People From Tennessee

"Men, you may all do as you damn please, but I'm a-goin' home."

"Civil war, such as you have just passed through naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred, and revenge. It is our duty to divest ourselves of all such feelings; and as far as it is in our power to do so, to cultivate friendly feelings towards those with whom we have so long contended, and heretofore so widely, but honestly, differed. Neighborhood feuds, personal animosities, and private differences should be blotted out; and, when you return home, a manly, straightforward course of conduct will secure the respect of your enemies. Whatever your responsibilities may be to Government, to society, or to individuals meet them like men."

"The attempt made to establish a separate and independent Confederation has failed; but the consciousness of having done your duty faithfully, and to the end, will, in some measure, repay for the hardships you have undergone. In bidding you farewell, rest assured that you carry with you my best wishes for your future welfare and happiness. Without, in any way, referring to the merits of the Cause in which we have been engaged, your courage and determination, as exhibited on many hard-fought fields, has elicited the respect and admiration of friend and foe. And I now cheerfully and gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to the officers and men of my command whose zeal, fidelity and unflinching bravery have been the great source of my past success in arms."

"I have never, on the field of battle, sent you where I was unwilling to go myself; nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers, you can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the Government to which you have surrendered can afford to be, and will be, magnanimous."

"However much we differed with them while public enemies, and were at war, we must admit that they fought gallantly for the preservation of the government which we fought to destroy, which is now ours, was that of our fathers, and must be that of our children. Though our love for that government was for a while supplanted by the exasperation springing out of a sense of violated rights and the conflict of battle, yet our love for free government, justly administered, has not perished, and must grow strong in the hearts of brave men who have learned to appreciate the noble qualities of the true soldier."

"Let us all, then, join their comrades who live, in spreading flowers over the graves of these dead Federal soldiers, before the whole American people, as a peace offering to the nation, as a testimonial of our respect for their devotion to duty, and as a tribute from patriots, as we have ever been, to the great Republic, and in honor of the flag against which we fought, and under which they fell, nobly maintaining the honor of that flag. It is our duty to honor the government for which they died, and if called upon, to fight for the flag we could not conquer."

"Ladies and gentlemen, I accept the flowers as a memento of reconciliation between the white and colored races of the southern states. I accept it more particularly as it comes from a colored lady, for if there is any one on God's earth who loves the ladies I believe it is myself."

"This day is a day that is proud to me, having occupied the position that I did for the past twelve years, and been misunderstood by your race. This is the first opportunity I have had during that time to say that I am your friend. I am here a representative of the southern people, one more slandered and maligned than any man in the nation."

"I will say to you and to the colored race that men who bore arms and followed the flag of the Confederacy are, with very few exceptions, your friends. I have an opportunity of saying what I have always felt -- that I am your friend, for my interests are your interests, and your interests are my interests. We were born on the same soil, breathe the same air, and live in the same land. Why, then, can we not live as brothers? I will say that when the war broke out I felt it my duty to stand by my people. When the time came I did the best I could, and I don't believe I flickered. I came here with the jeers of some white people, who think that I am doing wrong. I believe that I can exert some influence, and do much to assist the people in strengthening fraternal relations, and shall do all in my power to bring about peace. It has always been my motto to elevate every man -- to depress none."

"I want to elevate you to take positions in law offices, in stores, on farms, and wherever you are capable of going."

"I have not said anything about politics today. I don't propose to say anything about politics. You have a right to elect whom you please; vote for the man you think best, and I think, when that is done, that you and I are freemen. Do as you consider right and honest in electing men for office. I did not come here to make you a long speech, although invited to do so by you. I am not much of a speaker, and my business prevented me from preparing myself. I came to meet you as friends, and welcome you to the white people. I want you to come nearer to us. When I can serve you I will do so. We have but one flag, one country; let us stand together. We may differ in color, but not in sentiment. Use your best judgement in selecting men for office and vote as you think right."

"Many things have been said about me which are wrong, and which white and black persons here, who stood by me through the war, can contradict. I have been in the heat of battle when colored men, asked me to protect them. I have placed myself between them and the bullets of my men, and told them they should be kept unharmed. Go to work, be industrious, live honestly and act truly, and when you are oppressed I'll come to your relief. I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for this opportunity you have afforded me to be with you, and to assure you that I am with you in heart and in hand."

"After all, I think Forrest was the most remarkable man our Civil War produced on either side...He had never read a military book in his life, knew nothing about tactics, could not even drill a company, but had a genius of strategy which was original, and to me incomprehensible.""

