Editing Nathan Bedford Forrest (section)

==Early life and career==
[[File:Nathan Bedford Forrest Boyhood Home.jpg|thumb|left|[[Nathan Bedford Forrest Boyhood Home]], Chapel Hill, Tennessee (2021)]]
Nathan Bedford Forrest was born July 13, 1821 to Miriam (Beck) and William Forrest, a poor settler family living in a secluded frontier cabin near the [[hamlet (place)|hamlet]] of [[Chapel Hill, Tennessee]] (then part of [[Bedford County, Tennessee|Bedford County]], but now in [[Marshall County, Tennessee|Marshall County]]).<ref name="Young1914">{{cite book |author=Bennett Henderson Young|title=Confederate Wizards of the Saddle: Being Reminiscences and Observations of One who Rode with Morgan|url=https://archive.org/details/confederatewizar00youn |year=1914|publisher=Chapple Publishing Company, Limited|location=Boston, Massachusetts|page=[https://archive.org/details/confederatewizar00youn/page/126 126]}}</ref>{{sfn|Spaulding|1931|p=532}}

[[File:Crop and autotune Forrest's early home in Hernando, Mississippi from Mathes, J. Harvey - 1902 - General Forrest - facing page 11.jpg|thumb |Early home of the Forrest family in [[Hernando, Mississippi]], photograph published 1902]]
His father was of English descent, and while most of Nathan's biographers state that his mother was of [[Scotch-Irish Americans|Scotch-Irish]] descent, the Memphis Genealogical Society asserts that she, too, was of English descent.<ref>{{cite book|title=Ansearchin' News |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bCtZAAAAMAAJ&q=%22They%20were%20of%20English%20origin%22|year=1996|publisher=Memphis Genealogical Society |page=39|quote=It is time to publish the truth about Miriam Beck Forrest and her family. They were of English origin and came from Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Miriam's parents, John Emasy Beck and his wife, Frances Watts, were among the earlier settlers of Bedford Co., Tenn. John Emasy's grandfather was Jeffrey Beck, born in Bucks Co., Pa., to Edward and Sarah Beck and moved via Virginia to North Carolina |access-date=April 26, 2020|archive-date=May 9, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509162406/https://books.google.com/books?id=bCtZAAAAMAAJ&q=%22They%20were%20of%20English%20origin%22|url-status=live}}</ref>

He and his twin sister, Fanny, were the two eldest of 12 children. Their great-grandfather, Shadrach Forrest, moved between 1730 and 1740 from [[Virginia]] to [[North Carolina]], where both his son (Bedford's grandfather) and grandson (Bedford's father) were born; they moved to Tennessee in 1806{{sfn|Spaulding|1931|p=532}} and he died in [[Bedford, Tennessee]] the year before Nathan Bedford was born. Forrest's family lived in a log house (now preserved as the [[Nathan Bedford Forrest Boyhood Home]]) from 1830 to 1833.<ref>{{cite web|title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory{{snd}}Nomination Form: Nathan Bedford Forrest Boyhood Home|url=https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/8ce5812c-f929-4b35-b606-b24a73e3e2cf|website=National Park Service|publisher=United States Department of the Interior|access-date=December 1, 2017|archive-date=September 29, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230929211802/https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/8ce5812c-f929-4b35-b606-b24a73e3e2cf|url-status=live}}</ref> [[John Allan Wyeth]], who served in an Alabama regiment under Forrest, described it as a one-room building with a loft and no windows.<ref>{{harvnb|Wyeth|1989|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=skGjjKeIZ1QC&pg=PA1 1]}}. "The cabin, which was his mother's home, claimed no more than eighteen by twenty feet of earth to rest upon, with a single room below and half-room or [[loft]] overhead. One end of this building was almost entirely given up to the broad fireplace, while near the middle of each side swung, on wooden hinges, a door. There was no need of a window, for light and air found ready access through the doorways and cracks, and down through the wide chimney. A pane of glass was a luxury as yet unknown to this primitive life. Around and near the house was a cleared patch of land containing several acres enclosed with a straight stake fence of cedar rails, and by short cross fences divided into a yard immediately about the cabin; rearward of this a garden, and a young orchard of peach, apple, pear, and plum trees."</ref>

