Born to Battle

by Jack Hurst

  Dr. Smith’s full-time job is teaching history at the University of Tennessee, Martin, but he obviously has another full-time vocation: writing and editing Civil War books, of which he already—at a still stunningly early age—had produced seven when he agreed to look over my manuscript. He has probably published a couple more by now. Despite his small children and his wife’s broken arm, he wielded his time and pencil with great generosity, saving me from many small errors that would have added up to a large embarrassment.

  My sister, retired English teacher Carol Carlson of Maryland and North Carolina, also lent her eyes, proofreading skills, and encouragement to the project and thereby also aided in getting the manuscript in shape to be submitted to Basic Books.

  There, Vice President Lara Heimert judiciously directed the conceiving of a title and the cutting down and streamlining of a bulky and wandering initial manuscript by more than 25 percent, and Associate Editor Alex Littlefield completed the streamlining process by giving wholehearted attention to every line—rearranging some, calling for the addition of others, and generally doing much hard work to clarify and liberate the narrative. Editorial assistant Katy O’Donnell was an eleventh-hour godsend in acquiring pictures and maps, and Kay Mariea, editorial services director for Perseus Books, brought the project home. Copyeditor Jennifer Kelland Fagan, unfailingly pleasurable to deal with, made many fine-tuning improvements by suggesting perfect words and bringing ideas into sharper focus.

  All these people were unfailingly kind and considerate to a writer who, after a long history in journalism, still has much to learn about publishing. They all deserve special thanks. Only one, my sister, had an idea what she was getting into when taking on the job. She knew better, but did it anyway.

  Others, too, are due significant credit. Dr. William Bernet, professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, very kindly took the time to render his extremely helpful informed opinion on how being the twin of a sister who did not live to adulthood, along with other privation, might have influenced the personality of Nathan Bedford Forrest. I thank Dr. Bernet and also my friend John Howser, vice chancellor for news and communications at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, for connecting me with him.

  Chris Howland of the Weider History Group went to much trouble to get me Civil War author Frank Cooling’s 1963 article on the Battle of Dover and to introduce me online to Bill Breidenstein, also of Weider, regarding a map that, along with Mr. Cooling’s article, aided my understanding of the battle. This was after Mr. Cooling told me how to locate it. I thank all of them for their kindnesses.

  The staffs of the Tennessee State Library and Archives as well as the libraries of Vanderbilt University, Tennessee Technological University, and Middle Tennessee State University and the Justin Potter Library in Smithville, Tennessee, were all very helpful. Dr. Alan D. Boehm at Middle Tennessee State was particularly helpful in getting me two books that I might not have gotten access to otherwise. Jimmy Manning at the Oaklands Historic House Museum in Murfreesboro, the residence in which Nathan Bedford Forrest accepted the surrender of Murfreesboro in July 1862, shared from his files several important pieces of information on Forrest’s raid. There are, I’m sure, other givers of aid whose names have fallen through the cracks of my memory, for which I sincerely apologize.

  I would also like to thank inaugural president Ed Copeland, present president Kent Dollar, Vice President Sharyl Hansen, Secretary Karen Goluszka, and all members of the Upper Cumberland Civil War Roundtable in Cookeville, Tennessee—as well as readers of the blog Civil War & Civil Rights (http://civwrandcivrts1.wordpress.com)—for their interest in the Civil War and for encouraging my attempts to keep it in the public consciousness.

  Finally, I have to thank my beloved and long-suffering wife, Donna, who has the misfortune to be married to a man who spends far too much time upstairs in the 1860s.

  NOTES

  INTRODUCTION

  1 Robert S. Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1944), 193.

  2 The War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, DC: GPO, 1880) (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 464; hereafter cited as O. R. (1).

  3 John Allan Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest (Dayton, OH: Morningside [reissue], 1975), 265–266.

  4 Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs (Penguin [one-volume reissue], 1999), 320–321; Jean Edward Smith, Grant (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 262.

  5 John Y. Simon, ed., The Papers of U. S. Grant (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982), 9:302; Smith, Grant, 265–268.