"The urgent need for supplies sometimes dictated audacious raids by Confederate squadrons. General Nathan Forrest, a serious, brooding man, with an instinct for war though he had little of the formal training received by most of his brother officers, launched a daring attack on Grant's rail communications at Jackson, Tennessee. Forrest, who ordered his men to "charge both ways" whenever surrounded by the enemy, did such a good job tearing up the track, burning trestles and taking whatever could be captured, that the railroad was useless for some time."

"Forrest ... used his horsemen as a modern general would use motorized infantry. He liked horses because he liked fast movement, and his mounted men could get from here to there much faster than any infantry could; but when they reached the field they usually tied their horses to trees and fought on foot, and they were as good as the very best infantry"

"Shortly before Independence Day, 1867, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, second only to Robert E. Lee as a hero of the South, presided over the inauguration of the racist, xenophobic hate group that today is the one still point in the otherwise changing universe of America's extreme right- the Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan. The Kluxers actually had started around Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865, when six young Confederate veterans returned home and decided to start a "club" to cheer up their friends and neighbors who still hadn't shaken off the gloom of Appomattox. As legend has it, the six original Klansmen decided to dress up in costumes because it was faddish at the time to masquerade. With the South ravaged by the war, however, the only costumes they could find were the stiff linen sheets and bedding that their womenfolk had carefully husbanded. When the "pranksters" and their horses- also covered in white linen- rode about the Tennessee countryside on their revels, the racist legend has it, blacks became terrified, thinking they were being visited by the ghosts of rebel war dead. In 1867, however, General Forrest joined the Klan, took its reins, and transformed the group into a guerilla cadre dedicated to opposing "Northern oppression". Since the rules imposed for Reconstruction called for granting blacks the vote and allowing majority governments to form, much of the Klan's efforts focused on keeping former slaves from going to the polls. To that end Forrest and his troops developed the tactics of hate that latter-day Klansmen emulate today. Crosses were burned; blacks were told not to vote; lynchings were held in the dark of night. The Klan was anti-black for obvious reasons. After all, for Klansmen, the Civil War never ended."

"Like the neo-Nazi Silent Brotherhood (Bruder Schweigen), the Klan had a complex and highly secret rule book full of hidden meanings. It was called the Invisible Empire, for example, because the day Forrest held his seminal meeting at the Maxwell House he had presented a letter from Robert E. Lee saying that Lee supported the Klan but desired to remain "invisible" in its affairs. The leader was designated the Imperial Wizard because General Forrest had been nicknamed the "horse wizard" while a cavalry officer."

"Comrades, we are ordered to meet to revise our constitution and by-laws; it is in the hands of an able committee ably, I trust, they have perfected their labors, but while here assembled there is one incident that has transpired upon which I wish to throw your disapproval and have recorded in our archives, although performed by as gallant a cavalryman as ever used sabre over an enemy’s brain; yet let us prove that the old esprit du corps still lives, and that we endorse no action unworthy of a Southern gentleman. I speak of the address delivered before a black and tan audience by Gen. N. B. Forrest. With what a glow of enthusiasm and thrill of pride have I not perued the campaigns of Gen. Forrest’s cavalry, their heroic deeds, their sufferings and their successes under the leadership of one whom I always considered (in my poor judgment) second only to out immortal Hampton? And now to mar all the lustre attached to his name, his brain is turned by the civilities of a mulatto wench who presented him with a bouquet of roses. We would rather have sent him a car filled with the rarest exotics plucked from the dizziest peaks of the Himalayas or the perilous fastness of the Andes than he should have thus befouled the fair home of one of the Confederacy's most daring general officers. What can his object be? Ah! General Forrest!"

"Wherefore be it resolved, that we, the Survivor’s Association of the Cavalry of the Confederate States, in meeting assembled at Augusta, Ga., do hereby express our unmitigated disapproval of any such sentiments as those expressed by Gen. N. B. Forrest at a meeting of the Pole Bearers Society of Memphis, Tennessee, and that we allow no man to advocate, or even hint to the world, before any public assemblage, that he dare associate our mother’s, wives’ daughters’ or sisters’ names in the same category that he classes the females of the negro race, without, at least, expressing out disapprobation."

"My God, men, will you see them kill your general? I will go to his rescue if not a man follows me!"

"General Forrest was not cruel, nor necessarily severe, but he would not be trifled with."

"The affair at Fort Pillow was simply an orgy of death, a mass lynching to satisfy the basest of conduct – intentional murder – for the vilest of reasons – racism and personal enmity."

"In Memphis, last week, a number of Federal officers and soldiers participated at the decoration of Confederate graves. As a result, Generals Pillow and Forrest addressed a letter through the Memphis papers to surviving Confederate soldiers and veterans of 1812, Florida and Mexico, requesting them to participate in the Federal ceremonies on Sunday last."

