Download or read book Fort Pillow a Civil War Massacre and Public Memory written by John Cimprich and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2011-04-08 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the now-peaceful spot of Tennessee's Fort Pillow State Historic Area, a horrific incident in the nation's bloodiest war occurred on April 12, 1864. Just as a high bluff in the park offers visitors a panoramic view of the Mississippi River, John Cimprich's absorbing book affords readers a new vantage on the American Civil War as viewed through the lens of the Confederate massacre of unionist and black Federal soldiers at Fort Pillow. Cimprich covers the entire history of Fort Pillow, including its construction by Confederates, its capture and occupation by federals, the massacre, and ongoing debates surrounding that affair. He sets the scene for the carnage by describing the social conflicts in federally occupied areas between secessionists and unionists as well as between blacks and whites. In a careful reconstruction of the assault itself, Cimprich balances vivid firsthand reports with a judicious narrative and analysis of events. He shows how Major General Nathan B. Forrest attacked the garrison with a force outnumbering the Federals roughly 1,500 to 600, and a breakdown of Confederate discipline resulted. The 65 percent death toll for black unionists was approximately twice that for white unionists, and Cimprich concludes that racism was at the heart of the Fort Pillow massacre. Fort Pillow, a Civil War Massacre, and Public Memory serves as a case study for several major themes of the Civil War: the great impact of military experience on campaigns, the hardships of military life, and the trend toward a more ruthless conduct of war. The first book to treat the fort's history in full, it provides a valuable perspective on the massacre and, through it, on the war and the world in which it occurred.
Download or read book River Run Red written by Andrew Ward and published by Viking Adult. This book was released on 2005 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fast-paced narrative vividly depicts the incompetence and corruption of Union occupation in Tennessee, the horrors of guerrilla warfare, and the rage that found its release at Fort Pillow.
Download or read book The River Was Dyed with Blood written by Brian Steel Wills and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-03-17 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The battlefield reputation of Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, long recognized as a formidable warrior, has been shaped by one infamous wartime incident. At Fort Pillow in 1864, the attack by Confederate forces under Forrest’s command left many of the Tennessee Unionists and black soldiers garrisoned there dead in a confrontation widely labeled as a “massacre.” In The River Was Dyed with Blood, best-selling Forrest biographer Brian Steel Wills argues that although atrocities did occur after the fall of the fort, Forrest did not order or intend a systematic execution of its defenders. Rather, the general’s great failing was losing control of his troops. A prewar slave trader and owner, Forrest was a controversial figure throughout his lifetime. Because the attack on Fort Pillow—which, as Forrest wrote, left the nearby waters “dyed with blood”—occurred in an election year, Republicans used him as a convenient Confederate scapegoat to marshal support for the war. After the war he also became closely associated with the spread of the Ku Klux Klan. Consequently, the man himself, and the truth about Fort Pillow, has remained buried beneath myths, legends, popular depictions, and disputes about the events themselves. Wills sets what took place at Fort Pillow in the context of other wartime excesses from the American Revolution to World War II and Vietnam, as well as the cultural transformations brought on by the Civil War. Confederates viewed black Union soldiers as the embodiment of slave rebellion and reacted accordingly. Nevertheless, Wills concludes that the engagement was neither a massacre carried out deliberately by Forrest, as charged by a congressional committee, nor solely a northern fabrication meant to discredit him and the Confederate States of America, as pro-Southern apologists have suggested. The battle-scarred fighter with his homespun aphorisms was neither an infallible warrior nor a heartless butcher, but a product of his time and his heritage.
Download or read book The Myth of Nathan Bedford Forrest written by Paul Ashdown and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2005 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insightful exploration of the relentless myth of the famous Civil War general, this volume scrutinizes the collective public memory of Nathan Bedford Forrest as it has evolved through the press, memoirs, biographies, and popular culture.
Download or read book Bust Hell Wide Open written by Samuel W. Mitcham and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A book to challenge the status quo, spark a debate, and get people talking about the issues and questions we face as a country!
Download or read book Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest written by John Allan Wyeth and published by . This book was released on 1899 with total page 782 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, renowned military genius, is accurately portrayed in this comprehensive volume. A brilliant, fearless military commander, Forrest was best known for his daring battlefield exploits, quick temper and keen intellect.
