Show e imp W saved the lost oxy cause 0 7 tibe V AN k A confederate cardory gen jv borrest rest CS A A V A I 1 ia 44 N 1 10 4 fa tte comper jya loraw theodr cen from form forrest and nd ills hi critter Corr pany Court ety minton balch comper by ELMO SCOTT WATSO 0 MOST americans alie name of gen nathan bedford lor I 1 orrest rest confederate cavalry leader means WL the for the author a famous cepl epigram rami on how to vun battles ills method was to git j fust with the montest men but they do not realize Is that borrest was more than just the maler of a a picturesque character personally and an unusually successful cavalry malty leader it if the estimation of a recent biographer Is correct borrest tales lils his alace among the greatest of all american amerlean military leaders a master strategist pa M well as a master tactician and the man who hid bid it not been for tle jealousy lea lousy of a superior of officer fleer might easily hare have saved the lost cause the biographer Is andrew nelson I 1 and his viewpoint Is presen hi in the book bedford I 1 orrest and ills critter company published recently by minton balch and company mr bir lytle lille has ample justification for his esti estl mate of forrest gen robert I 1 E lee had a great cavalry leader with his forces the dash lag ing jeb stuart but at appomattox Appo mattor when somebody asked lee who was the greatest soldier dier in his command he answered instantly A man I 1 have never seen sir ills name Is rest resL A similar tribute was paid to forrest by jefferson davia davis twelve years later the former president of the confederacy and governor porter of tennessee were riding in the funeral procession which was carrying old bedford to ills grave turning to davis for por ter said 1111 history story lias has accorded to general forrest the first place as Rs a cavelry leader in the war between the states and has named him as one of the halt half dozen great of the country to which davis graduate of west point and a professional soldier before he wa 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 end and rider I 1 was misled by them and I 1 never neier knew how to measure him until I 1 read his re rt m ts of 0 Us 13 across cro s tho T anc 0 o river in ISM this induced a study of his ills earlier reports and after that I 1 wag was prepared to adopt what you are pleased to name as the judgment of history but to realize to the full the greatel ss of I 1 orrest one should turn to the words not of his friends but of his enemies gen william Wili jain tecumseh sherman who campaigned ag against ainest film in the western campaigns never made the mistake of underestimating his ability and slier sher nan man once exclaimed I 1 I 1 am going to got forrest if it costs lives and breaks the there thera will never be peace in tennessee until I 1 borrest orrest Is dead I 1 I 1 but he never did get him bad the wizard of tho the saddle as the adoring southerners called bin him went through four years of spectacular leadership in war without a defeat defeats a record almost unparalleled in history As for critter company 1 it Is the tennes sedans name for cavalry early in the war while union troops were occupying tennessee forrest 41 became overnight their par nicular ideal of what a soldier could be they could not understand strategic gains but they could understand bis his particular kind of fighting it was ai plain and as heartening as sow belly and corn bread tho now felt that they had a defender they began to threaten tyran union off officers leers with forrest will get you for this and til ill tell or forrest on you they eoon soon learned that he was a bogey man they all believed in the same adoration given him by the people vias iven by the men who followed him they referred to him as the old nan man just as jack ions foot toot cavalry did to that leader they also called him old bedford in the same sense that jacksons men referred to old jack la in return be looked after them as a father looks after his children nothing made forrest more furious than u useless waste of livis in a A lb battle especially it if the lives were viero those of alj a bos lie ile was the ideal caal in his judgment of horseflesh and of how to take care of the mounts in his ills command nathan bedford forrest was vias born in bedford county tennessee in 1821 little la Is known of his ills life as a boy but what bat Is known Is mainly a record of conflict of fights with wild animals with bullies of the I 1 and other evi eyl berces to prove that athan nathan bedford was a born fighter in his early mahbod he started to texas to help fight for texan independence but arrived there only to find that there was ro need for his services penniless young forrest split elou enough gh rails at fifty cents a hundred to pay his way back to tennessee then he became a horse trader and later in moving to mem aphis became a broker in real estate and nally a slave trader in all of which occupations he prospered lie ile next became an alderman in memphis after he had distan distinguished himself by daring darlng as a private citizen to save the alies of two mur deters when a mob threatened to storm the jail and when no one else dared to face flee the would be lyn chers 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 tense or by hundreds kill any man who tries to get in this jall the result of this firm statement was vas that tie tle mob of three thousand quickly melted away they knew that forrest meant exactly what he said after serving one year as an alderman for rest resigned in 1859 and became a cotton plant er he was thus engaged when the lie civil war broke out and in june 1861 instead of using his influence to get a commission to enlisted as a private in whites tennessee mounted rifles but his friends did what he would not do tor for himself they decided that the ranks rauls were no plate for forrest so they prevailed upon the confederate