The Hero of Tennessee

In 1973, the Tennessee legislature passed a resolution calling for the installation of a bust honoring Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest in the State Capital.  In 1978, the bust was installed with pomp and circumstance, one of the over 37 statues, busts and memorials to Forrest in the state of Tennessee.  This summer, after years of protest and litigation and over the continued objections of Republican leaders, the bust of Forrest was finally removed.  Both the Senate and House leaders – both Republicans – objected to this denigration of a great Tennessee hero.

Who was General Nathan Bedford Forrest?

Nathan Bedford Forrest was born in a cabin in Chapel Hill, Tennessee to a poor settler family.  The oldest of twelve, he would leave home early in his life and begin working as an overseer on cotton plantations in Mississippi.  At the age of 20, he first made a name for himself by avenging the death of his uncle by fighting four men, killing two and severely wounding the others.  This act of Southern “chivalry” opened doors for this hot tempered young man.

In the 1840s and 1850s, Nathan Bedford Forrest would slowly amass a fortune as a slave trader and work camp owner, where Black men and women were systematically worked to death to harvest cotton.  By the early 1860’s, he was known as one of the richest men in the South and an ardent defender of the institution of slavery.

When the Civil War began in 1861, Nathan Bedford Forrest paid for and organized his own company of Confederate cavalry.  Soon promoted to colonel and then general, Forrest became renown for his brilliant cavalry maneuvers.  He would also become known for his brutality on the battlefield.  This would come to its most horrible fruition on April 12^th, 1864.

On that date, Forrest and his forces surrounded Ft. Pillow, a Union fortification 40 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee.  When the Union forces would not surrender, Forrest attacked and quickly overwhelmed the defenders, 250 of which were Black soldiers.  Eyewitness accounts report Forrest’s soldiers refused to accept the surrender of Black soldiers and over 200 were butchered after laying down their arms.  At the time, this was considered one of the worst war crimes of the Civil War.  Sadly, after the war, Forrest’s crimes went unpunished and he was offered amnesty.

With his finances destroyed by the war and the end of slavery, Nathan Bedford Forrest began to work behind the scenes to organize his former soldiers into a new force – the Ku Klux Klan.  In 1866, in the first post war elections, Forrest and his hooded horsemen would terrorize and murder thousands of Blacks in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. Nathan Bedford Forrest would be the first Grand Wizard of the KKK.  Indeed, the term ‘Wizard” was adopted because this was one of his nicknames during the Civil War.

In 1868, Nathan Bedford Forrest would get into politics, becoming an ardent supporter of the Democratic Party, helping to nominate his close friend, Frank Blair, as the vice-presidential nominee.  The Democratic platform in 1868 was “Our Ticket, Our Motto, This is A White Man’s Country, Let White Men Rule.”  While the Democrats lost the presidential elections, they were much more successful across the South, placing KKK supported politicians in many offices.

While some argue that he eventually left the KKK and became less racist in his final years, it is important to know that his children and grandchildren carried on this legacy.  His grandson, Nathan Bedford Forrest II would become the Grand Dragon of the KKK in Georgia in the 1920s and 30s.  If his grandpa changed his white supremacist opinions, his grandson didn’t seem to know it.

This is the great Tennessee hero.

Slave trader.

Brutal cotton planter.

War criminal.

Ku Klux Klan founder.

Avowed white supremacist.

This is the most celebrated Tennessean, with more monuments than any other Tennessee figure, including President Andrew Jackson.

This is the man many Tennessee Republicans are still defending today.

When conservatives argue they are defending history and not racism, remember that politicians voted to place the bust of Forrest in their State Capital in 1971.  They did so with a clear message to those Blacks in Tennessee who were celebrating the Civil Rights Acts, the end of Jim Crow and the death throes of segregation – what Nathan Bedford Forrest did to your people can happen again.

When white people tell you white supremacy and systemic racism have ended, ask them to explain why in 2021, the Tennessee Legislature, controlled by Republicans, still argued Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Tennessee hero.