Download or read book The Fort Pillow Massacre written by Bruce Tap and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-23 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On April 12, 1864, a small Union force occupying Fort Pillow, Tennessee, a fortress located on the Mississippi River just north of Memphis, was overwhelmed by a larger Confederate force under the command of Nathan Bedford Forrest. While the battle was insignificant from a strategic standpoint, the indiscriminate massacre of Union soldiers, particularly African-American soldiers, made the Fort Pillow Massacre one of the most gruesome slaughters of the American Civil War, rivaling other instances of Civil War brutality. The Fort Pillow Massacre outlines the events of the massacre while placing them within the racial and social context of the Civil War. Bruce Tap combines a succinct history with a selection of primary documents, including government reports, eyewitness testimony, and newspaper articles, to introduce the topic to undergraduates.
Download or read book Nathan Bedford Forrest and the Battle of Fort Pillow written by Lochlainn Seabrook and published by . This book was released on 2015-11-16 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yankee historians delight in calling Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest "the Butcher of Fort Pillow," claiming that he instigated a "racist massacre" of surrendering black Union troops during the battle at Henning, Tennessee, on April 12, 1864. But is this true? Of course not. It is merely the North's fabricated version, one based not on reality, but on opinion, nescience, emotion, sciolism, presentism, spite, and an anti-South bias that is still very much alive to this day. For those who are interested in the truth about the conflict, award-winning historian and Forrest scholar Lochlainn Seabrook has written "Nathan Bedford Forrest and the Battle of Fort Pillow: Yankee Myth, Confederate Fact." This brief but comprehensive investigation blows the lid off what pro-North writers like to refer to as a "controversy," but which was in fact nothing more than an ordinary fight in which an overwhelming force (2,500 racially integrated Confederates) assaulted an indefensible fort filled with belligerent drunken soldiers (600 racially segregated Yankees) who refused to surrender in the face of impossible odds. Excerpted from Mr. Seabrook's popular title "A Rebel Born: A Defense of Nathan Bedford Forrest," the book contains dozens of pages of new material, along with rare photos and illustrations, maps, details concerning the origins of the battle and the charges against Forrest, official reports, and important eyewitness accounts by those at the scene. Also included: an index, bibliography, and reference notes. This book, which helps restore Forrest's reputation after being unfairly tarnished by 150 years of slander, falsehoods, and anti-South propaganda, is a must-read for all those who are in search of the truth about "Nathan Bedford Forrest and the Battle of Fort Pillow." For the traditional South Mr. Seabrook's work represents the final word on the matter. Civil War scholar Lochlainn Seabrook, a descendant of the families of Alexander H. Stephens and John S. Mosby, is the most prolific and popular pro-South writer in the world today. Known as the "new Shelby Foote," he is a recipient of the prestigious Jefferson Davis Historical Gold Medal and the author of over 45 books. A seventh-generation Kentuckian of Appalachian heritage and the sixth great-grandson of the Earl of Oxford, Mr. Seabrook has a forty-year background in American and Southern history, and is the author of the runaway bestseller "Everything You Were Taught About the Civil War is Wrong, Ask a Southerner!" Seabrook's other titles include: "Confederate Flag Facts: What Every American Should Know About Dixie's Southern Cross"; "Everything You Were Taught About American Slavery is Wrong, Ask a Southerner!"; "The Great Yankee Coverup: What the North Doesn't Want You to Know About Lincoln's War"; "Give This Book to a Yankee: A Southern Guide to the Civil War for Northerners"; "Confederacy 101: Amazing Facts You Never Knew About America's Oldest Political Tradition"; "Slavery 101: Amazing Facts You Never Knew About America's 'Peculiar Institution'"; "Forrest! 99 Reasons to Love Nathan Bedford Forrest"; "Honest Jeff and Dishonest Abe: A Southern Children's Guide to the Civil War"; "The Unquotable Abraham Lincoln: The President's Quote They Don't Want You to Know!"; "The Quotable Stonewall Jackson"; "The Alexander H. Stephens Reader"; "The Constitution of the Confederate States of America Explained"; and "The Old Rebel: Robert E. Lee As He Was Seen By His Contemporaries."
