Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography
Jun 2011 · Sold by Vintage
3.5star
2 reviews
Ebook
448
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About this ebook
Amid the aristocratic ranks of the Confederate cavalry, Nathan Bedford Forrest was untutored, all but unlettered, and regarded as no more than a guerrilla. His tactic was the headlong charge, mounted with such swiftness and ferocity that General Sherman called him a "devil" who should "be hunted down and killed if it costs 10,000 lives and bankrupts the treasury." And in a war in which officers prided themselves on their decorum, Forrest habitually issued surrender-or-die ultimatums to the enemy and often intimidated his own superiors. After being in command at the notorious Fort Pillow Massacre, he went on to haunt the South as the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
Now this epic figure is restored to human dimensions in an exemplary biography that puts both Forrest's genius and his savagery into the context of his time, chronicling his rise from frontiersman to slave trader, private to lieutenant general, Klansman to—eventually—New South businessman and racial moderate. Unflinching in its analysis and with extensive new research, Nathan Bedford Forrest is an invaluable and immensely readable addition to the literature of the Civil War.
Now this epic figure is restored to human dimensions in an exemplary biography that puts both Forrest's genius and his savagery into the context of his time, chronicling his rise from frontiersman to slave trader, private to lieutenant general, Klansman to—eventually—New South businessman and racial moderate. Unflinching in its analysis and with extensive new research, Nathan Bedford Forrest is an invaluable and immensely readable addition to the literature of the Civil War.
Ratings and reviews
3.5
2 reviews
Brandon Fowler
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February 23, 2019
was interested in this book but after reading the description, where it talks about the general and the Klan, it has me at a cross roads because there is absolutely no evidence that nathan was ever involved in the Klan. the Klan never get records or a paper trail and there is nothing that ties Forrest to the Klan other than his public speakings in being for the Klan. which the Klan of 1865 is nothing at all like the Klan of 1915 which is the Klan of today. everything else is just a myth... I'd like to know the author's source for this information trying the general directly to the klan.
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James Meyer
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June 13, 2014
Forrest is a great man. I look up to him. He was for the southern cause.
About the author
Jack Hurst is a historian and former journalist who has written for newspapers including the Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Nashville Tennessean. His books include Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography, Men of Fire: Grant, Forrest, and the Campaign That Decided the Civil War, and Born to Battle: Grant and Forrest—Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga. A native of Maryville, Tennessee and a descendant of both Union and Confederate soldiers, he currently lives with his wife outside Nashville, Tennessee.
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