"So did Forrest really join the Ku Klux Klan? Yes, he did. Was he really Grand Wizard of the group? Yes, he was. How do we know this? Because the old Klansmen who were there tell us so... By 1875, Tennessee was well on its way to re-establishing the antebellum social and racial order, and groups like the Pole Bearers posed little real challenge to the re-assertion of white power in the state. Men like Forrest could afford to be magnanimous with their words."

"According to Confederate ideology, blacks liked slavery; nevertheless, to avert revolts and runaways, the Confederate states passed the 'twenty nigger law', exempting from military conscription one white man as overseer for every twenty slaves. Throughout the war, Confederates withheld as much as a third of their fighting forces from the front lines and scattered them throughout areas with large slave populations to prevent slave uprisings. When the United States allowed African Americans to enlist, Confederates were forced by their ideology to assert that it would not work; blacks would hardly fight like white men. The undeniable bravery of the 54th Massachusetts and other black regiments disproved the idea of black inferiority. Then came the incongruity of truly beastly behavior by southern whites towards captured black soldiers, such as the infamous Fort Pillow massacre by troops under Nathan Bedford Forrest, who crucified black prisoners on tent frames and then burned them alive, all in the name of preserving white civilization."

"Massacring surrendered black troops was consistent with Forrest's character. Forrest biography Brian Wills notes that black opponents always inflamed Forrest. After his successful raid at Murfreesboro for instance, a Confederate officer brought before Forrest 'a mulatto man, who was the servant to one of the officers in the Union forces.' Forrest cursed him and asked what he was doing there. The man replied that he was a free man, not a slave, came out as the servant to an officer, whom he named. Forrest drew his pistol and blew the man's brains out. The Confederate officer, who knew the man from Pennsylvania and had never been enslaved, 'denounced the act as one of cold-blooded murder and declared that he would never again serve under Forrest,' according to Wills. Instead of the ‘Forrest Rested Here’ marker on the way into Murfreesboro, Tennessee might erect a marker telling this incident on the way out–'Forrest Murders African American, July 13, 1862'. Such a marker would tell much more history than ‘Rested,’ but it too will not get put up soon in Tennessee."

"We have infinitely more respect for Longstreet, who fraternizes with negro men on public occasions, with the pay for the treason to his race in his pocket, than with Forrest and Pillow, who equalize with the negro women, with only 'futures' in payment."

"It is in connection with one of the most atrocious and cold-blooded massacres that ever disgraced civilized warfare that his name will for ever be inseparably associated. 'Fort Pillow Forrest' was the title which the deed conferred upon him, and by this he will be remembered by the present generation, and by it he will pass into history. The massacre occurred on the 12th of April, 1864. Fort Pillow is 65 miles above Memphis, and its capture was effected during Forrest's celebrated raid through Tennessee, a State which was at the time practically in possession of the Union forces."

"His last notable public appearance was on the Fourth of July in Memphis, when he appeared before the colored people at their celebration, was publicly presented with a bouquet by them as a mark of peace and reconciliation, and made a friendly speech in reply. In this he once more took occasion to defend himself and his war record, and to declare that he was a hearty friend of the colored race."

"Follow Forrest to the death if it costs 10,000 lives and breaks the Treasury. There will never be peace in Tennessee till Forrest is dead."

"Nathan Bedford Forrest is overrated. Nathan Bedford Forrest usually gets knocked by historians for his role in the Ku Klux Klan, but praised by tacticians for the battles he won. So why is he here? Forrest often times won battles when his focus should have been elsewhere. For example, he had a great victory Brices Crossroads and faked out A. J. Smith near Memphis after losing the Battle of Tupelo, but won such glory during the time he was supposed to be destroying Sherman's supply lines, an even more important task critical to the CSA war effort. He similarly could do little against John Schofield after the Spring Hill escape."

"Similarly, he failed to defeat Yankees near Paducah, which might have made Union generals recall significant forces to defend against a raid into Ohio and other Northern states. But he was able to massacre a small force of White Tennesseans and African American soldiers at Ft. Pillow, which only inflamed Northern passions against Southern troops, which by and large didn't kill prisoners as Forrest did. Northerners were less likely to surrender to Confederates now, and prisoner exchanges that broke down the previous year (because the CSA would not release black soldiers and their white officers) never resumed. Whenever Forrest won, other Southerners lost."

"It is interesting that after the Civil War, both men sought to team up together when war looked likely to occur with Spain over Cuba in 1873. According to Eddy W. Davison, Forrest offered his services to Sherman, who wrote the War Department a glowing recommendation of Forrest's capabilities. It's probably because Sherman and Forrest were two peas in a pod, falsely lionized by their "accomplishments" in the Civil War, who seemed to fare better against the unarmed than the armed. They are two reasons we seem to have unresolved post-Civil War issues."

