Devil's Dream (45 page)

Bedford Forrest and his twin sister, Fanny, are born in Bedford County, Tennessee, on Caney Spring Creek, fifty miles southeast of Nashville—the eldest children of William and Mariam Beck Forrest.

After losing land in Tennessee, the Forrests move to Tippah County (now Benton), Mississippi, where they lease a farm.

William Forrest dies; Mariam Beck Forrest becomes head of the Forrest household.

Bedford Forrest joins a Mississippi military unit to go to fight for Sam Houston’s cause in Texas. He sees no military action there, and spends a period splitting rails to earn money to get home.

With his mother soon to remarry, Forrest leaves home. He has been doing well in trading livestock and his Uncle Jonathan offers him a partnership in Hernando.

March 10: Forrest’s Uncle Jonathan is attacked and killed on the street in Hernando by members of the Matlock family. Defending his uncle, Bedford Forrest dispatches two or more Matlocks, using a knife tossed to him
by a bystander after his own pistol is emptied. Subsequent to this affair, Forrest is appointed constable in Hernando.

September 25: Forrest marries Mary Ann Montgomery, whom he has met about a month before, thanks to having assisted her and her mother when their carriage was stuck in a ford.

William Forrest is born to Bedford and Mary Ann Forrest.

Frances A. Forrest is born to Bedford and Mary Ann Forrest.

John Forrest, next in age after Bedford, returns as a cripple from the Mexican War.

Bedford and Mary Ann Forrest move to Memphis, Tennessee, where Forrest expands his business as a slave-trader.

From Hill & Forrest, a firm in which he is a partner, Forrest purchases “a Negro woman named Catharine aged seventeen and her Child named Thomas aged four months.”

Forrest buys adjacent lots on Adams Street in Memphis: 85 Adams for his personal residence and 87 Adams for his slave pen.

June 26: Forrest’s daughter, Frances, dies of dysentery.

Forrest buys some 700 acres in Shelby County.

James McMillan is shot in a dispute with another slave-trader, Isaac Bolton, and dies of his wounds in Forrest’s home.

June 26: In the wake of a gambling-related murder, Forrest is elected to a vigilance committee to run gamblers out of Memphis (despite a serious gambling habit of his own).

Forrest is elected alderman in Memphis. He buys 1,900 acres of cotton land in Coahoma County, Mississippi, and 1,346 acres across the river in Phillips County, Arkansas. He adds eighty-five feet of frontage to his Adams Street property between 2nd and 3rd Streets and moves from 85 Adams to another house on the south side of Adams between 3rd and 4th Streets.

January 14: South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi vote to secede from the United States, followed by Texas and Louisiana.

April 3: Confederates win victory over Union forces at Manassas, Virginia, in the first battle of Bull Run.

May: Forrest buys a forty-two-acre farm seven miles north of Memphis for his mother and stepfather, James H. Luxton.

June 8: Tennessee secedes from the United States.

June 14: Forrest, his youngest brother, Jeffrey, and his son, William, enlist as privates in the Confederate Army at Randolph, Tennessee.

At some point during these early days of the war, Forrest offers freedom at the war’s end to those of his slaves who are willing to serve as teamsters in his command. Forty-five men accept this offer.

July 23: Swiftly promoted to lieutenant colonel, Forrest runs a newspaper ad for “Mounted Rangers.” He travels to Kentucky to recruit and buy arms for his company.

October: Forrest and his Rangers are ordered to Fort Donelson, in Tennessee.

December 28: In his first Civil War engagement, at Sacramento, Kentucky, Forrest kills two men with a saber.

February 13: Union commander Ulysses S. Grant attacks Fort Donelson. Bedford Forrest fights a five-hour engagement with Union troops on the Fort Henry road.

February 14: As fighting continues around Fort Donelson, the Confederates finally drive the Union troops from the field. Forrest gets fifteen bullet holes in his coat and has two horses shot from under him—one with seven bullet wounds and the second blown up by an artillery shell.

February 15: Refusing to surrender with the other Confederate commanders, Forrest evacuates the men of his command in the direction of Nashville, Tennessee.

February 23: Having broken up mobs of looters with a fire hose and provisioned his men from Nashville stores, Forrest leaves Nashville for Murfreesboro, just in advance of the surrender of Nashville to the oncoming Union Army commanded by General Don Carlos Buell.

