man they all
believed In”
The same adoration given him by the people
was given by the men who followed him, They
referred to him as “the old man” just as Jacke
son's “foot cavalry” did to that leader, They
slso ealled him “Old Bedford” in the same
sense that Jackson's men referred to “Old Jack”
In return he looked after them as a father
looks after his children, Nothing made Forrest
more furious than a useless waste of lives in a
unusually
estimation of a
Forrest takes
greatest of all Amer
strategist
correct,
master
ved the “Lost Cause ™
Nelson Lytle and his
“Bedford
Andrew
Company,”
fication for his estl-
Appomattox,
iswered instantly,
twelve years
Tennessee
procession which
great
Davis,
Tennessen
z
2
a
PE
battle, especially If the lis
boys," He
Judgment of horseflesh and of
C8 were
wis the ideal cavalry
of the mounts in his command,
Nathan Bedford Forrest wa
county, Tennessee, in 1821 Litt}
his life as a boy but what
af record of conflict,
is known
of fizhizs w
with bullies of the neighborhood
dences to prove th Nathan
born fighter. In his
to Texas to help fig independend
but arrived there only to there was no
nes} for his services Pen . young Forrest
split fifty
Tennessee
enough rails cents a hundred to
Then he be
Meme
became a broker In real estate and finally
pay his way back
a horse trader and later, moving to
slave
pros
He next became an
after he
trader. in all of which occupations he
tinguished 1}
a private citizen, to save the
derers when a mob thr
and when no one else
be Isynchers, Forrest
Iding a six
to the mob in & clear
or by tens, or by hundreds, I'll kill any
h The result of
was that the n
They
said
by ones
man who
this firm
thousand quickly melted aways
Forrest meant exactly what he
tries to get in this ail’
statement
alderman
rest resigned in 15580 and became a cotton pls
er. He was thus engaged when the Civil war
broke out and in June, 1861
influence to get a commission he enlisted as a
private in White's Mounted Rifles
jut his friends did what he would not do for
himself, They decided that the ranks were no
place for Forrest. So they prevalled upon the
Confederate authorities to give him a commis.
gion as lieutenant colonel and the authority to
raise a battalion of mounted rangers. Going
up into Kentucky (both because he could secure
excellent horses there and because every man
which he brought out of that state, which was
neutral but was a recruiting ground for both
governments, would weaken the enemy's armies
Just that much) he returned to Memphis some
eight weeks later, having raised eight ecom-
panies, 650 strong. Then began his amazing
career as a cavalryman par excellence, as a
natural military genine whose exploits far out.
shown those of many trained soldiers and as a
thorn in the side of one Union general after
another,
Forrest knew
After serving one year as an
instead of using his
Tennessee
nothing about military tactics
and cared less, In that regard he was an ideal
leader for the independent-spirited men under
his command, Drills and guard mounts were
obnoxious to them but their officers managed to
get results from them even without the formality
of giving commands in the prescribed manner,
Such expression as “Men, tangle into fours!
iy turn around! Git!” would shock an army-
trained drilimaster speechless, but when such
commands were given to Forrest's men they
knew what was wanted and they obeyed,
Forrest had a fine contempt for West
trained officers who
Point.
fought according to rule
of the thumb. On one occasion, after a battle
which had been disastrous to the Southern
forces and which had been fought according to a
plan to which Forrest had been oppposed, Gen,
Stephen D. Lee called a council of war. Lee
asked Forrest if he had any Ideas. “Yes sir"
said the cavalry leader, “i've always got ideas,
and Tl tell you one thing, General Lee. If 1
knew as much about West Point tactics as you,
the Yankees would whip hell out of me every
day."
