Posted on 09/10/2007 7:48:32 AM PDT by meandog
When the Klan was founded there was good reason for it. The end of the war unleashed a flood of human trash on the South, and the federal government failed to protect against it. I am old enough to remember relatives who lived through reconstruction, and the stories they could tell. It was a terrible period in history.
“When the Klan was founded there was good reason for it. The end of the war unleashed a flood of human trash on the South, and the federal government failed to protect against it. I am old enough to remember relatives who lived through reconstruction, and the stories they could tell. It was a terrible period in history.”
Kinda like the private militias in Iraq today? I mean, if someone needs killin....
Who are you to pass judgement on Nathan Bedford Forrest? You'll never come close to being even a small fraction of the Man that Forrest was. You're a nothing.......a nobody.....and no doubt won't even merit a footnote in history.
you mean where people continued to fight after surrendering?
Yes.
Forrest offered to treat both the Black troops and the scalawag White troops as prisoners of war if they surrendered. The union commander refused, and the fort was never surrendered - it was taken by storm.
If you are looking for goats at Fort Pillow, the defending troops were poorly commanded by Bradford, and the commander of the New Era refused to cover the retreat.
LOL! I never knew a person’s standpoint on Gen. Forrest was such a vital conservative issue.
From wikipedia:
When Forrest testified before a Congressional investigation in 1871 ("The reports of Committees, House of Representatives, second session, forty-second congress," P. 7-449) the committee concluded that Forrest's involvement with the Klan was to attempt to order it to disband. They found no evidence that he had founded the Klan, that he had led the Klan or that he had acted to advise it other than to make efforts to have it disband.
On July 5, 1875, Forrest became the first white man to speak to the Independent Order of Pole-Bearers Association, a civil rights group whose members were former slaves. Although his speech was short, he expressed the opinion that blacks had the right to vote for any candidates they wanted and that the role of blacks should be elevated. He ended the speech by kissing the cheek of one of the daughters of one of the Pole-Bearer members.[1][2]
Then how do you explain the Black prisoners who survived?
One Memphis newspaper emphasized the surprising presence of mourning blacks, who seemed to display "a genuine sorrow in the death of the great soldier."
Rightly assuming that many readers would doubt the sincerity of freed people grieving over the death of a renowned slave trader, the reporter added that the African Americans in attendance had nothing but praise for Forrest. "The negroes," he wrote, "had opportunities to see and know [Forrest's] goodness and to recognize his charity and benevolence."
The Contested Image of Nathan Bedford Forrest Court Carney The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 67, No. 3. (Aug., 2001), pp. 601-630.
Prove it....the Federals absolved him as did the Union commanders at Ft Pillow who survived...their drunken at the time commander did not.
as for slavery, we'll let's just toss out everyone in recorded history till the late 1800s who had any hand in it.....it will be a small exclusive club left that you can cheerlead for
If he was a sore loser, he woulda left for Mexico when asked.
he is on record declaring a guerilla war as dishonorable
that he was bigoted hardly distinguishes him from any white man at the time ...north or south...or any political party
exactly....disenfranchised whites and union occupation and carpetbaggers and illiterates being waltzed into office
what did they expect an army they had fought for 5 years to do
collaborate?
hardly
That's odd......why then after the battle were there some 226 yankee prisoners marched away under Bell's command to Mississippi? Additionally....Forrest's command negotiated a truce with a Federal steamer to pick up the wounded Yankee prisoners.......among them some 40 negroes.
I would rather be a nothing in history than have a legacy as tarnished as his. What other legacy has Forrest given us besides the KKK? One hundred and thirty years after his death, what else is left of his legacy?
He is among the greatest military leaders in American history. That is undisputed.
What is physically left of his life, however, is one of the worst organizations ever to exist on American soil.
I don’t believe you have enough knowledge of the period to make any statements regarding Nathan Bedford Forrest or his involvement with the Ku Klux Clan.
“War means a-fightin’ an’ fightin’ means a-killin’”?
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