authorities to give him a commis slon as lieutenant colonel and the authority to raise a battalion of mounted rangers going ip lp into kentucky both because he could secure excellent borscs there and because every man which he brought out u or thet state which was neutral but was a ground for both governments mojid weaken the armies just that much he rc re to memphis rome eight weeks later havin having raised eight corn com sl strung T ri lefeau uld als awl career as a caal cavalryman ryman par excellence is a natural military genius whose eipl exploits far out shown those of many trained soldiers and as a thorn in the side of one union general after another forrest knew nothing about military tactics and cared less in that regard he was na 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 gitle would shock an army drillmaster speechless but when such commands were given to men they knew what was wanted and they obeyed fogrest had a fine contempt for west point trained officers wim wha 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 opp posed gen stephen D lee called a council of war lee asked borrest if he had any tiny ideas I 1 yes sir said the cavalry leader 1 I lie i e always got ideas and III tell you one thin thing general lee it if I 1 knew as much about west point tactics as you th the yankees would whip lell out of me every day As for the thesis that forrest might t have bat e saved saied the confederacy from defeat it Is based upon the fact that as lytle san salk I 1 the tile gol govern ern ment which first realized that the tile war would be decided ultimately on western battlefields would hare have a decided advantage and the premise that if forrest genius had been recognized soon enough by the confederate government if le had bad been given a sufficient clent force and had not been thwarted by a jealous sa superior perlor he might have held ilu the weal iud hud turned ile the cicale in favor of the confederacy but president bails davis and his ills cabinet their attention concentrated cent rated ratel upon the eastern theater of war and upon holding richmond aich was strategically relatively unimportant failed to see until it WIL was too late that if they lost the west they lost th the war and forrest Forr even though he won victory after ilc bictory Ic tory was forced to see his ills efforts rl repeatedly pea heatedly peat edly nullified by the inefficient gen brarton braxton ion bra bragg g to whose davis seems to have anve been strangely blind even though they were soon enough recognized by other confederate generals and by the people of we south the story of campaigns would take a volume for the telling lie ile served brilliantly at fort donelson and led his own forces safely through the encircling union lines to nashville he ile could have done doie as much for buckner a entire army had that general listened to him but buckmir listen and the result was what lytle calls a tragedy of errors the loss not only of the fort but of buckners entire army forrest captured a large union force at mur mar free and made it possible for bragg to take the initiative away from buell in the kentucky campaign he ile served gall gallantly Artly at shiloh at ilog mountain tain and at chickamauga and in innumerable other actions where he w ws is uL unhampered hampered 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 ills his success finally one day he stamped into braggs tent and declared you may as well not issue any more orders to me for I 1 will not obey them and I 1 will hold you personally responsible for any further indignities you try to inflict upon me you have threatened to arrest me for not obeying your orders promptly I 1 dare you to do it and I 1 sty to you that it if lou ever eier again try to interfere with me or cross crom my path it will be at the pel 11 of your life and bragg did not take the dare the closing days of the wai wat 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 fe forets in that section but by this time his efforts were futile so far as the outcome of the war ar vas concerned lee surrendered to grant and johnston to sherman and there was wag no further r far fo fost font n t to lead his critter company on thoe swift dashes which had made him the nightmare Light mare of more than one commander in blue ills men begged him to lead them to mexico to avoid arold surrendering brit he knew the game was up and surrendered to general canby after the war forrest went to mississippi to a planter apin taking as his partner a federal otcel 2 I 1 inter later be he sold his plantation and moved to memphis lie ile was a delegate to the first post postwar war democratic convention and when he went to new lork he attracted so much atte attention nUon that he could not move about the streets without drawing a crowd such was the fame of the of the saddle I 1 in the north when the dark days of the reconstruction st period came upon the south and the ku klux klan was organized to save it from the scalawag carpetbagger regime forrest was offered the command of the new movement move and accepted it it had previously been offered to robert il lee but althou e refused be he approved of th tha idea saying that Ms approval must be invisible so the ku klux klan became the invisible empire and wid when the name for a commander was brought up some one suggested I 1 gen nathan bedford forrest the wizard of the saddle so he became the grand wizard of the invisible 11 by 1870 the work of the ku klux klan bad had saved the south and forrest disbanded it IL there were only a few more years of life left for him lie ile died in october 2 29 19 1877 and was burled buried in elmwood cemetery later bis his body was removed to a i ark 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 la 13 spiritual form in the hearts of the people of tennessee who still tell their tales of old bedford the wizard of the saddle C r bf by weetsy newspaper paper union |