Born to Battle

by Jack Hurst

46 Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest, 106.

  47 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 420; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 192.

  48 John Watson Morton, The Artillery of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Cavalry (Nashville: Publishing House of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, 1909), 33, 45, 46–47.

  49 O. R. (1), vol. 20, pt. 2, 435.

  CHAPTER 17

  1 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 6:131n, 132n; Grant, Personal Memoirs, 226.

  2 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 7:130, 131, 131n, 132n.

  3 Ibid., 134.

  4 Warner, Generals in Blue, 410–411.

  5 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 6:131–132n.

  6 Brinton, Personal Memoirs, 115.

  7 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 6:164, 164n.

  8 Ibid., 166–167n.

  9 Ibid., 161; O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 2, 286–287.

  10 O. R. (1), vol. 16, pt. 2, 640–642.

  11 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 6:243, 243n.

  12 Samuel Carter, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862–1863 (New York: St. Martin’s, 1980), 18; Grant, Personal Memoirs, 315.

  13 For some of Grant’s communications related to the Confederate evacuation of Holly Springs, see Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant 6:255n, 262, 263, 264n, 268, 270n, etc. For Pemberton’s reversal of the Confederate decision to evacuate Holly Springs, see O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 468.

  14 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 6:285; O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 486–487.

  15 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 6:285–286.

  16 Ibid., 252.

  17 Ibid., 252, 180, 315.

  18 Grant, Personal Memoirs, 230; Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 6:315, 315–317n.

  19 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 6:317n.

  20 Ibid., 283.

  21 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 7:50.

  22 Smith, Grant, 226; Arndt M. Stickles, Simon Bolivar Buckner: Borderland Knight (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1940) 39.

  23 Smith, Grant, 225; Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 6:273–275.

  24 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 7:8, 45, 53n.

  25 Ibid., 53–55n.

  26 Ibid., 53n.

  27 Ibid., 6:290–291, 296–297, 306n; ibid., 7:6.

  28 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 2, 348; ibid., pt. 1, 467, 471.

  29 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 470.

  30 Ibid.

  31 Kiper, Major General John Alexander McClernand, 143; O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, pt. 2, 282.

  32 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 6:310, 180n. For Grant-Curtis unfriendliness, see, for example, ibid., 375, 376–377n.

  33 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 469.

  34 Grant, Personal Memoirs, 231; Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 6:362.

  35 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 6:371, 372, 372n.

  36 Ibid., 406–407, 404.

  37 Ibid., 408–409.

  38 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 474.

  CHAPTER 18

  1 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 2, 788–790.

  2 Ibid., 780, 781; Davis, Jefferson Davis, 482–483.

  3 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 2, 781.

  4 Ibid., 755; ibid., vol. 20, pt. 2, 422; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 193–194.

  5 O. R. (1), vol. 20, pt. 1, 63–64; ibid., vol. 17, pt. 2, 781.

  6 Ibid., vol. 17, pt. 1, 592; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 192, 193–194; Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest, 108; O. R. (1), vol. 20, pt. 2, 422.

  7 James A. Ramage, Rebel Raider: The Life of General John Hunt Morgan (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986), 82–83, 127–128; McWhiney, Braxton Bragg, 217, 185; Wheeler, Campaigns, 25, 26.

  8 Morton, The Artillery of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Cavalry, 45–47.

  9 Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest, 350, 520n.

  10 Memphis Daily Appeal, July 21, 1858, 2; Shelby County, Tennessee, register’s records, Book 18, 105.

  11 Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 41–42, 194; Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 92.

  12 Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 194; Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 107–108; Morton, The Artillery of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Cavalry, 48; Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest, 109.

  13 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 593.

  14 Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 194, 195.

  15 Ibid.; Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest, 108.

  16 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 2, 400, 405, 415, 423.

  17 Ibid., 426, 427, 428, 431.

  18 Ibid.

  19 Ibid., pt. 1, 553–554.

  20 Morton, The Artillery of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Cavalry, 47–48, 51.

  21 Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 195; O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 554.

  22 Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 195; O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 554.

  23 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 554, 593; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 195–196.

  24 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 598, 300–301.

  25 Ibid., 482, 555–556.

  26 Ibid., 598, 593.

  27 Ibid., 551, 568.

  28 Ibid.

  29 Ibid., 594, 564; Morton, The Artillery of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Cavalry, 57; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 199.

  30 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 560–561, 566; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 200–201.

  31 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 561–562; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 200–201.

  32 Morton, The Artillery of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Cavalry, 57–58; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 201. The authorized biography says that Forrest delivered the “subjugation” quote “in effect.”

  33 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 593; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 202; Jac Weller, “The Logistics of Nathan Bedford Forrest,” in Military Analysis of the Civil War (Millwood, NY: Krauss-Thompson Organization, Ltd., 1977), 176–177, notes that Forrest’s deprivation in youth focused him on the worth of everything.

  34 Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest, 111; O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 550.

