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!
