Invaluable especially for the post-war story of Forrest, from helping found the original Ku Klux Klan in order to save the defeated south from economic ruin, to his repudiation of it when he saw it had finished its mission and was then impeding progress of the New South, his failed efforts at railroad building, his support for black voting rights and finally his acceptance of Christianity near the end of his life. Excellent, balanced and well written biography. ( )

Nathan Bedford Forrest, A Biography, by Jack Hurst (pp 448). Published 1994. This book was recommended (and gifted) by a good friend who is a history buff. It took me a while, but I finally got through it — a bit of a slog, I have to admit. I certainly know more about the general than ever before, but in my opinion he still lands squarely in the pile of evil humanity. Part way through I concluded the author was an apologist. That was actually hinted at by language on the back page: “... restored to human dimensions ... that puts both Forrest’s genius and his savagery into the context of his time ...” My friend, also an author, noted that cover blurbs are not written by authors, but by publicists, so I shouldn’t put too much emphasis on that. Regardless, it’s worth noting that the ‘context of one’s times’ does not justify savagery. A genuine hero or even a gentleman would employ moral principles notwithstanding the savagery of one’s times. Was Forrest an amazingly good military leader? No doubt. He had a hard time working within the framework of a command structure, but was a brilliant raider. Aside from his slave trading, racial atrocities committed or condoned during the war, and his role in the early Ku Klux Klan, I suppose he was a really nice guy. NOT. If he helped set in motion the Ku Klux Klan, he bears some responsibility for its future excesses. Moreover, I have a hard time believing the secretive Klan was initially established for benign purposes, as is asserted in the book. Supposedly, it quickly went off the tracks, and was later emulated by lawless brigands. Forrest apparently accepted Christ in his last years when he was ailing. My personal opinion is, so what? That may work for an omniscient being whose only criteria for salvation is acceptance of Christ, but I do not feel post-atrocity conversion erases those atrocities or removes them from the scale of justice when balancing good and evil deeds. Moreover, throughout his life he seems to have pursued fortune and fame over all other considerations. And he was clearly duplicitous on many, many occasions to protect his interests. All and all he was a ruthless, amoral person notwithstanding some deeds along the way. Sorry for the rant, but I really was disappointed in this portrayal. Few books have ever raised this much ire in me while reading them. It was very good in fleshing out Forrest as a civilian, businessman, politician, and warrior, but I simply can’t agree with the author’s implicit conclusions. If you’re a Civil War apologist, this book might be of interest.
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I ordered this biography of Confederate cavalry General, Nathan Bedford Forrest, strictly out of morbid curiosity. Despite being widely regarded as one of the most effective cavalry commanders in modern history, Forrest is also almost universally condemned as one of the worst human beings to serve in the Civil War. This is based largely on the massacre of African-American soldiers at Fort Pillow by Confederate troops under his command, and the fact that he served as one of the organizers and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in the years immediately following the War.

It has been my experience that biographers tend to fall in love with their subjects, and frequently devolve into hagiography. I was curious to see how any biographer could possibly attempt to rehabilitate Forrest. And while the author in this case certainly tries to paint Forrest in the best possible light, he at least presents most of the facts associated with certain, unsavory aspects of Forrest’s life and military career.

It would be simple to paint Forrest a monster, especially in light of current customs and mores. Before the War, he was a slave trader in Memphis. He was, at times, brutally violent, both before and during the War. However, these character traits, taken by themselves should not necessarily condemn a man that was born and raised in the circumstances in which he found himself. War is about killing people and the type of warfare practiced by many in the western theater of the American Civil War was especially brutal. As Forrest himself pointed out, “War means fightin’, and fightin’ means killin’. Forrest was especially good at both.

Forrest was a brilliant tactician and possessed unquestioned and incredible courage in the heat of battle, having had dozens of horses shot out from under him and being wounded on several occasions. He frequently defeated opposing troops that outnumbered him sometimes five or ten to one, many times by exercising duplicity and aggressive tactics. Once, when informed that his troops had been flanked by a superior force, he ordered an attack in both directions, and drove the enemy from the field. He seldom held troops in reserve and once committed the troops that were designated to hold the horses for the dismounted cavalry, responding, “If we are whipped, we’ll not need any horses.”

He was, however, a terrible subordinate and clashed with almost every military superior to which he was attached, threatening to kill more than one. As a result, Forrest was most effective as an independent raider as opposed to participating as a part of a larger engagement.

Forrest is largely associated with the massacre of federal troops (many of whom were African-American) following the capture of Fort Pillow. He was unquestionably in charge, and while the author attempts to downplay his involvement in the massacre, there is little doubt that he took little action to alleviate the killing of troops attempting to surrender. Many times in his life, both before, during and after the War, Forrest succumbed to terrible rages in the heat of the moment, only to show remorse and regret afterward. It is easy to imagine the events that transpired at Fort Pillow being a result of just such a rage.

Following the War, the author takes great pains to show Forrest as a conciliator and a man of reason during the Reconstruction Period, and while the Ku Klux Klan of the era was not the same organization that was reformed in the Jim Crow south of the early 20th century, it certainly participated in many violent voter suppression activities and terrorist acts against freed slaves of the region; and Forrest was a founding member and Grand Dragon.

So, largely, Forrest was a man of his times. Granted, a particularly violent man who found himself as the very talented leader of a cavalry brigade, with orders to create widespread mayhem and kill Union soldiers. He turned out to be very good at both. As the author points out, “The violence he employed seemed almost as normal in its place and time as it seems barbarous today”. In the midst of battle and in a killing rage, he led what turned into a cold blooded massacre at Fort Pillow. After the War, faced with many of the abuses of Reconstruction, he again exercised leadership which though proving to be effective, also exceeded the bounds of acceptable behavior, even for the period in which he lived. As the author points out, “like Andrew Jackson, he was compelled by his times to make hard choices and by today’s standards some of his became some of history’s worst…The wrongs committed by great men tend to be as large as the men themselves and Forrest’s were appropriately titanic.”

Thus, while it is easy to condemn such a man wholesale, some allowance must be made for the time and place. So, in effect, he was not the worst man in the world, only one of the worst. ( )

This detailed, nuanced biography includes what Paul Harvey would call . . . THE REST OF THE STORY:
Three years before his death, Nathan Bedford Forrest experienced a religious conversion, after which he became an advocate of racial reconciliation. ( )

A very insightful book that gives a thourough review of Nathan Bedford Forrest emphasizing neither the good or the bad but reporting on both. Gives an understanding of the mans life both before and after the war years. ( )