Download or read book Nathan Bedford Forrest s Escort and Staff written by Bradley, Michael R. and published by Pelican Publishing Company, Inc.. This book was released on 2010-09-23 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most staff officers and escort members of famous Civil War generals have faded into obscurity. However, the escort company and staff officers of Nathan Bedford Forrest were held in awe by men on both sides of the conflict during the war and long after, and they continue to be held in esteem as figures as legendary as Forrest himself. Not merely guards or couriers, these men were an elite force who rode harder and fought more fiercely than any others. As Bradley writes in his introduction, In him they recognized not only the daring, able, and successful leader, but also the commanding officer who would not hesitate to punish with severity when he deemed punishment necessary. They possessed as an inheritance all the best and most valuable fighting qualities of the irregulars, accustomed as they were from boyhood to horses and the use of arms, and brought up with all the devil-may-care lawless notions of the frontiersman. But the most volcanic spirit among them felt he must bow before the superior iron will of the determined man who led them. There was something about the dark gray eye of Forrest that warned his subordinates he was not to be trifled with and would stand no nonsense from either friend or foe. Nathan Bedford Forrest's Escort and Staff reveals the symbiotic relationship between Forrest and his men, and how their unusual abilities as fighters, thinkers, and leaders made for a team of men who formed a unique brotherhood that lasted long after the war. A testament to their loyalty is the fact that the escort is the only Confederate unit whose numbers were greater when they surrendered than when the unit was organized.
Download or read book Nathan Bedford Forrest written by Jack Hurst and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-06-08 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amid the aristocratic ranks of the Confederate cavalry, Nathan Bedford Forrest was untutored, all but unlettered, and regarded as no more than a guerrilla. His tactic was the headlong charge, mounted with such swiftness and ferocity that General Sherman called him a "devil" who should "be hunted down and killed if it costs 10,000 lives and bankrupts the treasury." And in a war in which officers prided themselves on their decorum, Forrest habitually issued surrender-or-die ultimatums to the enemy and often intimidated his own superiors. After being in command at the notorious Fort Pillow Massacre, he went on to haunt the South as the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Now this epic figure is restored to human dimensions in an exemplary biography that puts both Forrest's genius and his savagery into the context of his time, chronicling his rise from frontiersman to slave trader, private to lieutenant general, Klansman to—eventually—New South businessman and racial moderate. Unflinching in its analysis and with extensive new research, Nathan Bedford Forrest is an invaluable and immensely readable addition to the literature of the Civil War.
Download or read book Fort Pillow written by Harry Turtledove and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-05 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "New York Times" bestselling author Turtledove delivers a harrowing novel of the Civil War's most controversial battle.
Download or read book The Worst Military Leaders in History written by John M. Jennings and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2023-06-24 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanning countries and centuries, a “how-not-to” guide to leadership that reveals the most maladroit military commanders in history—now in paperback. For this book, fifteen distinguished historians were given a deceptively simple task: identify their choice for the worst military leader in history and then explain why theirs is the worst. From the clueless Conrad von Hötzendorf and George A. Custer to the criminal Baron Roman F. von Ungern-Sternberg and the bungling Garnet Wolseley, this book presents a rogues’ gallery of military incompetents. Rather than merely rehashing biographical details, the contributors take an original and unconventional look at military leadership in a way that appeals to both specialists and general readers alike. While there are plenty of books that analyze the keys to success, The Worst Military Leaders in History offers lessons of failure to avoid. In other words, this book is a “how-not-to” guide to leadership.