  35 Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 108–109; Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest, 110–111.

  36 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 594; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 202–203.

  37 Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest, 113. As Henry notes, Mathes, aided by Forrest’s son Willie, as well as some of Forrest’s staff attest to Forrest’s usual practice of drawing his sword with his right hand, as opposed to Wyeth’s mistaken report.

  38 Ibid., 248; O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 594.

  39 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 548–549.

  40 Ibid., 594; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 205.

  41 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 594, 567–568.

  42 Ibid., 595; Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest, 116; Morton, The Artillery of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Cavalry, 62. For Forrest’s prowess with an axe, see Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 22, and Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest, 24.

  43 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 2, 428; ibid., pt. 1, 550; Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 121.

  44 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 572–573.

  45 Ibid., 594; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 208.

  46 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 580; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 209. For a description of the Forty Thieves, see Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 124n.

  47 Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 209n; Morton, The Artillery of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Cavalry, 64.

  48 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt
. 1, 580.

  49 Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 209–211, 217; O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 580–581, 595.

  50 Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 125.

  51 Ibid., 125–126; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 210–211; O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 580–581; Edwin C. Bearss, The Vicksburg Campaign (Dayton, OH: Morningside Press, 1985), 1:260–261.

  52 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 581; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 210–211.

  53 Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 211; O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 597; Morton, The Artillery of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Cavalry, 64.

  54 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 580–581; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 212.

  55 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 582; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 212–213.

  56 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 581; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 213; Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 127–128; Bearss, The Vicksburg Campaign, 1:262.

  57 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 589; Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 127; Bearss, The Vicksburg Campaign, 1:262.

  58 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 596, 583; Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest , 129; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 213.

  59 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 596, 569, 578, 576; Mathes, General Forrest, 92; Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 128.

  60 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 578, 579, 573, 570, 553. Pages 578 and 589 are two of the Federal references giving the time of the Union surprise attack; page 570 gives the formation for the attack, and 553 shows that the Fuller guns were, like Dunham’s, part of the Seventh Wisconsin.

  61 Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 218; O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 596; Bearss, The Vicksburg Campaign,1:267; Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 134.

  62 Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 217–218; Bearss, The Vicksburg Campaign, 1:266.

  63 Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 214–215, and Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 134–135, describe Forrest’s charge to save his guns.

  64 Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 135; O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 570, 578, 573.

  65 Morton, The Artillery of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Cavalry, 66, 67–68. Forrest’s misapprehension of McLemore’s action is in his report, O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 597. He later learned the facts of the case.

  66 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 553, 510, 571; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 215.

  67 Bearss, The Vicksburg Campaign, 1:268; O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 578.

  68 Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 218, 219; Bearss, The Vicksburg Campaign, 1:268, 269–270; O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 597.

  69 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 552, 597; Henry, “First with the Most” Forrest, 488n; Bearss, The Vicksburg Campaign, 1:272.

  70 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 548–549; Bearss, The Vicksburg Campaign, 1:346; Grant, Personal Memoirs, 235.

  CHAPTER 19

  1 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 2, 424; ibid., pt. 1, 607.

  2 Kiper, Major General John Alexander McClernand, 29–30.

  3 Lewis, Sherman, 258; Bearss, The Vicksburg Campaign, 1:128, 194.

  4 Bearss, The Vicksburg Campaign, 1:128; O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 605, 604, 616.

  5 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 605–606.

  6 Ibid., 606, 638; Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, 3:463.

  7 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 607.

  8 Marszalek, Sherman, 206, sources the report by the black man.

  9 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 637, 606–607, 631.

  10 Ibid., 607–608.

  11 Ibid., 638, 647; Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, 3:466; Bearss, The Vicksburg Campaign, 1:194–195.

  12 Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, 3:467.

  13 Ibid.; Bearss, The Vicksburg Campaign, 1:188–189, 192; O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 635; ibid., 634, describes the path up the bank.

  14 Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, 3:467.

  15 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 649–650.

  16 Ibid., 628, 634, 608.

  17 Ibid., 625, 638.

  18 Ibid., 673, 625, 671.

  19 Ibid., 609–610.

  20 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 7:61–62, 62n.

  21 Ibid., 34n; Kiper, Major General John Alexander McClernand, 154–155.

  22 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 2, 528.

  23 Kiper, Major General John Alexander McClernand, 153.

  24 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 2, 528; Marszalek, Commander of All of Lincoln’s Armies, 162.

  25 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 7:31–32.

  26 Woodworth, Nothing but Victory, 285.

  27 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 2, 529.

  28 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 7:186, 193.

  29 Ibid.

  30 Ibid., 186, 186–187n.

  31 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 700, 701, 612.

  32 Ibid., 701, 570–571; Grant, Personal Memoirs, 238.

  33 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 2, 553–554.

  34 Ibid., 559; Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, 3:452–453; Kiper, Major General John Alexander McClernand, 175, 166; Sherman, Memoirs, 301; Marszalek, Sherman, 212–213.

