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Question about Confederate Statues

year2late said:
If they wew put up to disrespect civil rights laws...it would be nice to put it in historical perspective rather than tear it down.
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I have no indication that the were considering most of them were erected well before the Civil Rights Act
 
katzgar said:
You certainly don't know much about American history. There been any number of people that have been Central to America's cultural growth, social growth and creativity.
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Then build a statue to them. Most of the statues and memorials are built with private funds first and then turned over to the government. Nothing keeps you from honoring one of them if you think they should be honored/memorialized this way. If that is Adolph Hitler then so be it as long as you pay for it.
 
backpacker said:
Then build a statue to them. Most of the statues and memorials are built with private funds first and then turned over to the government. Nothing keeps you from honoring one of them if you think they should be honored/memorialized this way. If that is Adolph Hitler then so be it as long as you pay for it.
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Your post suggest some serious issues
 
MaggieD said:
If that is all true, I completely agree. Despicable. Absolutely right.

Of course, there's a but. People do NOT have the right to burn it or destroy it without permission from the town council or other powers that be. Why would we be arguing about this? I have no problem having these statues removed. None at all. But not by criminal however well-meaning you believe they are.

Edit... I can't IMAGINE how that statue has stood so long. The town, if what you say is true, should be ashamed. No wonder I'm hearing that towns themselves are taking them down.

Thank you fornthis information. I had no idea anyone would ever honor such an individual.
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I think the comment on Forrest from which you drew your conclusion was not entirely correct.

The key to dealing with Forrest, whatever your perspective or how twisted your conclusions might
have developed in the past, is to study the records and the actions of the man.
Give the General a fair look. He could have lived with the score.

No other soldier in any wars fought by men born of American soil was so praised by both those who
wrote history, those who fought against him and those who fought on his side.

1) His greatest adversary William T. Sherman called him “the most
remarkable man our civil war produced on either side’ & ‘he had a
strategy which was original & incomprehensible. There was no theory
or art of war by which I could calculate with any degree of certainty
what Forrest was up to.’

2) Shelby Foote who wrote the monumental 3-volume Civil War A Narrative:
Held that there were two authentic geniuses to emerge from the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln & Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest.

3) After his surrender, when asked by a Union Officer who he thought his greatest general was, General Robert E. Lee
replied, Sir, a gentleman I have never had the pleasure to meet, General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

About Fort Pillow the battle that the previous poster attempted to defame Forrest:

A Yankee Congressional investigation found that the black soldiers trying to flee to the Union gunboats under the bluff
blundered into the two Southern companies sent to prevent a Northern landing--failing to surrender;
they made the fatal error of firing on troops protected by ravines on both sides of them. Of course they were cut to shreds...
Forrest was tried for Fort Pillow but proven Innocent.

About Forrest and his black compatriots:

Forrest owned slaves many of them, when he went to war he made a pack with about a half-hundred of them.
Forrest:
'When I entered the army I
took forty-seven Negroes into the army with me, and forty-six of them surrendered with me. I
told these boys if we lose you will be made free. If we win the
fight and you stay with me I will free you all. Either way you will be freed. These boys stayed
with me, drove my teams, and better confederates did not live”.

In fact, part of his special command escort later called "the green berets" (ironic isn't it),
consisted of the most elite and best soldiers available, and among them were eight black men.
2 black men road with him the entire war. Napoleon Nelson and Nim Wilkes were their names.

Forrest as a soldier:
The Institute for Military Studies concluded that the Battle of Brice's Crossroads (won by Forrest),
was perhaps the most spectacular display of tactical genius during warfare.

The end of the main part of the Battle at Brice’s Crossroads centered on a small bridge across Tishomingo Creek.
The narrow structure soon became the bottleneck that devastated General Sturgis expeditionary force as horses,
wagons, cannon, and men attempted to cross the creek. The rains of the previous several days had raised
the water level of the creek, making it difficult to cross without using the bridge.

At Brices Crossroads Forrest captured 16 cannon, 1,500 stands of small arms, 300,000 rounds of
small arm ammunition, 16 ambulances, 176 wagons, 161 mules, 23 horses, and all of the
Federals' baggage and supplies. The Federal casualties included 223 killed, 394 wounded, and
1,623 missing, for a total of 2,240. The Confederates lost 96 killed and 396 wounded, for a total of 492.

Alone with that regal equestrian statue of Forrest in Memphis these words are inscribed.

"Those hoof beats die not upon fame's crimson sod,
But will ring through her song and her story;
He fought like a Titan and struck like a god,
And his dust is our ashes of glory."
 
Rogue Valley said:
Most Confederate Civil War monuments (obelisks, statues etc.) reside on public (tax-payer funded) properties that are managed by government agencies. For example, below is a statue of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest in a public park in Memphis, Tennessee. Before the war, Forrest was a successful slave trader. At the conclusion of the Battle of Fort Pillow (Henning, Tennessee) on 12 April 1864, rebels under Forrest's command massacred over 200 Union black soldiers that had surrendered. After the war, Forrest was a founder of the Ku Klux Klan and reputedly was the first KKK Grand Wizard. Personally, I can't imagine any reason to glorify the life of such a heinous individual.

image.jpg
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I can think of many!
 
slick said:
I think the comment on Forrest from which you drew your conclusion was not entirely correct.

