The Jacksboro Gazette (Jacksboro, Tex.), Vol. 52, No. 8, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 23, 1931 Page: 3 of 8
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Dismounted Confederate Cavalry
Gen.
forrest C.SA
Forrest and His Critter Company"
N. B Forrest Before the Wdr
Drawback to a poor man leading a
double life is that he isn't getting a
double income.
- 9
Without doubt it is a delightful
harmony when doing and saying to-
gether.—Montaigne.
Imaginative people live for their
vacations.
Making Thing* Hum
Homer—Offices are installing ra-
dios because tests prove music
speeds up work.
Howard—Nothing like a catchy
tune to make things hum.—Border,
Cities Star.
Civilization, like evolution, never
stops.
—
iheMan WhpWghtHc
ave
Picture* hem "Bedford Forrest and Hi* Critter Company.”
Courtesy Minton, Batch & Company.
By ELMO SCOTT WATSON
most Americans the name of
Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest,
H Confederate cavalry leader, means
J the synonym for the author of a
famous epigram on how to win
battles. His method was to “git
thar fust with the mostest men.”
But what they do not realize is
that Forrest was more than just
the maker of ar historic phrase, a
picturesque , character personally
* and an unusually successful
cavalry leader. If the estimation of a
recent biographer Is correct, Forrest takes
his place among the greatest of all Amer-
ican military leaders, a master strategist
as well as a master tactician and the man who,
had it not been for the jealousy of a superior
officer, might easily have saved the “Lost Cause.”
The biographer is Andrew Nelson Lytle and his-
viewpoint is presented in the book, “Bedford
Forrest and His Critter Company,” published
recently by Minton, Balch and company.
Mr. Lytle has ample justification for his esti-
mate of Forrest. Gen. Robert E. Lee had a
great cavalry leader with his forces—the dash-
ing "Jeb” Stuart. But at Appomattox, when
somebody asked Lee who was the greatest sol-
dier In his command, he answered instantly,
“A man I have never seen, sir. His name is
Forrest.” A similac_tribute was paid to Forrest
by Jefferson Davis twelve years later. The
-former president of the Confederacy and Gov-
ernor Porter of Tennessee were riding In the
funeral procession which was carrying “Old
Bedford” to his grave. Turning to Davis, Por-
ter said, “History has accorded to General For-
rest the first place as a cavalry leader in the
war between the states and has named him as
one of the half dozen great soldiers of the
country.” To which Davis, graduate of West
Point and a professional soldier before he was
called to head a new American republic, replied,
"The trouble was that the generals commanding
In the southwest never appreciated Forrest until
It was too late. Their judgment was that he
was a bold and enterprising partisan raider
and rider. I was misled by them, and I never
knew how to measure him until I read his re-
ports of his campaign across the Tennessee
river In 1864. This induced a study of his
earlier reports, and after that I was prepared
to adopt what you are pleased to name as the
judgment of history.”
But to realize to the full the greatness of
Forrest one should turn to the words, not of his
friends, but of his enemies. Gen. William
Tecumseh Sherman who campaigned against
him in the Western campaigns never made the
mistake of underestimating his ability and Sher-
man once exclaimed, “I am going to get Forrest
H it costs 10,000 lives and breaks the treasury 1
There will never be peace in Tennessee until
Forrest is dead!” But he never did get him,
and the “Wizard of the Saddle," as the adoring
Southerners called him, went through four years
of spectacular leadership In war Without a
defeat, a record almost unparelleled in history.
As for “critter company" it Is the Tennes-
seean’s name for Forrest’s cavalry. Early In
the war, while Union troops were occupying
Tennessee Forrest “became overnight their par-
ticular ideal of what a soldier could be. They
could not understand strategic gains but they
could Understand his particular kind of fighting.
It was as plain and as heartening as sow-belly
and corn bread. The women now felt that they
had a defender. They began to threaten tyran-
nical Union officers with ‘Forrest will get yon
for this’ and ‘Pll tell or Forrest on you.’ They
soon learned that he was a bogey man they all
believed in.”
The same adoration given him by the people
was given by the men who followed him. They
referred to him aa “the old man” Just as_ Jack-
eon’s “foot cavalry” did to that leader. ' They
also called him “Old Bedford” in the same
'sense that Jackson’s men referred to “Old Jack.”
In return ha looked after them as a father
looks after his children. Nothing made Forrest
pore furious than a useless waste of lives In a
battle, especially if the lives were those of “his
boys.” He was the ideal cavalryman in liis
Judgment of horseflesh and of how to take care
of the mounts in his command.
