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Show TheNan WhpNightHave Saved the"Lost Cause " V ;;: ' - K - U f - . rl L Dismounted Confederate Cavalry ' ' 1 A " y L 4 Forrest snd His'Crittzr Company KB. Forrest Before, the Wdr Gen. Sraxton Zr&qq Ilcturaa frtjm "Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company." Coortmy Minton, Balch & Company. By ELMO SCOTT WATSON . F'" "" O MOST Americans the name of iw Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, I I Confederate cavalry leader, means J the synonym for the author of a famous epigram on how to win rt1""1 ft battles. His method was to "git I NytrVy tnar us' witn the mostest men." p-rST But what they do not realize is R li na' Forrest was more than just Chin Miir') the maker of a historic phrase, a , picturesque character personally and an unusually successful cavalry leader. If the estimation of a tecent biographer is correct, Forrest takes lis place among the greatest of all American Amer-ican military leaders, a master strategist as well as a master tactician and the man who, had It not been for the jealousy of a superior (officer, might easily have saved the "Lost Cause." The biographer is Andrew Nelson Lytle and his iVlewpolnt is presented in the book, "Bedford Forrest Rnd His Critter Company," published recently by Minton, Balch and company. Mr. Lytle has ample justification for his estimate esti-mate of Forrest. Gen. Robert E. Lee had a great cavalry leader with his forces the dashing dash-ing "Jeb" Stuart. But at Appomattox, when Bomebody asked Lee who was the greatest soldier sol-dier in his command, he answered instantly, "A man I have never seen, sir. His name Is Forrest" A similar tribute was paid to Forrest by Jefferson Davis twelve years later. The former president of the Confederacy and Got- fcrnor Porter of Tennessee were riding in the funeral procession which was carrying "Old Bedford" to his grave. Turning to Davis, Porter Por-ter said, "History has accorded to General Forrest For-rest the first place as a cavalry leader in the War between the states and has named him as fcne of the half dozen great soldiers of the country." To which Davis, 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 reports re-ports of his campaign across the Tennessee river In 18G4. This induced a study of his earlier reports, and after that I was prepared to adopt what you are pleased to name as the Indsrment of hlstorv." battle, especially if the lives were those of "his boys." He was the ideal cavalryman in his judgment of horseflesh and of how to take care of the mounts in his command. Nathan Bedford Forrest was born in Bedford county, Tennessee, in 1821. Little is known of his life as a boy but what is known is mainly a record of conflict, of fights with wild animals, with bullies of the neighborhood and other evidences evi-dences to prove that Nathan Bedford was a born fighter. In his early manhood he started to Texas to help fight for Texan independence but arrived there only to find that there was no need for his services. Penniless, young Forrest split enough rails at fifty cents a hundred to pay his way back to Tennessee. Then he became be-came a horse trader and later, moving to Memphis, Mem-phis, became a broker In real estate and finally a slave trader, in all of which occupations he prospered. He next became an alderman in Memphis after he had distinguished himself by daring, as a private citizen, to save the lives of two murderers mur-derers when a mob threatened to storm the jail and when no one else dared to face the would-be would-be lynchers. Forrest planted himself in front of the jail holding a six-shooter and calling out to the mob in a clear firm voice, "If you come by ones, or by tens, or by hundreds, I'll kill any man who tries to get in this jail." The result of this firm statement was that the mob of three thousand quickly melted away. They knew that Forrest meant exactly what he said. After serving one year as an alderman Forrest For-rest resigned in 1859 and became a cotton planter. plant-er. He was thus engaged when the Civil war broke out and in June, 1861, instead of using his influence to get a commission he enlisted as a private In White's Tennessee Mounted Rifles. But his friends did what he would not do for himself. They decided that the ranks were no place for Forrest So they prevailed upon the Confederate authorities to give him a commission commis-sion as lieutenant colonel and the authority to raise a battalion of mounted rangers. Going np 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 companies, com-panies, 650 strong. Then began his amazing career as a cavalryman par excellence, as a natural military genius whose exploits far out-Bhown out-Bhown those of many trained soldiers and as a. thorn in the side of one Union general after scale in favor of the Confederacy. But President Presi-dent Davis and his cabinet, their attention concentrated con-centrated upon the Eastern theater of war and upon holding Richmond, which was strategically relatively unimportant, failed to see until it was too late that if they lost the West they lost the war. And Forrest, even though he won victory after victory, was forced to see his efforts