As for the thesis that Forrest might have
saved the Confederacy from defeat, it Is based
upon the fact that, as Lytle says, “the govern.
ment which first realized that the war would be
decided ultimately on western battlefields would
have a decided advantage,” and the premise that
if Forrest's genius had been recognized soon
enough by the Confederate government, if he
had been given a sufficient force and had not
been thwarted by a jealous superior he might
have held the West indefinitely and turned the
£
Gen. Braxton Bragg
ren
ton Bra
have
850
generals and
The story
a volume for the
at Fort Donelson
through the
He could has
my had
HOC ORs
"ss tent and
1 any more orders to no
And T will
sible for any
inflict upon foe You ha
me for not
dare you to do it, and 1
them,
further
obeying your
you ever again try to interf
my path, it will be at the peril
And Bragg did not take the dare
The closing days of the war found Forrest
A recognition which had
and placed in charge of all the
cavalry in the West—<the In®t organized Con
federate forces In that section But by this
time his efforts were futile so far a= the out
come of the war was concerned
dered to Grant and Johnston to Sherman and
there was no further need for Forrest to lead
his “critter company™ on swift
which had him the nightmare of
than one commander in blue.
Heutenant general
come too late)
Loe surrer
those tlaghes
more
His men begged
him to lead them to Mexico to avold surrender
made
ing But he knew the game was up and sur
rendered to General Canby,
After Phe war Forrest went to M saiskippl to
become a planter again—taking as his partner a
Federal officer! Later he sold his
and moved to Memphis. He was a delegate to
the first posi-war Democratic convention and
when he went to New York he “attracted so
much attention that he could not move about
the streets without drawing a crowd™-—such
was the fame of “the Wizard of the Saddle” in
the North. When the dark dass of the tecon
struction period came upon the South and the
Ku Klux Kian was organized to save it from
the Realawag-Carpetbagger regime, Forrest was
offered the command of the new movement and
accepted it, It had previously been offered to
Robert E. Lee but although he refused, he ap-
proved of the idea, saying that his approval
must be “invisible,” So the Ku Klux Klan be
came the “Invisible Empire” and when the name
for a commander was bronght up
suggested “Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the
Wizard of the Saddle™ So he became “the
Grand Wizard of the Invisible Empire.”
By 1870 the work of the Ku Klux Kian had
plantation
some one
were only a few more years of life left for him.
He died In Memphis October 20, 1877," and was
buried In Elmwood cemetery, Later his body
was removed to a park set aside to his memory
in Memphis and an equestrian statoe raised
over it, So Bedford Forrest sti: rides In the
South-in material form in this statue and In
spiritual form in the hearts of the people of
Tennessee who still tell their tales of "Old
Bedford, the Wizard of the Saddle”
(@® by Western Newspaper Union.)
Infatuation of Moment
windows are usually
frosted glass
David, peeking at Bath-8helba, had
trouble enough with Nathan, but his
difficulties were largels
nature and he bore up under them
splendidly, Roderick, king of the
Vigigoths, wig no
his curiosity wreeked a kingdom,
provided
Roderick
in the
where his
spied ny y pretty
pool of
took the air,
prerog
fhe
“Warm” Corpse Too Much
for Nerves of Ghouls
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NEW YORK and
The ROTEL
(GVERNOR
(LINTON
SI” §T.= 77™ AVE.
oppe site PENNA. RR.STATION
1200 Rooms
each with
Bath, Servidor
end Circulat-
ing lce Waoter
with
aiden, Mews
Immortal “Will's” Father
Feared Process Servers
drarobnti
Prosecution of
on Sundas
day Observance act of
law of England
church observance
1657. Bat thy
about compulsory
bundred years earlier, when Shake
speare’s father was reported to the
Stratford authorities “for not com
minge monethlie to Church accord
inge to hir Majesties lawes™
this
It
his
§
{
3
i
from the parish
'
record, there is
note appended to his name and
mes of eight other offenders
i= gayde that these laste nine
Church for feare of
ess for debtte
aw
was on September 2
record was made-—-just a year
described by Shakespeare
i
invention." London Morning