  6 Smith, Grant, 277–280.

  7 Ibid., 283.

  8 For the South’s generals and lieutenant generals, see Ezra Warner, Generals in Gray (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959), xxi.

  9 Kenneth M. Stampp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Antebellum South (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956), 31–32.

  10 William C. Davis, Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), 130; James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 196; James H. Hammond, Selections from the Letters and Speeches of the Hon. James H. Hammond, of South Carolina (New York: J. F. Trow & Co., 1866); James M. McPherson, Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 19.

  11 McPherson, Drawn with the Sword, 19.

  12 Smith, Grant, 91–92; Memphis Daily Appeal, April 7, 1858, 3.

  CHAPTER 1

  1 For Kountz charges, see Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 4:111–113n.

  2 O. R. (1), vol. 7, 679–684; Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 4:320.

  3 Grant, Personal Memoirs, 170.

  4 For charges, see Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 4:111–113n.

  5 Ibid., 298n; John Brinton, Personal Memoirs (New York: Neale Publishing Company, 1914), 143; Grant, Personal Memoirs, 171–173.

  6 The overwhelming bulk of the above summarizes information in the author’s previous volume on Grant and Forrest, Men of Fire (New York: Basic Books, 2007); the information on Buell and the Duck River Bridge is found in Larry Daniel, Shiloh: The Battle That Changed the War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 114, and Smith, Grant, 182–183; the quotations from Grant’s letters to Julia Grant are from Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 5:7. Grant was intended merely to be a caretaker of the army at Pittsburg Landing until Halleck could get there and take command of the planned drive on Corinth. That Halleck was coming is announced in O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 2, 24–25.

  7 O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 90–91.

  8 Ibid., 89; Grant, Personal Memoirs, 179–180.

  CHAPTER 2

  1 Regarding the “million and a half of dollars,” the 1860 census, in which he is mislabeled “W. B. Forrest,” says he owned $171,000 in Memphis real estate and $90,000 in “personal property.” That probably wasn’t all. By October he had at least 3,345 acres in Coahoma County, Mississippi, having just swapped a 1,346-acre plantation in Phillips County, Arkansas, for 1,445 more acres in Coahoma County valued at $100,000; these figures come from Shelby County, Tennessee, register’s records, Book 41-1, 96, and Coahoma County, Mississippi, chancery clerk’s records, Book BB, 519.

  2 This chapter vastly compresses information scattered throughout Men of Fire as well as the author’s Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993). The figures on planter slaveholdings are from Stampp, The Peculiar Institution, 30–31.

  CHAPTER 3

  1 Robert S. Henry, As They Saw Forrest: Some Recollections and Comments from Contemporaries (Jackson, TN: McCowat-Mercer Press, 1956), 56–57; Alfred Roman, The Military Operations of General Beauregard (New York: DaCapo Press [reissue], 1994), 1:269.

  2 Roman, The Military Operations of General Beauregard, 1:269–270.

  3 O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 2, 379; Henry, As They Saw Forrest, 57; Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 35.

  4 Thomas
Jordan and J. P. Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest and Forrest’s Cavalry (Dayton, OH: Morningside Press [reissue], 1977), 113; Basil W. Duke, The Civil War Reminiscences of General Basil W. Duke, C. S. A. (New York: Cooper Square Press [reissue], 2001), 345; O. R. (1), vol. 7, 64–66, 329.

  5 O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 393–394; Daniel, Shiloh, 96, 118–120.

  6 O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 2, 54; ibid., pt. 1, 385; O. Edward Cunningham, Gary D. Joiner, and Timothy B. Smith, eds., Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862 (New York: Savas Beatie, 2007), 140.

  7 O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 93.

  8 Daniel, Shiloh, 125.

  9 O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 567.

  10 Daniel, Shiloh, 128.

  11 O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 2, 389.

  12 William Preston Johnston, The Life of General Albert Sidney Johnston (New York, 1879), 585.

  13 O.R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 454.

  14 Daniel, Shiloh, 131, 322.

  CHAPTER 4

  1 O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 2, 87, 88, 89, 92, 93.

  2 Daniel, Shiloh, 132.

  3 Ibid., 105, 139–140; for the extent of the flooding, see Halleck to Stanton, O. R. (1), vol. 8, 634.

  4 Grant, Personal Memoirs, 178.

  5 Daniel, Shiloh, 136–137; John F. Marszalek, Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order (New York: Free Press, 1993), 176–177.

