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Bedford Forrest: and His Critter Company

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In terms of his impact on modern warfare, no general of the Civil War had more than Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. Not Grant, not Lee, not Longstreet or Sherman. This is the man. No less a general than Erwin Rommel studied Forrest's tactics and implemented them with modern weaponry when his Afrika Korps marched all over Libya and Egypt in World War II.

The reason I say this book isn't for the "politically correct" is that it was written some 70 years ago, by a man of the old South who obviously idolized Forrest and everything he stood for. As you know already, not everything Forrest stood for was good. He was 100 years ahead of his time as a soldier, but stuck in 1860 in his personal beliefs.

But...getting into the book. He was a brilliant commander who never had enough men under his command to turn the war in the South's favor. Still, he was a hero to the people of the Tennessee river valley where he won most of his victories, with good reason. When the Union troops overran these areas and placed them under military rule, Forrest made sure they treated the citizens decently. Once he even saved a group of innocent men from a flaming death at the hands of vengeful Union soldiers whom he was defeating in battle. Reading these and other stories makes you understand why he was such a hero to the author, who would have heard first-hand accounts of Forrest's exploits.

Lytle believes that the South would have won the war if Forrest had been placed in command of the main Confederate army in the west, and he's probably right. Forrest was an extraordinary individual who had more impact on the 20th century than any other Civil War general.

Great book and a fast read with lots of information. After reading this book I was left with the feeling that bragg was working for the yanks! If only we had a little extra money a couple thousand more men, supplies and had listened to the likes of Longstreet and Forrest . How things would be different in todays politics. Let's hope that one day movies depicting true southern patriots and the real causes concerning the war for southern independence will light up the screens. END

I never fully appreciated the intellect of Forrest until I finished this book. It peels away the myths about the man, and tells about what he was really like. I loved it, and often flip around in it from time to time. A must for Civil War buffs!

Andrew Lytle was the dean of Southern writers, and in this work -- one of his earliest -- he not only brought to life America's greatest military figure, but an age and a people as well. It was Lytle's aim to make the times of Nathan Bedford Forrest come alive for the reader. He devoted himself to intensive research of the Tennessee where Forrest was born and the Mississippi where he lived.

In reading this book we not only learn about the marvellous -- indeed, often incredible -- feats of a military genius, but we learn at the same time about the people, the places, the morals, the values, and the way of life of a people long gone now. (Lytle's subsequent book, A Wake for the Living, deals more pointedly with how much of the good of those days we have lost.)

This book, although a worthy history, reads like a novel. It truly is one that is hard to put down once you get started.

Cunning as the Devil was Nathan Bedford Forrest and this book indicates just how quick and clever this military genius was. Little wonder then that Lee considered this dark knight to be his finest soldier, above even the legendary Stonewall Jackson.

History can suffer at the hands of its practitioners, but that is certainly not the case here. Lytle can write and Forrest is the beneficiary of his talent. Lytle seeks to communicate the essence of the man and his time and largely succeeds. Although a vivid portrait of Forrest the man emerges, my one word impression of Forrest after reading this book is Warrior! I found it hard to put down. But I wouldn't want to run in to him in a dark alley wearing a Yankee uniform!

While Bedford Forrest was a fascinating caracter and natural leader the author must also be commended for bringing him to life so well. Lytle is obviously a fan and fortunately is able to write well. The story is almost like a good novel it is so readable. There is little doubt that the South lost the war in the western theatre, largely through incompetent leadership. Had Bedford Forrest been commander of the Confederate armies there it is easy to believe that the war might have been over in 1862 with the South victorious. The entire history of the world might have been very different then. Such minor points can have world changing pivotal historical consequences. Had Oggodai not died in 1240 just before the Mongols were about to ravage western Europe we might never have had a Renaissance or Industrial Revolution and therefore no modern civilization. Unfortunately, Bedford Forrest was not in a position to make a significant difference and the war dragged on to its bloody conclusion and resulted in the death of the ideals of the American Republic. He was of a type which was not uncommon on the early American frontier and was epitomised by the likes of Andrew Jackson, Jim Bowie, Davy Crocket and a contempory of his, John Moseby. Men of great physical strength and courage and personal honour. Larger than life individuals, the absolute anthithesis of the types who rule America today. War is a nasty business as people like Grant and Sherman demonstrated, but characters like Bedford Forrest did put some glamour into the whole sordid affair. This book is a valuable addition to the history of the Civil War.

