Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-11-03
a Great warrior Gone to his Rest.

Died, on Monday, Oct. 18th, Gen.
Nathan Bedford Forrest, in the 56th
year of his age; well known as one
of the great cavalry officers in our
civil war.
Gen. Forrest was born near Duck
river, Tenn, in what was then Bed
ford county, but has since become a
part of Marshall county. In 1884
he removed with his father to Tip
pah county, Miss, where the father
died in 1887, leaving him at the age
of sixteen the eldest of the ten child
rem, whose sole dependence was
upon him. In 1886 and 1887 he had
for the first time in his life the OPP
portunity ofattending school, where
he rapidly acquired the rudiments
of an education, becoming especial
ly an adept in arithmetic, rapid and
accurate calculation being one of
his characteristics throughout life.
In 1871 he went to Texas, the goal
of adventurous young men, but re-
turned the next year, summoned by
the necessities of the family, and
then took up his abode in Herman
do, Miss. 1t was here that he had
the first of that long list of personal
encounters which, previously to the
war, spread his name widely and
covered him with glory or obliquy
according to mems ways of looking
upon such transactions; imperturb-
| able GOODNESS and indOmitable cour-
! age were known to all men as his
characterics in these encounters. He
married in 1916 Miss Mary Ann
Montgomery, who survives him,
and in 1852 removed to Memphis,
Tenn, where his remarkable bust
ness talents and unwearied exer-
tiOns were soon crowned with the
acquisition of large fortune. The
same talents rendered him valued
counsellor in the corporate business
of the city when acting in the ca
pacity of Alderman, to which Office
he was frequently elected.
One of his achievements should |
be noted from the fact of his exhib- /
iting his great personal courage in
favor of the law rather than against |
it. He rescued a man named Abel, |
a gambler who had killed number !
of men, from the terrOrs of lynch |
law by boldly confronting the crowd |
and carrying off the victim from |
the clutches of an Infatuated mob.
His achievements during the war
are part of the military history of |
he country; his impetuOus courage |
is well known, his love and tender |
regard for the comfort of his men |
much less so, being less in accord |
with the popular and erroneous es-
innate of his character. No man |
ever served with him without be- |
coming bound to him by an attach
ment which approached idolatry.
But to those who best knew him
this trait was no surprise, as it was
one for which his tenderness and af-
lection in his domestic relations full
Iy prepared him. No man has been
so persistently and angrily de
nOunced by Northern men for his
army record as General Forrest.
The basis Of most of these attacks
is, i'm most cases, the transaction on
an island in the Mississippi called
"The Massacre Of Nine-mile Is
land" In substance what occurred |
is this: A large number of negroes
had been captured on the island and
fired on their captOrs after they had
surrendered. General Forrest did
exactly what any General of any
nation would have dOne-caused the
men to be shot who had violated
the terms of their surrender, and
the severity was the more necessary
in this case than in most, because
the number of captors was small,
that Of the prisoners very large.
Since the war General Forrest has
been engaged in business with sue
cess. a year before his death he
joined the Cumberland Presbyterian
Church, of which he is said to have
been a consistent member and to /
have met death with firmness and |
tranquility, rejoicing in Christian
hope of redemption. His name |
will be a conspicuous inscription on
every tablet which records the
achievements of the Southern army. |