repeatedly re-peatedly nullified by the inefficient Gen. Braxton Brax-ton Bragg, to whose weaknessess Davis seems to have been strangely blind even though they were soon enough recognized by other Confederate generals and by the people of the South. The story of Forrest's campaigns would take a volume for the telling. He served brilliantly at Fort Donelson and led his own forces safely through the encircling Union lines to Nashville. He could have done as much for Buckner's entire army had that general listened to him. But Buckner didn't listen and the result was what Lytle calls "a tragedy of errors" the loss not only of the fort but of Buckner's entire army. Forrest captured a large Union force at Mur-freesboro Mur-freesboro and made it possible for Bragg to take the initiative away from Buell in the Kentucky campaign. He served gallantly at Shiloh, at Hog mountain, moun-tain, and at Chickamauga and in innumerable other actions where he was unhampered by the orders of his "superiors" he proved repeatedly that here was one Confederate leader who knew how to win battles. But always there was the hand of Braxton Bragg to minimize or nullify his success. Finally one day he stamped into Bragg's tent and declared, "Yon may as well not issue any more orders to me, for I will not obey them. And Ivwill hold you personally responsible respon-sible for any further indignities you try to inflict upon me. You have threatened to arrest me for not obeying your orders promptly. I dare you to do It, and I say to you that If you ever again try to interfere with me or cross my path, it will be at the peril of your life. And Bragg did not take the dare. The closing days of the war found Forrest a lieutenant general (a recognition which had come too late) and placed in charge of all the cavalry in the West the last organized Confederate Con-federate forces In that section. But by this time his efforts were futile so far as the outcome out-come of the war was concerned. Lee surrendered surren-dered to Grant and Johnston to Sherman and there was no further need for Forrest to lead his "critter company" on those swift dashes which had made him the nightmare of more than one commander in blue. His men begged him to lead them to Mexico to avoid surrendering. surrender-ing. But he knew the game was ud and snr. 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 rnlstake of underestimating his ability and Sherman 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 Saddle," as the adoring Southerners called him, went through four years of spectacular leadership in war without a iflefeat, a record almost unparelleled In history. As for "critter company" it is the Tennes-eeean's Tennes-eeean's name for Forrest's cavalry. Early In the war, while Union troops were occupying .Tennessee Forrest "became overnight their particular par-ticular ideal of what a soldier could be. They could not understand strategic gains but they could 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 tyrannical tyran-nical Union officers with 'Forrest will get you for this' and 'I'll tell or Forrest on you.' They Boon 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 Jack-Bon's Jack-Bon's "foot cavalry" did to that leader. They also called him "Old Bedford" in the same Bense 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 another. Forrest knew 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 1 By turn around ! Git !" would shock an army-trained army-trained drillmaster 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 Point-trained Point-trained officers who fought according to rule of the thumb. On one occasion, after a battle which bad 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 nsked Forrest if he had any ideas. "Yes sir," said the cavalry leader. "I've always got ideas, and I'll tell you one thing, General Lee. If I 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 government 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 rendered to General Canby. After the war Forrest went to Mississippi to become a planter again taking as his partner a Federal officer! Later he sold his plantation and moved to Memphis. He was a delegate to the first post-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 days of the Reconstruction Recon-struction period came upon the South and the Ku Klux Kian was organized to save it from the Scalawag-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 approved ap-proved of the idea, saying that his approval must be "invisible." So the Ku Klux Klan became be-came the "Invisible Empire" and when the name for a commander was brought up some one suggested "Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Wizard of the Saddle." So he became "the Grand Wizard of the Invisible Empire." Ey 1S70 the work of the Ku Klux Klan had saved the South and Forrest disbanded it. There were only a few more years of life left for him. ne died in Memphis October 29, 1S77, and was buried in Elmwood cemetery. Later his body was removed to a park set aside to his memory in Memphis and an equestrian statue raised over it. So Bedford Forrest still 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." ((c) by Western Newspaper Union.) |