Posted on 08/01/2016 5:21:21 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
L8r
Buchanan and Pierce, two of the worst Presidents in American history.
Soon to be two of the worst presidents of the 19th century. The competition is getting stiff.
James Lee McDonough, William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country, A Life
I like the way they could use fancy, allusive language and still beat one another with sticks. Very classical.
I used to think I would never live to witness another President as bad as Jummuh Carter. Boy, was I ever wrong.
For Sumner to take three years to recover he must have been beaten to a bloody pulp.
Maybe he had other stuff wrong with him, or came down with the consequences of Medical Care.
My great-uncle Paul fell off a ladder and broke his leg. When he got to the hospital, they told him he had advanced liver disease (he drank), and he died in less than a week.
From "Bleeding Kansas," (Etcheson):
Brooks approached the Massachusetts senator and struck him over the head and shoulders with a cane. As Sumner struggled under the rain of blows, he wrenched his desk from its bolts. Several minutes elapsed before astonished congressmen restrained Brooks. Having sustained severe head injuries, Sumner did not return to the Senate for two and a half years. . . . In fact, as he had broken his cane over Sumner's head Southerners sent him replacements, including one engraved, "Hit Him Again."
Yikes! I don’t use a cane, but I’ve picked up several. It would take a lot of force to break one against a human body.
My father collected unusual canes for a while. I have a new sympathy for Sen. Sumner.
This biography has a different character than the others I have begun due to the fact that the historical record of Forrest’s life is skimpier than the rest. The biographer had to rely on the public record, mostly composed of legal notices, to trace the future general’s early life. That record is augmented by personal recollections of people who knew Forrest and had their memories recorded much later. Of course, there is also plenty of unverifiable legend surrounding this famous man. Jack Hurst has done a good job of sifting the available information and piecing together a picture of the origins of Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Forrest’s early life resembles Abraham Lincoln’s in the respect that both were born into harsh and primitive circumstances with families reliant upon subsistence farming for survival. Forrest, like Lincoln, received about 6 months of formal education. Unlike Lincoln, Forrest was fully satisfied with that and never yearned for more schooling. One result of that lack is that Forrest had no written correspondence with friends, relatives or business associates. That type of correspondence is a great source of material for biographers of more literary personalities.
Forrest was born July 13, 1821 and named for his paternal grandfather (Nathan) and the Tennessee county in which he was born (Bedford). A twin sister was also born, but she died young of typhoid fever, as did two other sisters and two of his eight younger brothers.
When he was a teen the family moved to Hernando, Mississippi. Like other people I have read about Forrest travelled south to take part in the Mexican War. In his case the effort came to naught because he did it in 1841, years before the war started. In order to earn return passage home he split rails. Around this time he began independent life by going into business selling agricultural products, such as seed and farm implements. This entailed becoming a slave trader in a small way. In 1852, seeing where the real money was to be made, he moved north to Memphis and went into the slave trading business full time.
The book then provides a good description of the sordid business of trafficking in human beings as it existed in the south in the first half of the nineteenth century. According to Forrest mythology he was especially humane to the slaves who passed through his hands, but Hurst shows that he probably was no better or worse than others in the trade. Forrest was a careful and thrifty businessman where his inventory was concerned. In connection with the slave business Forrest began to acquire farm lands as well as commercial property in Memphis. During slow times in the slave trading business he kept his stock productively occupied by raising cotton on his own property.
One way my knowledge is being enhanced during my reading – and this applies to all the books I have started – is that I am forced to refer to maps to understand the geography from the eastern mountains to the Mississippi Valley. The Mississippi River and other waterways play a vital role in the history we are covering and I find I don’t know as much about their courses as I thought. This deficiency is slowly being corrected.
Other vital events in Forrest’s pre-Civil War life were his marriage to Mary Ann Montgomery in 1845 and the death of a 6-year-old daughter, Fanny, in 1854. As Forrest becomes an increasingly prominent citizen of Memphis he will enter city politics, but that comes post-1856 and we will cover it later.
One part of the character of Nathan Bedford Forrest that became apparent even as a child is that he is not a person to be trifled with. Whether it is the panther that attacked and injured his mother when he was a boy or someone impugning his courage as a city councilman, he does not take injury sitting down.
I am only to page 67 of “Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography,” but based on the quality of what I have read so far I would recommend it to other readers.
It sounds like that’s a good bio.
Bttt.
5.56mm
I still recommend the Grant biography by Jean Edward Smith that I reported on back in March (reply #93) , but you should read “Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant” in conjunction with it. Of all the 19th century personalities I have read about this year Grant is the one I have come to like the most on the personal level. I got that from Smith’s book and “Memoirs” confirmed it. It also provides a look into his approach to life and sense of humor. He dwells on the positive and leaves out some of the negative things the later biographer wrote about. Of his resignation from the army – probably over an alcohol problem – and up until the Civil War grew near, he wrote very little. Given his sense of responsibility toward his family and his desire to succeed in life that was undoubtedly a very unhappy time for him. I don’t hold it against him at all that he danced lightly over that period in his memoirs, but I think his perseverance in a time of personal adversity shows his strength of character possibly more than he realized in his self-appraisal.
A question the Smith biography didn’t answer to my satisfaction is why Grant didn’t correct the error of changing his name from Hiram Ulysses Grant to Ulysses Simpson Grant on his entry to West Point. That was cleared up for the most part by Grant in the memoirs. He describes a conversation with his father about the appointment and quotes his father calling him “Ulysses.” So that is apparently how he was known in his family. That would make the change from Hiram U. to Ulysses S. less of an issue, so the unassuming young man would have been less likely to raise a fuss about it. He might also have figured the matter would have worked out to his benefit. The nickname obsessed cadets made hay of the “U.S.”, which no doubt played better than “H.U.G.” might have done.
Here is a quote from early in the book I found interesting:
The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times.
Volume One of Memoirs covers the period through October 16, 1863. Volume Two ends with the conclusion of hostilities and doesn’t cover Grant’s time as president.
Bttt.
5.56mm
Frankly, your posts are one of the few things that draws me here any more.
The Mexican War was a war of aggression, pushed by slave owners looking to add more slave states. No Americans wanted to hand the southwest back to Mexico, but the unjust nature of the war was obvious even at the time.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas, abridged by Thomas J. Pressly
Boy, that takes me back. John C. Fremont as a serious candidate, good grief.
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