  6 Daniel, Shiloh, 137–138, 141, 145–147; O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 280.

  7 O.R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 280.

  8 Ibid., 249; Daniel, Shiloh, 157–159.

  9 Daniel, Shiloh, 157–159.

  10 Marszalek, Sherman, 35, 53–75.

  11 Ibid., 126, 135–137.

  12 O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 252; Lloyd Lewis, Sherman: Fighting Prophet (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1932), 197–201.

  13 O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 281.

  14 Daniel, Shiloh, 111.

  15 Ibid., 174; O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 184; Ezra Warner, Generals in Blue (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1964), 293, 536.

  16 O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 184; Daniel, Shiloh, 174, 355n; Cunningham, Joiner, and Smith, Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862, 156, 156n.

  17 Smith, Grant, 190.

  18 Ibid., 190–191; O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 185.

  19 Daniel, Shiloh, 175; O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 185.

  20 Smith, Grant, 189, 191.

  21 Ibid., 191–192; Timothy B. Smith, The Untold Story of Shiloh: The Battle and the Battlefield (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), 33–34; Cunningham, Joiner, and Smith, Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862, 240–241.

  22 Smith, Grant, 191, Daniel, Shiloh, 175–176.

  23 Smith, Grant, 192, 193; O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 278.

  24 Lewis, Sherman, 222.

  CHAPTER 5

  1 For Willie Forrest and his companions, see Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest , 78–79.

  2 For Confederate weariness and hunger, see, for example, O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 545, 553; Daniel, Shiloh, 173; and Cunningham, Joiner, and Smith, Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862, 141.

  3 O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 454; Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest, 77.

  4 O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 612.

  5 Robert U. Johnson and Clarence C. Buel, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (New York, 1988), 1:604–605; Daniel, Shiloh, 196.

  6 Gilbert V. Rambaut, “Forrest at Shiloh,” in Henry, As They Saw Forrest, 59. Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 127; O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 454; Warner, Generals in Gray, 210.

  7 Rambaut in Henry, As They Saw Forrest, 60.

  8 Ibid., 61; Daniel, Shiloh, 221.

  9 Charles P. Roland, Albert Sidney Johnston: Soldier of Three Republics (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964), 336–338.

  10 Rambaut in Henry, As They Saw Forrest, 61; Daniel, Shiloh, 169.

  11 Cunningham, Joiner, and Smith, Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862, 259n.

  12 Daniel, Shiloh, 229–237; O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 409–410. For W. H. L. Wallace’s fatal wounding, see Steven E. Woodworth, Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee (New York: Random House, 2005), 201.

  13 Rambaut in Henry, As They Saw Forrest, 61.

  14 O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 554, 559, 409.

  15 Ibid., 554, 559; Rambaut in Henry, As They Saw Forrest, 62. The officer Polk assigned to “take command of all cavalry at hand,” O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 410, Colonel A. J. Lindsay, reported sending his own regiment after the fleeing Federals and then, finding he “could get no other cavalry,” O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 459, indicating that Forrest’s and perhaps other units had galloped headlong eastward as soon as word arrived that Polk wanted cavalry for pursuit.

  16 Rambaut in Henry, As They Saw Forrest, 62; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 134.

  17 Daniel, Shiloh, 253; Cunningham, Joiner, and Smith, Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862, 307–309; O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 534–535, 550–552.

  18 O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 550–552, 534.

  19 Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 135.

  CHAPTER 6

  1 Daniel, Shiloh, 186–191, 175, 186.

  2 Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, 1:492.

  3 Daniel, Shiloh, 243.

  4 Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, 1:493, 493n; Cunningham, Joiner, and Smith, Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862, 318, 318n.

  5 Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, 1, 493, 493n; Cunningham, Joiner, and Smith, Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862, 315–317; Daniel, Shiloh, 242–243.

