David Martin Loc: Cary, NC

I did not know this.
Would it not be better to attach this truth to the statues, to allow current Americans to know and reflect on this history? To shame rather than glorify? Instead, the push is to tear it all down, after which no one will know.

Bill 45

Lincoln said no to the Southern states. Grant, Sherman and 1,000, 000 Union's solders prove he was right.

Paul Diamond Loc: Atlanta, GA, USA

On another post, I mentioned that I attended Ulysses S. Grant Elementary in Ohio and graduated from Robert E. Lee High School in Virginia.

I've done quite a bit of reading about the Civil War during my lifetime. But, I'm not any kind of expert. I do believe that Lee was conflicted. He didn't want to leave his post with the USA and become a rebel. He was one of the best US military leaders of his time. I believe Lee knew that the South would lose the war if it went on too long. Lee chose attacking the North when choosing to do battle at Gettysburg. Lee's hope was to take the war to the North and try to force the North to decide the 'price' of continuing the war was too high.

Losses for both sides were monumental. Neither side was willing to give ground as more and more died. The Union understood Lee's attack of the North and his need to win at Gettysburg. What was left of Lee's army finally retreated.

One of my direct relatives from Ohio was a Colonel in the Civil War, war time title by outfitting enough volunteers with uniforms and guns. He was wounded in the war and captured by the Confederates. He was sent to the notorious Andersonville Prison in GA until the end of the war. He somehow survived his wounds, the lack of medical care, the starvation in prison, etc. But, his health was broken and he returned to his Ohio farm to quietly live out the rest of his shortened life.

Paul Diamond Loc: Atlanta, GA, USA

Winners write history. Truth often gets sidelined. I didn't know about Forrest and his despicable massacre.

Statues don't tell any attempt to convey the truth about the life of the 'idealized' person. These southern statues of the 1900's vintage were not meant to tell the truth about the 1860's Civil War. And that is why they should be removed from places of public emphasis. A Civil War park with these statues and a more full telling of the history at the time? Seems like a reasonable idea for the people who might want to go and see the statues while learning all the real history of the times.

phlash46 Loc: Westchester County, New York

Hell of an idea!

rightofattila

The war put Lee in a horrible position. The correct strategy would have been to build up a defense in depth and let the north grow tired of fighting. But Lee couldn't do that. The south needed to export cotton to Europe and the northern Navy had all the southern ports blockaded. He figured with a few quick victories that perhaps England would join in the fight and lift the blockade. He was wrong of course; England merely started importing cotton from Egypt.

BTW, it's not generally known, but the real heroes of Gettysburg were the northern calvary. Lee had sent Jeb Stuart's southern calvary around the union lines and they were to attack the union center from the rear to coincide with the frontal assault. Although heavily outnumbered, northern calvarymen engaged the southern troops before they could reach the front lines. They fought them to a standstill and forced them to retreat. Who was the leader of this rag tag bunch of northern horsemen? George Armstrong Custer.

lhardister Loc: Brownsville, TN

[quote=Ysarex]A letter from one of Forrest's own sergeants, Achilles V. Clark....

Offered for your consideration are the following works, to wit:
1.Henry, Robert Selph, Nathan Bedford Forrest: First With the Most
2.Jordan, Thomas and J.P. Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieut.-Gen. N.B. Forrest, and of Forrest’s Cavalry
3.Lytle, Andrew, Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company
4.Mathes, J. Harvey, General Forrest
5.Sheppard, Capt. Eric William, Bedford Forrest: The South’s Greatest Cavalryman
6. Wills, Brian Steele, The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest
7.Wyeth, J.A., Life of Lieut-General N.B. Forrest
8.Maness, Lonnie E., An Untutored Genius: The Military Career of General Nathan Bedford Forrest
9. Hurst, Jack, Nathan Bedford Forrest, A Biography

They refute your spurious sources, tit-for-tat, much more fully than I could hope to do in this limited space.

One should keep in mind that a public perception of a "massacre" served several purposes for the Yankee officers and leaders. First, on a localized level, it would tend to deflect from the Union army hard and embarrassing questions regarding the poor performance of the Union officers and soldiers at Fort Pillow and in West Tennessee. Second, it would help to whip up northern enthusiasm for continued support of the war. Indeed, it was becoming clear that war weariness was about the only obstacle to Union victory and unconditional surrender by the South. Third, many Union officers and leaders wanted a "hard" post-war reconstruction, some solely for the financial advantages and rewards which would become available, others for the purpose of bringing the Southern whites to heel according to their own exalted sense of moral superiority. The specter of "massacre" would grease the skids, so to speak, for an easy sell of their ideas and programs to Congress and the northern electorate.

Finally, one must ask, if the evidence is so overwhelming that Forrest ordered a massacre, why was he never charged with war crimes and prosecuted, even after the war? Within days after the battle at Ft. Pillow, Congressional investigations got underway and sifted through immense amounts of alleged evidence. Surely, if the evidence was so compelling, there were plenty of legal minds of the ilk of Edwin Stanton and Gen. "Beast" Butler who could have managed a prosecution. The only practical conclusion is that the examining authorities realized that the evidence, such as it was, did not support a prosecution; and, rather than risk public trial and possible vindication of Forrest, they realized, quite correctly it seems, that a campaign of innuendo and slander would serve their purposes quite as well with none of the risks and possible embarrassments of trial.

In short, the Yankees were unable to defeat Forrest in actual battle, but in their diabolical schemes, they utilized lies and slander to vilely discredit him and lay the groundwork for their rapacious program of reconstruction in the South.