Download or read book An Unerring Fire written by Richard Fuchs and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2017-09-15 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What really happened at Fort Pillow on April 12, 1864? The Union called it a massacre. The Confederacy called it necessity. TheTennessee spring came early that year, “awakening regional plants as warmer air and mois soil nurtured new life. Across the landscape could be seen the faint hint of green as sweet gum, hickory, oak cottonwood,…Sweet Williams, and wild dogwood added their hues.” This serene backdrop in hardly the place where one would imagine such a one-sided military atrocity to take place. Although at first glance the numbers are hardly noteworthy, the casualty ratio speaks volumes on the event. Eyewitness accounts relate “vivid recollection” of the numerous and specific nature of the injuries suffered by the survivors.” Controversy and scandal surround the Southern general Nathan Bedford Forrest. Why did it seem that he passively watched his men attack and mutilate more than one hundred apparently unarmed soldiers? Perhaps the biggest controversy involved racial prejudice. Was there a reason that Fort Pillow was singled out for Confederate vengeance, with the knowledge that the majority of the men were African-American? Of the dead, 66 percent were black. An Unerring Fire answers these questions and more in a critical examination of what remains one of the most controversial episodes of the Civil War.
Download or read book River Run Red written by Andrew Ward and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-10-31 with total page 698 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On April 12, 1864, on the Tennessee banks of the Mississippi River, a force of more than 3,000 Confederate cavalrymen under General Nathan Bedford Forrest stormed Fort Pillow, overwhelming a garrison of some 350 Southern white Unionists and over 300 former slaves turned artillerymen. By the next day, hundreds of Federals were dead, over 60 black soldiers had been captured and re-enslaved, and over 100 white soldiers had been marched off to their doom at Andersonville. Confederates called this bloody battle and its aftermath a hard-won victory. Northerners deemed it premeditated slaughter. To this day, Fort Pillow remains one of the most controversial battles in American history. River Run Red vividly depicts the incompetence and corruption of Union occupation in Tennessee, the horrors of guerrilla warfare, the legacy of slavery, and the pent-up bigotry and rage that found its release at Fort Pillow. Andrew Ward brings to life the garrison’s black soldiers and their ambivalent white comrades, and the former slave trader Nathan Bedford Forrest and his ferocious cavalry, in a fast-paced narrative that hurtles toward that fateful April day and beyond. Destined to become as controversial as the battle itself, River Run Red establishes Fort Pillow’s true significance in the annals of American history.
Download or read book Nathan Bedford Forrest written by Nathan Bedford Forrest and published by Pelican Publishing. This book was released on 2007-02-28 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Civil War biography sheds new light on the life of the legendary Confederate general before, during, and after the conflict that defined his legacy. Shelby Foote called Nathan Bedford Forrest one of the most authentic geniuses produced by the American Civil War, and Ulysses S. Grant said that Forrest was the only Confederate cavalry leader he feared. Sherman wanted him killed even if doing so broke the broke the Federal treasury and cost ten thousand lives. Arguably the best cavalry leader of the Civil War and undoubtedly one of the greatest in the history of mounted warfare, Nathan Bedford Forrest has been acclaimed and vilified, revered and hated, and still he is a man whose life defies categorization. This in-depth biography goes beyond Forrest’s war exploits. Here, historians Eddy W. Davison and Daniel Foxx depict a man as complex, brilliant, revolutionary, and tragic as the times in which he lived. In addition to revealing details about his childhood, marriage, and life as a businessman and civic leader, this comprehensive biography explains the alleged massacre at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, and the reasons for Forrest’s leadership in the Ku Klux Klan.
Download or read book Forrest written by Robert M. Browning and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2004 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Revered by some, loathed by others, Nathan Bedford Forrest has long been considered one of the greatest soldiers of the American Civil War. Responsible for his family at a young age, he quickly developed traits - self-reliance, decisiveness, and assertiveness - that would later make him famous. In business, the uneducated Forrest quickly made a fortune in various endeavors, including the slave trade. When the Civil War began, Forrest became an adept recruiter and leader, despite his lack of training in military science. His cavalrymen became famous for the forced marches, deception, and audacious battlefield maneuvers they used to defeat forces that often outnumbered them. In 1864, Forrest gained notoriety for his participation in the battle for Fort Pillow, Tennessee. In a controversy that persists today, the high casualty rate among African-American troops who surrendered there led to charges that Forrest's men had perpetrated a racially motivated massacre. After the war, Forrest became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan while promoting reconciliation between North and South amid the chaos of Reconstruction."--Jacket
Download or read book The Battles and Campaigns of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest 1861 1865 written by John R. Scales and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author plows entirely new ground with a careful and unique examination of Forrest's wartime activities and how his actions affected the war in the Western Theater.
