But today I'm highlighting this recent TPM TV video, The Josh Marshall Podcast Ep. 165: A Racist Tempest In Tennessee 03/25/2021, which addresses a case of a current political controversy involving neo-Confederate symbolism, in particular, statues of Nathan Bedford Forrest.
This is an article from 2001 on the infamous Forrest by Court Carney, The Contested Image of Nathan Bedford Forrest Journal of Southern History 67:3 (Aug 2001). It also discusses the evolution of the Lost Cause narrative celebrating him as an admirable, iconic figure.
In the admiring narrative that developed about him after the war, Forrest was one of the common people who rose in the Confederate ranks to be a brilliant commander, who maybe could have saved the sacred causes of the Confederacy, slavery, and white supremacy if he had been given a bigger role in military command. The fact that he was known as the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan after the war and gained his first fame with the war crimes the troops under his command at the Fort Pillow massacre of 1864.
As the stodgily reliable Britannica Online relates (Robert Glaze, Fort Pillow Massacre 08/31/2020), "During the Fort Pillow Massacre, on April 12, 1864, Confederate troops killed nearly 200 Black troops fighting for the Union. The massacre became a rallying point for enslaved people fighting for their freedom, and it hardened the resolve of Black Union soldiers, who used 'Remember Fort Pillow!' as their battle cry."
Forrest's city of Memphis was particularly concerned with his image. And Carney's article focuses on the development of Forrest iconography in that city. After his death in 1877, local obituaries "transformed Forrest into a southern version of Horatio Alger, and his rugged upbringing and self-reliance became virtues to be emulated." But it was a particular kind of rags-to-riches story: "White Memphians looked with pride on Forrest's humble beginnings and subsequent rise to become a millionaire slave trader and war hero."
Court Carney takes a reserved view of Forrest's reputed military genius:
During the Civil War, the uneducated general directed a number of limited victories over superior, if poorly led, Union forces. Although he may not have lost a major battle, most historians agree that his handful of successes failed to have any real impact on the future of the Confederacy. "He was," as Charles Royster has noted, "a minor player in some major battles and a major player in minor battles." Nevertheless, after the war Forrest's exploits soon attained mythic stature, and admirers of the general proclaimed him one of the primary heroes of the Confederate military effort. [my emphasis]In the social hierarchy of the prewar Slave Power, even slaveowners tended to regard slave traders themselves as odious characters. An interesting psychological phenomenon considering what an integral part of the slave system they were.
Forrest's postwar career was something I would find it difficult to call admirable:
After the war the general returned to Memphis, hoping to recoup some of his antebellum wealth. In 1867 the fledgling Ku Klux Klan chose Forrest to serve as its first Grand Wizard. Using both his Confederate and business contacts the general established a wide sphere of influence. Although Forrest and others later insisted that the Klan functioned only as a political organization, racial terrorism became the hallmark of Klan activities. Forrest, however, lost interest in the Klan once it outgrew his immediate authority. On the heels of several illfated business ventures, he contracted with the state of Tennessee to operate a farm on an island in the Mississippi River with a force of convict-lease laborers in 1875. Largely unsuccessful in recovering his former wealth, and his health probably aggravated by the unhealthy conditions on the island, Forrest died in 1877. [my emphasis]Carney's historical account provides the background of more recent disputes over Forrest's iconography discussed in the podcast.
One of the ways history merges with practical politics is in discussions and disputes over public monuments dealing with past events and historical figures. Defenders of Lost Cause symbolism try to deflect criticism of monuments to their chosen heroes like Nathan Bedford Forrest by claiming its about History in the abstract. Or about "Heritage".
But in reality, while history is about facts, it's always also about present understandings of those facts and current understandings of their significance.
Literary Fans of Forrest
Carney mentions that two notable admirers of the Forrest legacy were the "Southern Agrarian" Andrew Nelson Lytle (1902-1995) and Shelby Foote (1916–2005), the latter of whom because a bit of a Civil War history pop star thanks to Ken Burns' 1990 PBS documentary series The Civil War. That series was significant in the ongoing evolution of Forrest's image.
In 1990 PBS aired Ken Bums's documentary The Civil War, which featured Shelby Foote's view of Forrest and lacked any meaningful discussion of Forrest's racism. Forrest's ostensible personal charisma and military exploits far overshadowed Fort Pillow and the Klan, and the film left viewers with Foote's portrait of Forrest as simply "the most man in the world." [A refernce to the virility that Foote and other Forrest admirers stressed in their hero] Seen by millions of people, The Civil War had a profound impact on public interest in Forrest. Many people who had never even heard of Forrest could, after watching Bums's documentary, consider him an entertaining military genius who had summed up his years of experience with the signature phrase: "Get there first with the most men." Throughout the 1990s, military experts, business analysts, sportswriters, and entertainment reporters all used the phrase, often lacking either overt political content or an attribution to the general. [my emphasis]Carney also explains that Foote had been an active celebrant of the Forrest iconology:
At about this time, Shelby Foote became a ubiquitous presence at Forrest-related ceremonies. In 1974 Foote published the third and final volume of his popularly acclaimed history of the Civil War, a project he had begun soon after the completion of [his novel] Shiloh [that featured Forrest]. Although Forrest had been depicted in glowing terms in the first two volumes, the third volume undeniably displayed Foote's passionate admiration of the general, whose exploits filled this final installment. Fort Pillow and Brice's Crossroads, two battles regularly ignored or mentioned only in passing in other histories, received detailed treatment by Foote. To Foote, Forrest represented the lost hope of the Confederacy - a victor among the defeated. Foote had grown up in the same part of the South as Forrest and had devoted much of his career to presenting the general's remarkable accomplishments. Admirers of the general soon pronounced Foote the authority on their hero - and as such he also became the de facto spokesman for Forrest's public memory. [my emphasis]A copy of The 1776 Report as issued by the Trump White House is available from The 1776 Project.
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