William Forrest continued blacksmithing in Tennessee until 1834, when the family moved to [[Salem, Mississippi]].{{sfn|Spaulding|1931|p=532}}<ref>{{cite news|last=Elkins |first=Ashley|date=June 4, 2000|title=HED: Surprisingly scenic |url=https://www.djournal.com/news/hed-surprisingly-scenic/article_82baa3d6-fc90-505f-80b9-5ed6ccce5cce.html |work=djournal.com|access-date=July 13, 2021|archive-date=September 29, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230929211802/https://www.djournal.com/news/hed-surprisingly-scenic/article_82baa3d6-fc90-505f-80b9-5ed6ccce5cce.html|url-status=live}}</ref> When his father died in 1837, Nathan became the primary caretaker of the family at age 16.{{sfn|Spaulding|1931|p=532}} Forrest ventured into a business partnership with his uncle Jonathan Forrest in [[Hernando, Mississippi]] in 1841. His uncle was subsequently killed at the business in 1845 by the Matlock brothers during an argument. In retaliation, Bedford shot and killed two of them with his two-shot pistol and wounded two others with a borrowed knife thrown to him. One brother later served under Forrest's command, for a time, during the Civil War.<ref>{{citation|last=Gitlin|first=Marty|year=2009|title=The Ku Klux Klan: A Guide to an American Subculture |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DJ4YHu0DX0AC&pg=PA66|publisher=ABC-CLIO|page=66|isbn=978-0313365768|access-date=December 11, 2015|archive-date=May 9, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509162524/https://books.google.com/books?id=DJ4YHu0DX0AC&pg=PA66|url-status=live}}</ref> Forrest's early business ventures included a [[Livery yard|livery stable]], a [[stagecoach]] line, and a [[brickyard]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Huebner |first=Timothy S. |date=December 27, 2017 |title=Confronting the true history of Forrest the slave trader |pages=15A |work=The Knoxville News-Sentinel |department=Opinion |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-knoxville-news-sentinel-confronting/128490393/ |access-date=July 19, 2023 |archive-date=September 29, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230929214007/https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-knoxville-news-sentinel-confronting/128490393/ |url-status=live }}</ref> He became well known as a Memphis speculator and Mississippi gambler.<ref>Ward 2006, p. 31</ref>

{{image flip|[[File:"N. B. Forrest—Before the War" from Andrew Nelson Lytle's Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company (1931).jpg|left |thumb|upright|"N. B. Forrest – Before the War" from Andrew Nelson Lytle's ''Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company'' (1931)]]}}
In 1858, Forrest was elected a Memphis city [[alderman]] as a [[History of the Democratic Party (United States)#North and South pull apart|Southern Democrat]] and served two consecutive terms.<ref name="Wills2014">{{cite book|author=Brian Steel Wills|title=The River Was Dyed with Blood: Nathan Bedford Forrest and Fort Pillow|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WUocAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT35|year=2014|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=978-0-8061-4604-1|page=35|access-date=March 13, 2018|archive-date=May 9, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509163556/https://books.google.com/books?id=WUocAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT35#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{citation|url=http://www.inmotionaame.org/gallery/detail.cfm;jsessionid=8030570241121831204263?migration=3&topic=5&id=342018&type=image&metadata=show&page=&bhcp=1|title=Domestic slave trade site|publisher=Inmotionaame.org|access-date=October 9, 2012|archive-date=March 20, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120320214214/http://www.inmotionaame.org/gallery/detail.cfm;jsessionid=8030570241121831204263?migration=3&topic=5&id=342018&type=image&metadata=show&page=&bhcp=1|url-status=dead}}</ref> He purchased two large cotton plantations in [[Coahoma County, Mississippi]] and bought a [[Concurrent estate|one-half property interest]] in an Arkansas plantation in 1859;<ref name="Mathes1902">{{cite book|author=James Harvey Mathes|title=General Forrest|url=https://archive.org/details/generalforrest01mathgoog |year=1902|publisher=D. Appleton and Company|page=[https://archive.org/details/generalforrest01mathgoog/page/n249 16]}}</ref> by October 1860, he owned at least 3,345 acres in Mississippi.{{sfn|Hurst|2011|p=64}} He acquired several [[cotton]] plantations in [[Mississippi Delta|the Delta]] region of [[West Tennessee]].{{sfn|Spaulding|1931|p=532}}{{sfn|Hurst|1993|p=57}}{{sfn|Spaulding|1931|p=532}}{{sfn|Axelrod|2011|p=84}} By the time the [[American Civil War]] started in 1861, he had become one of the wealthiest men in the Southern United States, having amassed a "personal fortune that he claimed was worth $1.5 million".<ref>{{citation|last=Winik|first=Jay |year=2002|title=April 1865: The Month That Saved America |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s1aAXrO9zPAC&pg=PA276 |publisher=Harper Perennial|page=176|isbn=978-0060930882 |access-date=November 18, 2020|archive-date=May 9, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509163625/https://books.google.com/books?id=s1aAXrO9zPAC&pg=PA276|url-status=live}}</ref>