  6 O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 328, 323; Grant, Personal Memoirs, 185.

  7 Daniel, Shiloh, 256–261; Cunningham, Joiner, and Smith, Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862, 338–339.

  8 Daniel, Shiloh, 188.

  9 Ibid., 224, 246, 223, 245, 225.

  10 Cunningham, Joiner, and Smith, Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862, 319, 319n; Daniel, Shiloh, 246, 248.

  11 Daniel, Shiloh, 247, 249.

  12 Daniel, Shiloh, 250; William T. Sherman, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press [reissue], 1972), 246.

  13 Grant, Personal Memoirs, 185, 184.

  14 Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, 1:482.

  CHAPTER 7

  1 Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest, 78–79; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 135n.

  2 Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 22; Warren County, Mississippi, register’s records, Books AA and BB; Frederic Bancroft, Slave Trading in the Old South (Baltimore: J. H. Furst Company, 1931), 311; Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest, 31.

  3 Information on twin psychology is from Dr. William Bernet, professor, Department of Psychiatry, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, personal communication, May 20, 2009; for Forrest’s antilynching committee posts, see Memphis Daily Appeal, May 20 and June 25–28, 1857.

  4 F. O. Matthiessen, Theodore Dreiser (New York: Greenwood Press [reissue], 1976), 131.

  5 Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 630; Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest, 474n; Shelby County, Tennessee, register’s records, Book 16, 468; Bancroft, Slave Trading in the Old South, 250, 265; W. H. Rainey & Co.’s Memphis City Directory and General Business Advertiser for 1855–56, 251; and Memphis Daily Appeal, January 14, 1860, 3.

  6 See, for example, Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 630–631.

  7 Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 136–137.

  8 Roman, The Military Operations of General Beauregard, 1:305.

  9 Daniel, Shiloh, 262; for Gilmer and Fort Henry, see General Tilghman, O. R. (1), vol. 7, 723, and Gilmer, O. R. (1), vol. 7, 735; for Gilmer and Nashville, see O. R. (1), vol. 7, 741.

  10 Roman, The Military Operations of General Beauregard, 1:306n; Grady McWhiney, Braxton Bragg and Confederate Defeat (Tuscaloosa:
University of Alabama Press, 1969), 244; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 135; Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, 1:602.

  11 Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest, 79; for Chalmers, see Southern Historical Society Papers, 52 vols. (Richmond: Johns & Goolsby Printers, 1876–1959), 7:458.

  12 Daniel, Shiloh, 264; Roman, The Military Operations of General Beauregard, 1:305; Thomas Jordan in Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, 1:602; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 136–137. The distance is estimated from Roman’s account of where Hardee was in relation to Beauregard and maps in Daniel, Shiloh, 107, 165.

  13 O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 617. Again, Trabue’s approximate location and its relation to Beauregard’s is estimated from maps in Daniel, Shiloh, 107, 165.

  14 Daniel, Shiloh, 264; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 137.

  15 Southern Historical Society Papers, 7:458.

  CHAPTER 8

  1 Daniel, Shiloh, 249; Augustus Chetlain, Recollections of Seventy Years (Galena, IL: Gazette Publishing Company, 1899), 89; Chicago Tribune, November 21, 1880.

  2 Grant, Personal Memoirs, 187; Johnson and Buel, “Shiloh Reviewed,” in Battles and Leaders, 1:519; as for Wallace, his report indicates no attempt to find Grant that night, O. R. (1), vol. 10, pt. 1, 170; Woodworth, Nothing but Victory, 193.

  3 Grant, Personal Memoirs, 188; Daniel, Shiloh, 266.

  4 Smith, Grant, 200.

  5 Grant, Personal Memoirs, 187.

  CHAPTER 9

  1 Daniel, Shiloh, 269; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 139.

  2 Cunningham, Joiner, and Smith, Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862, 334, 341–342; Daniel, Shiloh, 278, 262–264; Sam Davis Elliott, Soldier of Tennessee: General Alexander P. Stewart and the Civil War in the West (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004), 43, 45; Roman, The Military Operations of General Beauregard, 1:309n; Craig L. Symonds, Stonewall of the West: Patrick Cleburne and the Civil War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 72–73.