The key to dealing with Forrest, whatever your perspective or how twisted your conclusions might
have developed in the past, is to study the records and the actions of the man.
Give the General a fair look. He could have lived with the score.

No other soldier in any wars fought by men born of American soil was so praised by both those who
wrote history, those who fought against him and those who fought on his side.

1) His greatest adversary William T. Sherman called him “the most
remarkable man our civil war produced on either side’ & ‘he had a
strategy which was original & incomprehensible. There was no theory
or art of war by which I could calculate with any degree of certainty
what Forrest was up to.’

2) Shelby Foote who wrote the monumental 3-volume Civil War A Narrative:
Held that there were two authentic geniuses to emerge from the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln & Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest.

3) After his surrender, when asked by a Union Officer who he thought his greatest general was, General Robert E. Lee
replied, Sir, a gentleman I have never had the pleasure to meet, General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

About Fort Pillow the battle that the previous poster attempted to defame Forrest:

A Yankee Congressional investigation found that the black soldiers trying to flee to the Union gunboats under the bluff
blundered into the two Southern companies sent to prevent a Northern landing--failing to surrender;
they made the fatal error of firing on troops protected by ravines on both sides of them. Of course they were cut to shreds...
Forrest was tried for Fort Pillow but proven Innocent.

About Forrest and his black compatriots:

Forrest owned slaves many of them, when he went to war he made a pack with about a half-hundred of them.
Forrest:
'When I entered the army I
took forty-seven Negroes into the army with me, and forty-six of them surrendered with me. I
told these boys if we lose you will be made free. If we win the
fight and you stay with me I will free you all. Either way you will be freed. These boys stayed
with me, drove my teams, and better confederates did not live”.

In fact, part of his special command escort later called "the green berets" (ironic isn't it),
consisted of the most elite and best soldiers available, and among them were eight black men.
2 black men road with him the entire war. Napoleon Nelson and Nim Wilkes were their names.

Forrest as a soldier:
The Institute for Military Studies concluded that the Battle of Brice's Crossroads (won by Forrest),
was perhaps the most spectacular display of tactical genius during warfare.

The end of the main part of the Battle at Brice’s Crossroads centered on a small bridge across Tishomingo Creek.
The narrow structure soon became the bottleneck that devastated General Sturgis expeditionary force as horses,
wagons, cannon, and men attempted to cross the creek. The rains of the previous several days had raised
the water level of the creek, making it difficult to cross without using the bridge.

At Brices Crossroads Forrest captured 16 cannon, 1,500 stands of small arms, 300,000 rounds of
small arm ammunition, 16 ambulances, 176 wagons, 161 mules, 23 horses, and all of the
Federals' baggage and supplies. The Federal casualties included 223 killed, 394 wounded, and
1,623 missing, for a total of 2,240. The Confederates lost 96 killed and 396 wounded, for a total of 492.

Alone with that regal equestrian statue of Forrest in Memphis these words are inscribed.

"Those hoof beats die not upon fame's crimson sod,
But will ring through her song and her story;
He fought like a Titan and struck like a god,
And his dust is our ashes of glory."
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What a great post!

Thank you for this brief immersion into history. It was chilling to read -in a good way. This is the history I hope will not be lost as we march further down the road of political correctness... as let a small and noisy minority change the fabric of our society.

Thank you for what is probably the most informative history posts I've ever read.

Excellent.
 
slick said:
I can think of many!
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The only thing the confederacy had going for it was generalship. The railroads, manufacturing, population, wealth, a superior navy/shipyards and Irish immigration all were assets the north held. Those involved in deciding to secede were no more than desperate idiots.
 
justabubba said:
please share them with us
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His fame is derived from his actions of brilliance on the battlefield that's established but it's interesting
to touch other aspects Of Forrest & his views on the important issues of his day:

' Forrest was not a 21st Century man who believed in
racial equality; he remained a man of his time,
sharing the almost-universal view of white
Europeans and Americans in the 19th Century that
Anglo-Saxons were superior to other peoples, but
neither was Forrest a reactionary racist who sought
a return to slavery. Forrest worked to accept the
end of slavery and the social changes resulting
from the war as indicated by his words to his men
in his 1865 farewell address. A recent biographer
of Forrest says “The reality is that over the
length of his lifetime Nathan Bedford Forrest's
racial attitudes probably developed more, and more
in the direction of liberal enlightenment, than
those of most other Americans in the nation's
history.”

He was intelligent, religious, yet poorly educated.
Unlettered, contemptuous of West Point formal
training, and given to insubordination, Forrest
nonetheless was a brilliant horseman and tactical
thinker He was a self made man
in an era of aristocratic snobbery in the south.
His manner reflected his upbringing.
Rough, and he demanded from others what he demanded
from himself.

Hundreds of newly freed African-Americans were
at his funeral, that suggests Forrest treated his servants well.
So it seems to me Forrest surely had better
relationships with blacks he counteracted with than many of the union
generals had who participated in the war at the head of black soldiers.
When his plantation was destroyed by the Union soldiers
many of those servants that use to work for him, came back free &
helped restore the damage.

During the war General Forrest was the law in the lawless Upper
Mississippi valley (UMV). With so many rouges, deserters, opportunists and criminals (in and out
of uniform) wandering the wasteland of the UMV, knowledge that General Forrest would get revenge
upon any dastardly act was enough to prevent many evil acts.'
 
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