March 10: Reinforced by a new company raised by his younger brother Jesse, Forrest is elected colonel of a force now at battalion strength. Ordered to Corinth, Mississippi, Forrest scouts and determines that Grant, moving south from Fort Donelson, is intending a junction with General Buell, moving west from Nashville.

April 6: Supported by Forrest, Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston attacks Grant at Shiloh, Tennessee, before Grant can be reinforced by Buell. The Confederates win the day—Willie Forrest is briefly lost in the action, then found herding prisoners. That night Forrest, scouting with a party disguised in captured Union coats, finds Buell crossing the Tennessee at Pittsburgh Landing to reinforce Grant. Though he realizes that Confederates must attack before daylight or be overwhelmed, he can’t find a general to authorize the attack. Johnston has been killed and replaced by General P. G. T. Beauregard.

April 7: The Confederates are forced to retreat from Shiloh toward Corinth.

April 8: Forrest breaks pursuit by the cavalry command of William Tecumseh Sherman with a charge at the Fallen Timbers. Overshooting his 350 troopers he fights his way out—though shot in the back—using “a rather small Federal trooper” as a shield. Forrest rides to Corinth, where his horse dies of its wounds. Furloughed for sixty days to Memphis to recover from his own gunshot wound, he returns to duty after three weeks, advertising for 200 men who want to “have a heap of fun and kill some Yankees.”

June 11: Forrest is detached from his regiment by Beauregard and sent to Chattanooga, Tennessee (with his personal escort of some two dozen men), with the idea he will organize disparate cavalry units in the area to interrupt Buell’s movement toward Chattanooga.

July 13: On his birthday, Forrest, with a consolidated force of 1,500 men attacks Union troops at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, at 4:30 a.m., defeats them and frustrates their attempt to burn down a jail full of Confederate prisoners. Through ruses Forrest induces the surrender of other bodies of Union troops posted outside the town. He destroys the railroad at Murfreesboro and retreats to McMinnville with some 1,200 prisoners. Eight days following he is promoted to brigadier general.

July 18: With 700 troopers, Forrest raids within sight of Nashville. Two weeks later he strikes the railroad at Manchester, Tennessee. In this period Union General William Nelson complains that Forrest’s men are mounted on racehorses, thus fruitless to pursue with infantry.

August 22: General Braxton Bragg, urged by Forrest to attack Nashville, instead orders Forrest to the Sequatchie Valley.

September 3: Forrest joins Bragg on a maneuver into Kentucky, distracting Buell with diversions at Sparta, Lebanon and Murfreesboro.

September 17: Supporting Leonidas Polk, Forrest helps force a surrender of 4,000 Federals at Munfordville, Kentucky.

September 23: Forrest (injured by a horse that rolled on him) is ordered to turn over his regiment to Joseph Wheeler and return to Middle Tennessee to raise new troops and raid.

Forrest establishes a base in Murfreesboro but then (as Bragg retreats from Kentucky, Robert E. Lee from Maryland, and Earl Van Dorn and Sterling Price are defeated at Corinth) retreats to Tullahoma.

November: Bragg places Forrest under Wheeler’s command.

December 3: Forrest writes to Wheeler complaining about John Morton, young son of a Nashville physician, being foisted on him as an artillery commander. Extremely keen to serve under Forrest, Morton makes a 104-mile round-trip from Columbia to Lavergne and back to get updated orders from Wheeler.

December 10: Bragg orders Forrest to West Tennessee.

December 13: Forrest crosses the Tennessee River at Clifton.

December 18: Forrest routs Union troops from Lexington, Tennessee, capturing two cannon for John Morton’s use. Through ruses such as beating kettledrums, lighting extra campfires and marching his men in circles, Forrest persuades Union commanders in West Tennessee to inflate their estimate of his strength from an actual 2,000 to 5,000. During the next few days he destroys the railroad north of Jackson and captures a Union garrison at Trenton. From Trenton stores he obtains a sword of Damascus steel and, contrary to military regulations of the time, sharpens both sides of it.

December 21: Through bluffing, Forrest induces surrender of the U.S. garrison at Union City.

December 31: Caught between two Union forces at Parker’s Crossroads, Forrest is said to have ordered his troopers to “charge both ways.”

January 1: Returning from his West Tennessee expedition, Forrest crosses the Tennessee River. Bragg, meanwhile, has retreated from Stones River to Tullahoma.

