Civil War Figures: Nathan Bedford Forrest

Despite his professional success, Forrest was eager to join the Confederate army: he enlisted as soon as Tennessee seceded from the Union. Forrest rose up the ranks quickly because of his bold fighting tactics. He was named Major General, and ultimately Lieutenant General. At the end of the Civil War, Forrest worked to uphold the power of white Democrats in the South through his affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan. For a full biography and outline of Forrest’s military career, visit The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture.

To read more about famous Civil War battles led by Forrest, including Shiloh, Parkers Crossroads, Fort Pillow, Brice Cross Roads, and Harrisburg, visit American Battlefields, a Web site that provides battle summaries. You can also use the site to find Civil War parks, or to read about the Civil War through a series of online publications.

The KKK was a powerful influence on the country from Reconstruction through the civil rights period of the 20th century. If at first its intentions were innocuous, the Klan soon took to fear tactics to keep blacks disenfranchised despite Reconstruction ideals. It became a terrorist organization that intimidated and sometimes murdered blacks. To learn more about the KKK’s establishment, influence and legacy, visit PBS’s series “The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow.”

Read Forrest’s his opinion of the KKK through an interview published by Dixie Outfitters, a historical organization sympathetic to the Confederacy and its agenda. The site claims to offer primary sources detailing Forrest’s thoughts on “negro suffrage,” among other topics.

For a sense of how a major Northern newspaper perceived the life and times of Nathan Bedford Forrest, read this New York Times obituary of the “wizard of the saddle”: “He was known to his acquaintances as a man of obscure origin and low associations, a shrewd speculator, negro trader, and duelist, but a man of great energy and brute courage.” The obituary discusses his life story, character, conquests in battle, and eventual peacemaking efforts with blacks: “His last notable public appearance was on the Fourth of July in Memphis, when he appeared before the colored people at their celebration, was publicly presented with a bouquet by them as a mark of peace and reconciliation, and made a friendly speech in reply.”

View a series of photographs of Nathan Bedford Forrest on The Generals of the American War, a Web site, which posts photographs and prints of famous Civil War Veterans.