  35 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 2, 555.

  36 Ibid., 566–567.

  37 Kiper, Major General John Alexander McClernand, 184, names three notable Union non–West Pointers—Generals Clinton Fisk and Thomas Kilby Smith and Admiral David Dixon Porter—who did not like McClernand. Fisk’s siding with Grant indicates either that Grant’s alcohol consumption was not as egregious as some have contended or that Fisk found McClernand’s personality worse than Grant’s drinking; Fisk was such a strong teetotaler that he ran for president on a prohibition ticket two decades later.

  38 Kiper, Major General John Alexander McClernand, 182.

  39 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 7:220, 80n, 226–227; Brinton, Personal Memoirs , 131; Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 4:222n, 223n.

  40 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 7:226, 234.

  41 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 7:253, 257–258, 265n.

  42 Ibid., 264.

  43 Ibid., 267n.

  44 Ibid., 274.

  CHAPTER 20

  1 Bragg authority McWhiney discusses in detail Bragg’s bad planning at Stones River and the public and private criticism, as well as his loss of nerve at and after Stones River, in Braxton Bragg, 347–352, 363–366, 372–374; for a succinct explanation of Bragg’s battle plan, see Peter Cozzens, No Better Place to Die: The Battle of Stones River (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 76; for Hanson’s comment, see Davis, Jefferson Davis, 491.

  2 Davis, Jefferson Davis, 490–491.

  3 O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 1, 592; Ramage, Rebel Raider, 135–136.

  4 Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 223–224.

  5 Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 224–225. The authorized biography also says here that Bragg told him that an expedition had been directed for the capture of Fort Donelson. This does not seem to have been the case, because Wheeler in his report, O. R. (1), vol. 23, pt. 1, 39, says he had gone to the area to interdict Federal river traffic. The Forrest authorized biography is thus mistaken, unless Wheeler and Bragg discussed the possibility of also attacking Fort Donelson if an opportunity arose, which may have been the case.

  6 Warner, Generals in Gray, 333; Dyer, Fightin’ Joe Wheeler, 90. For Wheeler’s feat on the eve of Stones River, see McWhiney, Braxton Bragg, 348–349.

  7 O. R. (1), vol. 23, pt. 1, 39, 40.

  8 Ibid., 40, 41.

  9 Ibid., 40.

  10 Forrest aide Charles Anderson’s recollection of Forrest’s disclosure of his opposition to the attack to Ande
rson and Dr. Ben Woods, a Kentucky surgeon then on the staff, is in Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 147. See Warner, Generals in Gray, 332, for how Wharton died. Forrest’s report of the Murfreesboro raid, O. R. (1), vol. 16, pt. 1, 810, does not hint at Forrest’s anger at Wharton’s withdrawal and in fact seems, with glowing descriptions of Wharton’s valor, to try to atone for it.

  11 Benjamin Franklin Cooling , “The Attack on Dover, Tenn.,” Civil War Times Illustrated (August 1963): 11; O. R. (1), vol. 23, pt. 1, 35.

  12 O. R. (1), vol. 23, pt. 1, 35, 39.

  13 Ibid., 36, 39; Cooling, “The Attack on Dover, Tenn.”

  14 O. R. (1), vol. 23, pt. 1, 40; Official Military Atlas of the Civil War, plates 11–5, 114–5.

  15 O. R. (1), vol. 23, pt. 1, 40, 36.

  16 Ibid., 37.

  17 Ibid., 40, 38.

  18 Ibid., 37.

  19 Ibid., 40, 38.

  20 Ibid., 40.

  21 Ibid., 40–41; Cooling, “The Attack on Dover, Tenn,” 11.

  22 O. R. (1), vol. 23, pt. 1, 38.

  23 Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 151.

  24 O. R. (1), vol. 23, pt. 1, 41, 33, 38; Jordan and Pryor, The Campaigns of Lieutenant General Forrest, 229.

  25 Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 151.

  26 Mathes, General Forrest, 99. The language in Anderson’s version of the story is flowerier. Woods’s version sounds more like Forrest.

  27 Southern Historical Society Papers, 7:462.

  28 Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 151.

  CHAPTER 21

  1 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 7:270–273.

  2 Ibid., 301.

  3 Ibid., 302–303n; O. R. (1), vol. 17, pt. 2, 575.

  4 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 7:301; Warner, Generals in Blue, 513, 278–279, 102, 116, 389–390, 476, 189–190.

  5 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 7:301.

  6 Ibid., 326, 285n.

  7 Ibid., 270, 276.

  8 Ibid., 288–289, 281.

  9 Ibid., 281–282; for Lincoln’s interest, see Smith, Grant, 229.

  10 Simon, Papers of U. S. Grant, 7:287n.

  11 Ibid., 282n.

  12 Ibid., 286, 288.

  13 Ibid., 284–285.

  14 Ibid., 311, 312–313, 313n.