Forrest is the devil, and I think he has got some of our troops under cower…I will order them to make up a force and go out to follow Forrest to the death. If it costs ten thousand lives and breaks the Treasury. There will never be peace in Tennessee until Forrest is dead.
General William T. Sherman to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton-June 15, 1864
The Spanish-American War was a unifying event with the sons and grandsons of Union and Confederate veterans, and the sons and grandsons of slaves, shedding their blood together under the Stars and Stripes. Veterans of the war formed the VFW, Veterans of Foreign Wars, to distinguish themselves from Union and Confederate veteran groups and to have one national veteran’s organization. I think if the war had occurred a generation earlier, a fair amount of bitterness from the war would have been earlier eliminated. The image of Sherman and Forrest fighting together on the same side is one to conjure with!
Fascinating! I had no idea about this…kudos to both Forrest and Sherman. What a great story.
Wasn’t Nathan Bedford Forrest the man who founded the Ku Klux Klan?
https://the-american-catholic.com/2015/10/11/nathan-bedford-forrest-and-racial-reconciliation-part-ii/
Forrest was a lot of things before he left this Vale of Tears. He probably was the first leader of the Klan, although evidence that he founded it was weak. He did give the order to disband the Klan in 1869 due to violence perpetrated by local chapters.
A rather enigmatic man. His forte was military and war. He should have followed Lee’s example and never have gotten involved in reconstruction political matters.