February 3: Forrest, Wharton and Wheeler make a concerted attack on Dover, Tennessee. Forrest has a horse shot from under him in a charge. Later a second horse is shot from under him in the failed attack. Forrest (who opposed the Dover attack and lost a lot of men in it) quarrels with Wheeler the night after the battle and refuses to serve under him any longer.

February 25: Forrest is transferred to the command of General Van Dorn.

March 5: At Thompson Station, Tennessee, Forrest assists in the defeat of Union troops under John Coburn and the capture of 1,200 men. His favorite horse Roderick is killed in this battle, as well as Montgomery Little, an early organizer of Forrest’s escort.

March 25: Continuing to raid around Middle Tennessee during the month of March, Forrest captures two Union garrisons and arms at Brentwood, about ten miles south of Nashville. General G. C. Smith engages Forrest’s force but cannot defeat or destroy it.

April 10: Forrest attacked by General David Stanley near Franklin, about fifteen miles south of Nashville. His artillery commander, Captain S. L. Freeman, is killed. Forrest is reported to have wept at Freeman’s funeral the next day.

Late April: Forrest quarrels with General Van Dorn, who challenges him with a sword (over Forrest’s having appropriated weapons seized in Brentwood for the use of his own troops). Forrest is ordered to Alabama and Van Dorn is killed by a jealous husband in Tennessee.

April 23: Forrest is ordered to reinforce Colonel P. D. Roddey in Tuscumbia, Alabama.

April 26: As Forrest is skirmishing at Town Creek, Union raiders coming from Nashville, commanded by Colonel Abel Streight, move south of him with 1,500 men—on a mission to cut the railroad from Chattanooga to Georgia.

April 30: Forrest attacks Streight’s rear guard and Streight lays an ambush on Sand Mountain. Forrest’s brother Bill Forrest, whose scouts led the attack, has a thigh shattered by a bullet and Bedford Forrest loses two cannon commanded by Lieutenant A. W. Gould. After five hours of fighting Streight moves on, then prepares another defense at Hog Mountain, using the captured cannon. When Bedford Forrest attacks this position by moonlight, he has three horses shot out from under him—but recovers his two cannon, although spiked. Streight moves on to lay a third ambush at 2 a.m. Forrest allows his men two hours rest.

May 1: Streight reaches Blountsville at 10 a.m., departs at noon and is soon attacked in the rear by Forrest. After another battle on the shores of the Black Warrior River, Streight completes the crossing of the Black Warrior at 5 p.m. and heads for Gadsden. To rest his outnumbered men, Forrest is pursuing in shifts, and with a force of 600 he overtakes and attacks Streight at a bridge over Black Creek. Streight’s men burn the bridge after the crossing, but a local girl, Emma Samson, shows Forrest a nearby ford where his men quickly cross. Streight forces an all-night march, destroys stores at Gadsden and makes for Rome, Georgia, hoping to delay Forrest by burning the bridge over the Oostanaula River there.

On the same day, the Confederate Congress legislates the return of black slaves captured under arms to their owners and the summary execution of white officers and noncoms in these new black Union units.

May 2: Forrest harries Streight’s rear, with Streight losing stragglers until he is forced to stand and fight at 4 p.m. With much of his ammunition wet from his rapid river crossings, Streight moves on, sending an advance of 200 men to secure the bridge at Rome. Streight eludes an ambush at Centre, Alabama, moves along the Chattooga River to Gaylesville, where Confederates have destroyed the ferry. Streight then gets his command lost in a logging area, happens on a Confederate ironworks and destroys it, and finally crosses the Chattooga just before dawn.

May 3: Streight halts at Lawrence Plantation, twenty miles short of Rome. Forrest sends in a demand for surrender, reinforced by circling the same pair of cannon over and over within Streight’s view. Thanks to this ruse and to circular marching of the troops, Streight surrenders nearly 1,500 men to Forrest’s 600 (although, once he understands the trick, Streight asks for his arms back to continue the fight). This pursuit destroys 300 of Forrest’s 550 horses but he replaces them with Streight’s—while making an effort to return mounts Streight had commandeered to owners in Alabama. A grateful citizen of Rome gives Forrest an excellent horse named Highlander.

May 13: Following a meeting with General Bragg, Forrest is promoted to major general and begins reorganizing his command in Middle Tennessee.