Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

WYETH, John Allan.

Item Number: 123049

New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1899.

First edition of one of the scarcest and most controversial of all Confederate biographies. Octavo, original cloth, illustrated, tissue-guarded frontispiece of Forrest. In near fine condition.

Prominent Confederate Army general Nathan Bedford Forrest remains a controversial figure in the history of the United States, especially for his main role in the massacre of over 300 Union soldiers at Fort Pillow, a majority of them black, coupled with his post-war role as the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. In April 1864, in what has been called "one of the bleakest, saddest events of American military history" troops under Forrest's command massacred Union troops who had surrendered, a majority of them black soldiers, along with some white Tennessean Southern Loyalists fighting for the Union, at the Battle of Fort Pillow. Forrest was blamed for the massacre in the Union press, and this news may have strengthened the North's resolve to win the war. (Eicher, 657).