Forrest & Maples
This advertisement for Forrest’s prewar firm
appeared in the Memphis City Directory,
1855–56. The lucrative business of slave
trading made Forrest, born in rural poverty,
one of the wealthiest men in the South.Nathan Bedford
Forrest
schooling. Nevertheless, he went on to
achieve success. Working to support his
family from an early age, he proved a
shrewd businessman, his fortune based
on the slave trade. He attained the
pinnacle of prewar Southern society—
life as a wealthy cotton planter—but
never forgot his frontier origins.
This was a world where honor often
demanded the use of knife or gun, and
Forrest remained skilled with both.
He was as single-minded in the pursuit
of love as of success. At age 24, he
gallantly rescued a mother and daughter
after their buggy broke down
while crossing a river. The
girl’s name was Mary Ann
Montgomery. Forrest
asked permission to
visit. On his first
call, he proposed
to Mary Ann.
She accepted
on the
third visit.I
t was said that General Robert
E. Lee called Forrest the greatest
soldier produced by the Civil War.
To Union general Grant, he was “that
devil,” while General Sherman thought
he deserved killing even “if it costs
10,000 lives and breaks the Treasury.”Devil on horseback
Wounded four times and having had
29 horses shot beneath him, Forrest
was not easy to kill. One characteristic
episode occurred in the aftermath of
the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862.
Encountering a force led by Sherman,
Forrest galloped forward so recklessly
that he left his escort behind and
leaped unaccompanied into Sherman’s
lines. Saber flashing, he tried cutting
his way out, but was shot in the back.
Apparently untroubled by the bullet
lodged against his spine, Forrest swept
up a Union soldier with one arm and
planted him on his
saddle to act as a
shield. Then he
rode back to safety.
For Bedford Forrest
life had been, in his
own words, “a
battle from the
start.” Son of a
backwoods
blacksmith who
died when Forrest
was 16, he grew
up with barely six
months of formalCONFEDERATE GENERAL Born 1821 Died 1877
GRANT, SHERMAN, AND TOTAL WAR 1864“Any man in favor of a further
prosecution of this war is a fit
subject for a lunatic asylum.”
NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST, SHORTLY BEFORE SURRENDERING HIS COMMAND, MAY 1865Captured in oils
German-American painter Nicola
Marschall persuaded the notoriously
impatient Forrest to sit for this portrait
in 1867. When parting from his
troops, Forrest had urged them:
“Obey the laws, preserve your
honor, and the Government to
which you have surrendered
can afford to be, and will
be, magnanimous.”