Nathan Bedford Forrest was born in Bedford
county, Tennessee, in 1821. Little is known of
his life as a boy but what is known is mainly
a record of conflict, of fights with wild animals,
with bullies of the neighborhood and other evi-
dences to prove that Nathan Bedford was a
born fighter. In his early manhood he started
to'Texas to help fight for Texan independence
but arrived there only to find that there was no
need for his services. Penniless, young Forrest
- split enough rails at fifty cents a hundred to
pay his way back to Tennessee. Then he be-
came a horse trader and later, moving to Mem-
phis, became a broker in real estate and finally
a slaye trader, in all of which occupations he
prospered.
He next became an alderman in Memphis
after he had distinguished himself by daring, as
a private citizen, to save the lives of two mur-
derer* when a mob threatened to storm the jail
and when no one else dared to face the would-
be lynchers. Forrest planted himself in front
of the jail holding a six-shooter and calling out
to the mob In a clear firm voice, “If you come
by ones, or by tens, or by hundreds. I’ll kill any
man who tries to get in this jail.” The result of
this firm statement was that the mob of three
thousand quickly melted away. They knew that
Forrest meant exactly what he said.
After serving one year as an alderman For-
rest resigned in 1859 and became a cotton plant-
er. He was thus engaged when the Civil war
broke out and in June, 1861, instead of using his
influence to get a commission he enlisted as a
private in White’s Tennessee Mounted Rifles.
But his friends did what he would not do for
himself. They decided that the ranks were no
place for Forrest. So they prevailed upon the
Confederate authorities to give him a commis-
sion as lieutenant colonel and the authority to
raise a battalion of mounted rangers. Going
up into Kentucky (both because he could secure
excellent horses there and because every man
which he brought out of that state, which was
neutral but was a recruiting ground for both
governments, would weaken the enemy’s armies
Just that much) he returned to Memphis some
eight weeks later, having raised eight com-
’ panies, 650 strong. Then began his amazing
career as a cavalryman par excellence, as a
natural military genius whose exploits far out-
shown those of many trained soldiers and as a
thorn in the side of one Union general after
another.
Forrest knew nothing about military tactics
and cared less. In that regard he was an ideal
leader for the independent-spirited men under
his command. Drills and guard mounts were
obnoxious to them but their officers managed to
get results from them even without the formality
of giving commands in the prescribed manner.
Such expression as “Men, tangle into fours!
By turn around! Git!" would shock an army-
trained drillmaster speechless, but when such
commands were given to Forrest's men they
knew what was wanted and they obeyed.
Forrest had a fine contempt for West Point-
trained officers who fought according to rule
of the thumb. On one occasion, after a battle
which had been disastrous to the Southern
forces and which had-been fought according to a
plan to which Forrest had been oppposed, Gen.
Stephen D. Lee called a council of war. Lee
asked Forrest if he had any ideas. “Yes sir,”
said the cavalry leader. “I’ve always got Ideas,
and I’ll tell you one thing. General Lee. If I
knew as much about West Point tactics as you,
the Yankees would whip hell out of me every
day.”
As for the thesis that Forrest might have
saved the Confederacy from defeat, it is based
upon the fact that, as Lytle says, “the govern-
ment which first realized that the war would be
decided ultimately on western battlefields would
.have a decided advantage." and the premise that
If Forrest's genius had been recognized soon
enough by the Confederate government, if he
had been given a sufficient force and had not
been thwarted by a Jealous superior he might
have held the West indei.nitely and turned the
" ’ V.-
(jen. Braxton Zrayg
scale in favor of the Confederacy. But Presi-
dent Davis and his cabinet, their attention con-
centrated upon the Eastern theater of war and
upon holding Richmond, which was strategically
relatively unimportant, failed to see until It was
too late that if they lost the West they lost the
war. And Forrest, even though lie won victory
after victory, was forced to see his efforts re-
peatedly nullified by the inefficient Gbn. Brax-
ton Bragg, to whose weaknessess Davis seems to
have been strangely blind even though they were
soon enough recognized by other Confederate
generals and by the people of the Sooth.
The story of Forrest’s campaigns would take
a volume for the telling. He served brilliantly
at Fort Doneison and led his own forces safely
through the encircling Union lines to Nashville.
He could have done as much for Buckner's entire
nrmy had that general listened to him. But
Buckner didn’t listen and the result was wtiat
Lytle calls “a tragedy of errors”—the loss not
only of the fort but of Buckner's entire army.
Forrest captured a large Union force at Mur-
freesboro and made it possible for Bragg to take
the initiative away from Buell in the Kentucky
campaign.