“

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

[quote=lhardister]

When historical facts are in question look to primary sources. When primary sources are in conflict look for motivation. Forrest's culpability at Fort Pillow is substantiated by unbiased reports from his own troops.

Regardless, you want to defend Forrest you have to defend his behavior. He amassed a fortune on the backs of slave labor as a plantation owner. But far more damning: Forrest was a Slave trader. He sold other human beings. He took children from their mothers by force and sold them. He broke up families and sold them. Forrest was the vilest form of human garbage to inhabit this planet.

After the war he became a early member of the KKK and quickly became their leader -- the Grand Wizard. He was a white supremacist who advocated and participated in violence and murder to keep freed slaves away from the ballot box. He must be first and last remembered as criminal pig filth whatever else you may want to say about him. And that needs to be written on a plaque and attached to all those statues.

Your defense of taking slave children from their mothers and selling them: fill in the blank_______________ The same people who wrote your apologies of Forrest's responsibility for Fort Pillow might say well it's not like they were white Christian mothers who loved their children. The Negro is more like an animal really and doesn't have the same capacity for motherly love. You got a reference for us?

lhardister Loc: Brownsville, TN

Well, just for starters, there already are, and have long been, several "Civil War Parks" where some semblance of history is presented--included among them, in addition to Gettysburg, are Antietam, Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania, Fort Sumter, Vicksburg, Shiloh, Stone's River, and Chickamauga, just to name a few that readily come to mind. But the reading of books, real books by real historians, researched and footnoted, is virtually the only way to learn about the war. And then one must develop the wherewithal to weed out the fluff and chaff from the substance. Simply strolling around parks and reading markers such as "Jones's Battery, Blazeaway Artillery Battalion, was posted here at 8:30 A.M. on the morning of Friday April 6th, etc." is not really going to be very helpful. Even Ken Burns' notable documentary is too truncated to do more than just orient one to the big picture. It takes dedication and effort to get at "the truth"--merely reading placards on busts and monuments won't even come close.

Bill 45

You are right about Custer, he did stop Stuart. Had Stuart get to attack the Union lines from the back , he would have cut the Union lines in half. Also add Pickket coming at the Union lines at the front. Between Pickket and Stuart the Union Army would have been destroy. And the road to Washington would have been wide open. Now history has down play Custer role at Gettysburg, reason for it I don't known.

phlash46 Loc: Westchester County, New York

[quote=lhardister] In his spurious rant, he claims that Confederate monuments are the work of the "Klan" (whatever that is/was),


You cannot be serious.

lhardister Loc: Brownsville, TN

[quote=Ysarex]When historical facts are in question …

Forrest was a product of his times, as was every white person in the South at that time. If Forrest is "criminal pig filth", by your reasoning, the same would have to be said of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and every white person in the South.

When the final surrenders were made in the war, the southerners were told that they were to return to their homes, there to be unmolested by the government so long as they obeyed the laws. The southerners took them at their word, went home, and elected representatives to Congress, only to be told by Congress that they would not be allowed to take their seats in Congress. The government thus unlawfully molested them by depriving them of the right of representation in the national legislature. Almost simultaneously, the carpet-baggers and reconstruction officials, in order to garner black support and legitimate their plans of fraud and graft, told them that they would be re-enslaved if they voted for the former Confederates. Thus, using an irresponsible race-based ploy, they drove a wedge between blacks and whites in the South that persisted for approximately 100 years.

The whites resisted in practically the only way available--intimidating and frightening the ignorant and superstitious blacks. With the blacks and carpetbaggers in control, the South was well on its way to becoming a howling wasteland by the time that Reconstruction was ended. Virtually every white man, woman, and child supported the return to white political control. Under notions of vicarious liability, you effectively classify every one of them as "criminal pig filth." Your agenda seems to be to propel all whites into paroxysms of guilt and self-flagellation, leading to reparations and other socialist utopian programs.

With regard to the KKK, broad and sweeping statements about what it did or did not do are irresponsible simply because nobody really knows what it did and did not do. It supposedly originated as a prank among some students around Sparta, Tennessee, and much of its activity seems to have been merely attempts to frighten people. Certainly it was not the monolithic entity which you and others envision. Very likely some klan members sought to propagate such an image to make its capabilities appear greater than they actually were. I can almost imagine that you get up at night and peek under your bed to see if a klansman is hiding there. The point is, you cannot and do not know whether Forrest was responsible for any murders in the capacity of a klansman. And it should be noted, that according to the popular line of history, after about three years, Forrest ordered the Klan to be disbanded, he having decided that it would become too violent and lead to unwanted problems with the federal government. I emphasize that the mere fact that some young thug today may call himself a klansman and/or dress up in a sheet or pointy hat does not necessarily mean that he is/was a part of any extended and organized body.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Oh My God!

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

[quote=lhardister]


Despicable excuse.

Yes they were racists. Not every white person in the South owned slaves. Many in the north were also racists. We've got them among us still today.

Pig filth is reserved for the likes of Forrest who was not only a slave owner but a slave trader. It's bad to be a racist. It's much worse to actually own slaves. It's orders of magnitude worse to buy and sell slaves. Forrest represents a pit of human depravity.

I missed your defense of the practice of taking children from their mothers and selling them.

phlash46 Loc: Westchester County, New York

[quote=lhardister]

If you believe any of this “history” you are delusional. Most of it is among the biggest crock of crap I’ve ever read.