| by artist Lisa Pardon |
| Nathan Bedford Forrest was born in Chapel Hill, TN, July 13, 1821. When he was thirteen years old, his family moved to Tippah County, MS. Three years later his father, a blacksmith, died thus leaving young Bedford Forrest with the responsibility of caring for his widowed mother and nine younger children. Forrest turned to real estate, livestock and cotton planting to secure an income for his family. Forrest was, without a doubt, a self-made man. He received no more than three months of formal schooling in his lifetime. He rose from extremely humble beginnings to being worth more than a million dollars at the outbreak of the War Between the States. During the War, he rose from the rank of private to that of Lieutenant General in less than four years. He was truly a remarkable and one of the Confederacy’s greatest leaders. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s military career began one month before he was 40 years old. On June 14, 1861, the six foot, two inches tall, powerfully built man stepped into a Memphis recruiting office and took his oath to the Confederate States of America. He accepted the rank of a private. |
| Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-1877) |
| Written by Joyce Wilkinson |
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| He joined Captain Whit’s Company with is younger brother, Jeffery, and his 15 year old son, William. He was appointed by Tennessee Governor Isham G. Harris to command a battalion of mounted rangers. He opened his recruiting office in the Gayoso Hotel in Memphis and called for 500 men for “mounted ranger service” with shotguns and pistols preferable.” He then crossed into neutral KY to raise both troops and equipment. He bought with his own funds five hundred pistols and on hundred sets of horse equipment. Forrest’s combat skills became noticeable to Generals Bragg, Hardee, and Johnston during the Battle of Shiloh. Here, Forrest ingeniously used his cavalry as infantry, forcing Grant’s Federals to retreat. His main battle strategy included a combination of marching, counter-marching, forward diversions, and his unique dismounted cavalry. He used this combined technique to achieve many victories throughout KY and TN. His greatest victory, came at the Battle of Brice’s Cross Roads on June 10, 1864. |
| Forrest’s men fought together for another year, but the Confederacy by this point was doomed. The end came for Forrest’s calvary on May 9, 1865; a month after Appomattox, on which he gave his farewell address to this brave soldiers. |
| General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s final years were spent struggling with debt and battling chronic dysentery which he contacted as a result of the War. He died on the evening of October 29, 1877, at the age of fifty-six years old. He was buried in Elmwood Cemetery but was later exhumed and reburied with his wife, Mary Montgomery, beneath his statue in Forrest Park, in Memphis, TN. |
| BIBLIOGRAPHY Fitzgerald, William S. “Clash of Genius: Forrest vs Wilson. Confederate Veteran Jan-Feb, 1992, pp. 23-32. Eades. Bryan R. “Nathan Bedford Forrest,” UDC Magazine, April 1993, pp. 22, 23, and 33. |
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| Monument inscription, unveiled 1905 "Those hoof beats die not upon fame's crimson sod, But will ring through her song and her story; He fought like a Titan and struck like a god, And his dust is our ashes of glory." (Written by Mrs. Virginia Frazer Boyle) |