He served gallantly at Shiloh, at Hog moun-
tain, and at Chickamauga and in innumerable
other actions where he was unhampered by the
orders of his “superiors" he proved repeatedly
that-here was one Confederate leader who knew
how to win battles. But always there was
the hand of Braxton Bragg to minimize or nullify
his success. Finally one day he stamped into
Bragg’s tent and declared, “You may as well not
issue any more orders to me, for I will not obey
them. And I will hold you personally respon-
sible for any further indignities you try to
inflict upon me. You have threatened to arrest
me for not obeying your orders promptly. 1
dare you to do it, and I say to you that if
you ever again try to interfere with me or cross
my path, it will be at the peril of your life.
And Bragg did not take the dare.
The closing days of the war found Forrest a
lieutenant general (a recognition which had
come too late) and placed in charge of all the
cavalry In the West—the last organized Con-
federate forces in that section. But by this
time his efforts were futile so far ns the out-
come of the war was concerned. Lee surren-
dered to Grant and Johnston to Sherman and
there was no further need for Forrest to lead
his “critter company” on those swift dashes
which had made him the nightmare of more
than one commander in blue. His men begged
him to lead them to Mexico to avoid summder-
lng. But he knew the game was up and sur-
rendered to General Canby.
After the war Forrest went to Mississippi to
become a planter again—taking as his partner a
Federal officer! Later he sold his plantation
and moved to Memphis. He was a delegate to
the first post-war Democratic convention and
when he went to New York he "attracted so
much attention that he could not move about
the streets without drawing a crowd"—such
was the fame of “the Wizard of the Saddle” in
the North. When the dark days of the Recon-
struction period came upon the South and the
Ku Klux Klan was organized to save it from
the Scalawag-Carpetbagger regime, Forrest was
offered the command of the new movement and
accepted it It had previously been offered to
Robert E. Lee but although he refused, he ap-
proved of the Idea, saying that his approval
must be “Invisible.” So the Ku Klux Klan be-
came the “Invisible Empire” and when the name
for a commander was brought up some one
suggested “Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the
Wizard of the Saddle.” So he, became “the
Grand Wizard of the Invisible Empire.”
By 1870 the work of the Ku Klux Klan had
Raved the South and Forrest disbanded it. There
were only a few more years of life left for him.
He died in Memphis October 29. 1877, and was
bhried in Elmwood cemetery. Later his body
was removed to a park set aside to his memory
in Memphis and nn equestrian statue raised
over it. So Bedford Forrest Mill rides in the
Sonth—in materia) form in this statue and in
spiritual form in the hearts of the people of
Tennessee who still tell their tales of “Old
Bedford, the Wizard of the Saddle.”
t£) by W«**era Newspaper Colon.)
Shampoo Regularly
with
Cntienra Soap
Cuticura Ointment
treatment will keep the scalp
healthy condition and the
soft and!
“Warm” Corpse Too Much
11 for Nerves of Ghouls
About one hundred years ago a
gentleman, well known for t^e mad
pranks in which he delighted, v:as
walking • ast a lonely kirkyard In
Midlothian when he saw a well-ap-
pointed horse and trap standing un-
attended before the gate. Curious to
know what this might mean, he
crouched in the ditch by the wall
and waited.
In a few moments two men came
out of the kirkyard carrying in a
sack a long object which they
propped up on end on the seat next
to the driver’s. Then they said
something about tools and went
back. Quick as thought the watcher
pulled down the sack, emptied its
grisly contents into the ditch, climbed
into the trap, got Into the sack, and
braced himself stiffly into position.
Hardly had he done so when the
two men returned and threw some
tools into the trap, after which one
got up in front and the other on the
back seat. “Wud” as he was, our
adventurer now began to repent of
his hastiness, reflecting that one
corpse was as good as another on
the dissecting table, where, in those
days, questions were by no means
always asked. Suddenly the driver
turned to his mate, and in accents
of crawling horror gasped, “Mon.
Jamie, the corp’s warm!" The “corp”
had presence of mind enough to
moan in a hollow tone. “We’re all
warm where I come from.”
There were two wild yells, (he
springs of the trap bounced furi-
ously. the horse broke into a gallop, 1
and when lie got out of his sack the l_
gentleman found himself alone, head-
ing for Edinburgh at a great pace.
The horse, trap, harness and tools
served him well for many years and
no one ever claimed them.—Edin-
burgh Scotsman.
Unhappy Wives
Husbands frequently neglect their health
—become “run-down” and irritable. You
who love him best of all, are usually first to
note when he looks and acts older than his
years.
Don’t merely be unhappy about his
health. Help him to new strength and
vitality by giving him Fellows' Syrup.
