Nathan Bedford Forrest: The Wizard in the Saddle

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In the evolution of military tactics, Nathan Bedford Forrest was a fierce innovator.
Before World War I, future Supreme Allied Commander Frenchman Ferdinand Foch taught what Forrest perfected during America’s Civil War at the French War College.
Lore has it, future German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel came to Tennessee before World War II and studied Forrest's maneuvers. “We believe Rommel visited the United States when he was an unknown in the 1930’s, signing registration books in western Tennessee libraries to study our Nathan’s brilliant winning battles,” so said Edwina Carpenter, Director of the Mississippi Final Stands Museum where I visited last year.
He used his cavalry regiment like no other officer.
What made him different?
Throughout military history, unorthodox commanders who could improvise tactics adding military elements their enemy had never seen before became legends. Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Napoleon and now Nathan Bedford Forrest all changed the way wars were fought.
In the past, cavalry would ride onto a battlefield. Officers assess the situation, draw their sabers and most likely give the order to charge the enemy. Forrest took advantage of his troops in an entirely different way.
The General used his horses to deliver men that became a fighting infantry brigade once on the scene, most of the time led by their equally fast moving artillery units. This mobile fighting force wrecked havoc behind Union lines, delaying Grant’s drive on Vicksburg and Sherman's Atlanta Campaign, each slowed for months due to the amount of supplies lost, along with the sabotage of critical transports and communication links.
“Get there first with the most,” was the simple but brilliant tactic that made Forrest famous. In the Battle of Paducah, his Confederate cavalry of 2,500 men covered 100 miles in 50 hours to the dismay of his enemy, destroying all supplies he couldn’t carry off while baffling his bewildered foe beyond disgust.
The only living thing not impressed by his unparalleled fast pace were the horses, riding many into the ground.
“That devil Forrest needs to be killed, I don’t care if it costs 10,000 lives and bankrupts the Federal Treasury!” so demanded the frustrated Union General William T. Sherman in 1864 because of the plan altering destruction delivered by those “roving rebels!”
Rommel took lessons learned from Forrest and the German World War II Blitzkrieg was born. The Maginot Line and other defenses erected by the French to stop an attacking army were now merely gone around. Early in World War II the German mechanized force faced cavalry in Poland and France… how do you think that went?
European allies were still stuck in World War I theorem where the Germans took warfare to the next mechanized level. Instead of by horse, the Field Marshal moved massive numbers of tanks and trucks with thousands of troops hundreds of miles skirting enemy fortifications. The blitz was on.
Rommel’s tactics in North Africa to save the Italians with his Afrika Korps was less successful. Part of the mobile strategy was to force supply lines to strain and exhaust troops as they chase the enemy through the desert. When the time and terrain was right, Rommel wanted to turn, face the weary spread-out adversary and attack.
Forrest was also a military con-man. At the Battle of Cedar Bluff, Alabama, the then-Colonel had cornered Union cavalry Colonel Abel Streight and his regiment. Realizing Streight had a much larger force, Forrest paraded his fellow rebel schemers around the same hilltop several times in order to convince the Colonel of his numerical superiority. It worked. Streight surrendered 1,500 soldiers to a force ¼ his size.
With all Forrest’s military triumphs, lest we forget the man, he was the worst type of racist. Before the war, trading in human flesh, considering slaves property to profit from and never showing any kind of empathy for their plight. Truly a polarizing character.
At Fort Pillow, a small Union held fort on the Mississippi attacked then taken by Forrest's troops, his evil spirit would be exposed. Forrest’s final demand to the garrison was “No Quarter,” meaning no prisoners would be taken alive unless their fortification surrendered; they did not.
By this time in 1864, freed slaves had joined the Union army. They were seen and treated differently by Southern troops. Once the Fort had been taken, a massacre of the Black soldiers captured ensued. No one knows if the executions were pre-meditated or spontaneous, but it happened like an out of control murderous riot.
Arguments abound whether Forrest actually gave the order to execute the men, but to me, it doesn’t matter. Forrest’s soldiers were under his command. He had to know what was happening; 200 captured Black troopers were slain.
There were other instances. Poison Springs, Mark’s Mills now reports from Fort Pillow. Not only were Blacks slaughtered, Southern boys who joined the Union army were considered traitors, and faced the same fate.
After Lee surrendered in the East, Forrest decided to do the same. Having no doubt tired of war, his legacy is unmatched. 29 horses shot from under him, killed 31 Yankees in hand-to-hand combat and never lost a battle in which he commanded.
His disdain for the Black man kept on after the war, as again disputed claims have him forming and becoming the first Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, continuing his despicable treatment of the freed Black man until losing control of the violent organization in 1869.
There are three United States presidents from Tennessee: Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson and James Polk. Throughout Tennessee, Nathan Bradford Forrest has more parks, schools, clubs and buildings named after him then those three presidents combined.
Shelby Foote, the celebrated southern Civil War historian, agreed that the two most fascinating people to come out of the Civil War were Forrest and Abraham Lincoln.
When told that quote Forrest’s great-granddaughter paused, “Well… in our family, we never thought too much of Mr. Lincoln.”
Nathan Bedfford Forrest resonates to this day good and vile sentiments, but his influence and memory keeps creeping back into our culture.
Just ask film star Tom Hanks, “My name is Forrest… Forrest Gump!”
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Bob Ford’s History will run in each edition of the Weekender, Midweek and Corner Post. You can find more of Bob's work on his website bobfordshistory.com and videos on YouTube, TikTok and Clapper.