Do you want Forrest, unblemished? All most all biographers take a gray paint to Forrest and his tactics. This book gives you Forrest and his true character; this is his portrait of life as it was.

This book was written over 70 years ago and it creaks in many ways, but anything reasonably done on Bedford Forrest still makes for lively reading, and this is no exception. There just aren't that many commanding generals who personally lead from the front, charging headfirst into hand to hand combat, often ahead of his own troops, surrounded time after time and personally cutting his way out and through the Yankee forces. and, of course it wasn't just a matter of his courage or skill with pistol and sword, he was clearly the true self-taught military genius of the war. This is a peculiar sort of historical work, with nary a footnote to bless yourself with, so one must take a lot of what the author says on faith, or not. It's a very preachy work in the first half, as Forrest represents the ideal yeoman farmer for the author and he goes to considerable length early on to promote this thought while denigrating the wealthy cotton plantation owners who solely pursue financial profit from the land. For those of you who are William Faulkner fans, you may find this fascinating, but the rest of humanity in the 21st century will likely find this portion dreadfully dull. And, to counterbalance Bedford Forrest as the ultimate ideal of the Southern farmer, the author feels compelled to present the devil himself for Forrest to wrestle with over and over again in the war, not Sherman or Grant, but Braxton Bragg. The author is so obsessed with the archdemon Bragg that for a considerable amount of the first half of the book it deals so much with Bragg that Forrest himself tends to disappear and we learn next to nothing about his pre-war life, aside from a few stories of his youth, when he kilt a bar when he was only three. Jefferson Davis and John Bell Hood also come in for a number of deserved lumps, but no one else gets the Bragg treatment.

The book really gathers steam though when the author decides to concentrate on Forrest and his depictions of the various campaigns and battles are stirringly told. Some of the campaigns will be difficult for anyone unfamiliar with the geography to follow though as almost no maps appear anywhere in the book. But, the battles are the thing here and no other figure of the Civil War comes close to Bedford Forrest in raising and arming his own troops, often behind enemy lines, overcoming long odds against a wide variety of foes in highly original fashion, while constantly exposing himself to every conceivable danger from the very beginning of the war to its very end. Frequently wounded in personal combat and once by one of his own officers, with numerous horses shot out from under him, often more than one of the same day, the main wonder of his story is that he actually survived the war. It's also clear that he received a lot more respect and recognition from his foes than he did his own commanders.

It should be noted though that this book is more than simply non- PC. It was written more that 70 years ago, by a man who was very much a product of his time and place. The N word repeatedly appears throughout, but it's not simply that. He likes to add comic and unnecessary asides from time to time to provide a little "color" to his prose. It's clear he bears no respect whatever for the black Union troops who served in the war, and can never bring himself to actually refer to them as soldiers. Usually, when they are referenced, it's along the lines of some battle had 3,000 Union forces and 500 negroes, as if they were some sort of mob. The final chapter of the book deals largely with Forrest's role as the first Imperial Wizard of the KKK, an organization the author openly regards as heroic and praiseworthy in its efforts. The interesting thing for me was to read the forward, published by the author himself some 50 years later without apology or even acknowledgement of these things. It's clear enough that as brave and heroic and relentless as Forrest was during the war, he remains a figure of considerable controversy to this day even within his home state of Mississippi, given the very recent flap over the proposed state license tag bearing his name and image.