For men, and women too, it promptly im-
proves appetite. It banishes "nerves.” It
aids in rekindling new interest in living.
This wonderful tonic is famous ’round
the world, as Nature’s assistant in build-
ing up weakened systems. Most likely
your own doctor is among the many thou-
sands of physician»who regularly prescribe
it. Get genuine Fellows’ Syrup at your
druggist’s.
FELLOWS
SYRUP
Many of us worry too much about
the “problems of life” and give too lit-
le thought to the business of trying
o solve them.
Immortal “Will’s” Father
Feared Process Servers
Prosecution of Councillor Cox. of
Manchester, for not attending church
on Sunday, was founded on the Sun-
day Observance act of IG77. But the
law of England about compulsory
church observance was the same a
hundred years earlier, when Shake-
speare’s father was reported to the
Stratford authorities “for not com-
minge monethlie to Churche accord-
lnge to hir Majesties iawes."
But it was not lack of piety so
much as lack of pelf that kept John
Shakespeare away from the parish
church. For in the record, there is
tills note appended to his name and
the names of eight other offenders:
“It is sayde that these laste nine
coom not to Church for feare of
process for debtte."
It was on September 25, 1592, that
this record was made—just a year
before the publication of “Venus and
Adonis,” described by Shakespeare
in his dedication as “The first heire
of my invention.”—London Morning
Post.
Some seem to feel that fair-minded-
ness consists of putting on the stony
countenance and remarking, “One of
us is wrong.”
It may be, as a health expert says,
that hearty laughter is an enemy of
[lie flu. At tlie same time, the llu is
nothing to sneeze a>’..
“Edison's hunt for rubber to oontin-
iie," says a West Orange item. We
had intended right along to ask: was
it a left or right rubber?
Penology is the science of crowding
1,800 men into a prison built for 800,
and then holding investigations to find
>”t why they do nor like it.
Mail Collector’s Car
The British postal department is
experimenting with a car designed
to facilitate the collection of mail
matter. It is built low and open on
both sides and has the appearance
of being a cross between a small car
and a dairy delivery wagon. The
tests so far have shown that it speeds
up the work very greatly.
DAISY FLY KILLER
Placed anywhere, DAISY FLY KILLER attracts and
kills all flies Neat, clean, ornamental, convenient and
cheap. Lasts all sea-
son. Made of metal;
can't spill ertipovar;
will not soil or Injur*
anything. Guaranteed
Inula' upon DAISY FLY
KILLER from your dealer.
HAROLD SOMERS, BROOKLYN. N. Y.
Politeness to women, unfortu-
nately, is not invariably a guaranty
of respect for them.
You Know the Violet
“May I print a photograph of your
f>rize-winning violet?”
“No, it would shrink away."
TO KILL
Screw Worms
Your money back if you don’t like
Cannon’* Liniment. It kill* screw
worm*, heal* the wound and keeps
(lie* away. Ask your dealer. (Adv.)
Woman was born to love and be
loved and she fights it out on that
line.
An interesting symposium is when
each of a group of a dozen men tells
how his pocket was picked : and they
ell do.
GROVE
TGvsfC
i w. Of..■* Mi s»im. Td
.. j. your child
wont eat-
treat for Worms
When your child is finicky about food, pole,
irritable or restless, look for worms. Careful
mothers treat promptly with Dr. Jayne’s
Vermifuge. Worms are not always passed
in a recognizable form, but an improvement
in your child's health will show that your
judgment was correct.
FREE: A sample of Dr. Jayne's Sanative Pills for
constipation with every bottle of Vermifuge.
DR. D. JAYNE & SON, Philadelphia
OVER 36 MILLION BOTTLES USED
Jaynes Vermjfuqe
SWELLING REDUCED
And Short Breathing relieved when
caused by unnatural collection of
water In abdomen, feet and legs,
and when pressure above ankles
leaves a dent. Trial package FREE.
COLLUM MEDICINE COMPANY
Dept. D, Atlanta, Ga.
AT I .AST AT POPULAR PRICKS. What
you have been waiting for: French love
stories written In English: Balzac's Droll
Stories. $3.75, formerly $7.50: Decameron
irmerly $8.00. Not sold.
eiKhteen. AMERICA.
of Boccacio, $3.75. forn
to minors under eii
BOOK CO., 45 (Union 8t., Newark, N. JL
W. N. U., DALLAS, NO. 30-1931.
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Dennis, J. R. The Jacksboro Gazette (Jacksboro, Tex.), Vol. 52, No. 8, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 23, 1931, newspaper, July 23, 1931; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth729364/m1/3/?q=architectural+drawings: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Gladys Johnson Ritchie Library.