Skip to content
EntityQ366102· pop 37· linked from 1,364 articles

Nathan Bedford Forrest

Sign in to save

Also known as Nathan B. Forrest, Nathan Forrest

Confederate States Army general (1821-1877)

OverviewAI-generated

Nathan Bedford Forrest was a male singer from the United Kingdom, with a career beginning in 1861. He is associated with three works, including *On the third day*, *Give 'em hell boys!*, and *Gunboats and cavalry*. His recorded quotes include "Get there first with the most men," "I never see a pen but I think of a snake," and "Every moment lost is worth the life of a thousand men."

Born in 1821, Forrest died in 1877. His subject matter is covered in 1,364 other encyclopedia articles.

Synthesized by Vinony from 21 facts across 7 sources: Wikidata, Last.fm, Crossref, Wikiquote, MusicBrainz, Open Library, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born
1821
Died
1877
Works
3

Top works

  • On the third day
  • Give 'em hell boys!
  • Gunboats and cavalry

via Open Library + Wikidata

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
3
Total plays
5

<a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Nathan+Bedford+Forrest">Read more on Last.fm</a>

via Last.fm · Nathan Bedford Forrest

Quotes

  • Get there first with the most men.
  • I am opposed to it under any and all circumstances, and in our convention urged our party not to commit themselves at all upon the subject.
  • I never see a pen but I think of a snake.
  • When I entered the army I took forty-seven negroes into the army with me, and forty-five of them were surrendered with me. I said to them at the start: "This fight is against slavery; if we lose it, you will be made free."
  • Every moment lost is worth the life of a thousand men.
  • Boys, do you hear that musketry and that artillery? It means that our friends are falling by the hundreds at the hands of the enemy, and here we are guarding a damned creek! Let's go and help them. What do you say?

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Nicknames
"Old Bed" , "Wizard of the Saddle"
Born
Nathan Bedford Forrest , ( 1821-07-13 ) July 13, 1821, Chapel Hill, Tennessee , U.S.
Died
October 29, 1877 (1877-10-29) (aged 56), Memphis, Tennessee , U.S.
Buried
Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
Allegiance
Confederate States
Branch
Confederate States Army
Service years
1861–1865
Rank
Lieutenant General
Unit
White's Company "E" "Tennessee Mounted Rifles" 6th Tennessee Cavalry Battalion Forrest's Cavalry Corps
Commands
3rd Tennessee Cavalry Forrest's Cavalry Corps Forrest's Cavalry Division Forrest's Cavalry Brigade
Relations
Brother John N. Forrest Brother William H. Forrest Brother Aaron H. Forrest Brother Jesse A. Forrest Brother Jeffrey E. Forrest Half-Brother Mat Luxton Gr.Daughter Mary Forrest Bradley Gr.Son Nathan Bedford Forrest II Gr.Gr.Son Nathan Bedford Forrest III

via Wikipedia infobox

~40 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821 – October 29, 1877) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, noted for his aggressive cavalry tactics and rapid rise from private to general, and later served briefly as the first Grand Wizard of the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan.

Before the Civil War, Forrest amassed substantial wealth as a horse and cattle trader, real estate broker, and cotton plantation owner, and was also directly involved in the interstate slave trade, including operating a slave jail in Memphis. In June 1861, shortly after the Civil War began with the splitting of the United States into the Union and the Confederacy, Forrest enlisted in the Confederate Army. Forrest became one of the few soldiers during the war to enlist as a private and be promoted to general without previous military training. An expert cavalry leader, Forrest was given command of a cavalry corps and established new doctrines for mobile forces, earning him the nickname "The Wizard of the Saddle". He used his cavalry troops as mounted infantry and often deployed artillery as the lead in battle, thus helping to "revolutionize cavalry tactics".

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Nathan Bedford Forrest” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.