Forrest stood {{convert|6|ft|2|in|m|sp=us}} in height, weighed about {{convert|180|lb|kg}}, rarely drank and abstained from tobacco use.<ref name="YaleWhite1970">{{cite book|author1=Wesley W. Yale|author2=Isaac Davis White|author3=Hasso von Manteuffel |title=Alternative to Armageddon: The Peace Potential of Lightning War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y-4EAAAAMAAJ |year=1970|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=978-0813506661 |access-date=March 4, 2018|archive-date=May 9, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509163425/https://books.google.com/books?id=Y-4EAAAAMAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Browning|2004|p=8}}<ref name="Ross2008">{{cite book|author=D. Reid Ross|title=Lincoln's Veteran Volunteers Win the War: The Hudson Valley's Ross Brothers and the Union's Fight for Emancipation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=94nIAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA276|year=2008|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-0-7914-7641-3|page=276|access-date=March 4, 2018|archive-date=May 9, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509163617/https://books.google.com/books?id=94nIAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA276#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Knight2014" /> He was known as a tireless rider in the saddle and a skilled [[Swordsmanship|swordsman]].<ref name="Gentry1972">{{cite book|author=Claude Gentry|title=General Nathan Bedford Forrest: The Boy and the Man|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cFlLAAAAYAAJ&q=%22contrary%20to%20military%20custom%22|year=1972|publisher=Magnolia Publishers|page=48|access-date=March 1, 2018|archive-date=May 9, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509163610/https://books.google.com/books?id=cFlLAAAAYAAJ&q=%22contrary%20to%20military%20custom%22|url-status=live}}</ref> Forrest was noted as having a "striking and commanding presence" by U.S. Army Captain Lewis Hosea, an aide to Gen. [[James H. Wilson]]. He was often described as generally mild-mannered, but according to Hosea and other contemporaries who knew him, his demeanor changed drastically when provoked or angered.<ref name="Jones2015">{{cite book|author=James Pickett Jones|title=Yankee Blitzkrieg: Wilson's Raid through Alabama and Georgia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TNEeBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA41 |year=2015|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|isbn=978-0-8131-6164-8|page=41|access-date=August 30, 2019|archive-date=May 9, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509163630/https://books.google.com/books?id=TNEeBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA41#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> Although he was not formally educated, according to Spaulding, Forrest was able to read and write clear and grammatical English, although he was a poor speller.{{sfn|Spaulding|1931|p=533}} He was initiated into Freemasonry, but did not progress beyond the Entered Apprentice degree.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tabbert |first1=Mark A. |title=American Freemasons: Three Centuries of Building Communities |year=2006 |publisher=NYU Press |page=229 |isbn=9780814783023 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xvs8DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA83 |access-date=November 18, 2021 |archive-date=May 9, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509162514/https://books.google.com/books?id=Xvs8DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA83#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live}}</ref>