"I had orders to report to Brigadier General Lindsey, and he said to me, "Well, York, I hear you have captured the whole damned German army." And I told him I only had 132."

"Our American doughboys were pushing in on both sides of the salient. We could see them moving forward. Their bayonets were fixed, and they were using them. They stormed the trenches, fighting with cold steel and rifle butts. From my comparatively safe place in the sky, I watched them with admiration. I have always maintained that American infantrymen were the heroes of the war and that Alvin T. York, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, was the greatest hero of them all."

"Throughout his life, York was a man devoted to God, his country, his family, and making the world a better place for everyone. Monuments stand throughout France and the United States to celebrate his ideals and the sacrifices he made to his personal safety and comfort to help others. Even after his death in 1964, his memory and example continue to influence and improve the world he protected."

"He came out of the mountains of Tennessee with an education equal to that of a child of eight or nine years of age, with no experience in the world beyond the primitive, wholesome life of his mountain community, with but little knowledge of the lives and customs, the ambitions and struggles of men who lived over the summit of the Blue Ridge and beyond the foot-hills of the Cumberlands. But he was wise enough to know there were many things he did not know. He was brave enough to frankly admit them. When placed in a situation that was new to him, he would try quietly to think his way out of it; and through inheritance and training he thought calmly. He had the mental power to stand at ease under any condition and await sufficient developments to justify him to speak or act. Even German bullets could not hurry nor disconcert him. He was keenly observant of all that went on around him in the training-camp. Few sounds or motions escaped him, though it was in a seemingly stoic mien that he contemplated the things that were new to him. In the presence of those whose knowledge or training he recognized as superior to his own he calmly waited for them to act, and so accurate were his observations that the officers of his regiment looked upon him as one by nature a soldier, and they said of him that he "always seemed instinctively to know the right thing to do.""

"Caught by the enemy in the cove of a hill in the Forest of Argonne, he did not run; but sank into the bushes and single-handed fought a battalion of German machine gunners until he made them come down that hill to him with their hands in air. There were one hundred and thirty-two of them left, and he marched them, prisoners, into the American line. Marshal Foch, in decorating him, said, "What you did was the greatest thing accomplished by any private soldier of all of the armies of Europe.""

"In the draft of 1917, a man from Tennessee Overseas to the trenches he went, from the land of the free Into war he brought two things along, a rifle and his faith Joined the ranks as a private, assigned to 338th There on that day Alvin York entered the fray Saving the day 82nd all the way!"

"The part which Corporal York individually played in this attack (the capture of the Decauville Railroad) is difficult to estimate. Practically unassisted, he captured 132 Germans (three of whom were officers), took about thirty-five machine guns, and killed no less than twenty-five of the enemy, later found by others on the scene of York's extraordinary exploit. This story has been carefully checked in every possible detail from headquarters of this division and is entirely substantiated. Although York's statement tends to underestimate the desperate odds which he overcame, it has been decided to forward to higher authority the account given in his own name. The success of this assault had a far reaching effect in relieving the enemy pressure against American forces in the heart of the Argonne Forest."

"After the Armistice was signed, I was ordered to go back to the scene of my fight with the machine guns. General Lindsey and some other generals went with me. We went over the ground carefully. The officers spent a right smart amount of time examining the hill and the trenches where the machine guns were, and measuring and discussing everything. And then General Lindsey asked me to describe the fight to him. And I did. And then he asked me to march him out just like I marched the German major out, over the same ground and back to the American lines. Our general was very popular. He was a natural born fighter and he could swear just as awful as he could fight. He could swear most awful bad. And when I marched him back to our old lines he said to me, "York, how did you do it?" And I answered him, "Sir, it is not man power. A higher power than man power guided and watched over me and told me what to do." And the general bowed his head and put his hand on my shoulder and solemnly said, "York, you are right." There can be no doubt in the world of the fact of the divine power being in that. No other power under heaven could bring a man out of a place like that. Men were killed on both sides of me; and I was the biggest and the most exposed of all. Over thirty machine guns were maintaining rapid fire at me, point-blank from a range of about twenty-five yards."

"I noticed the bushes all around where I stood in my fight with the machine guns were all cut down. The bullets went over my head and on either side. But they never touched me."

"So you can see here in this case of mine where God helped me out. I had been living for God and working in the church some time before I come to the army. So I am a witness to the fact that God did help me out of that hard battle; for the bushes were shot up all around me and I never got a scratch."

"On the way back we were constantly under heavy shell fire and I had to double time them to get them through safely. There was nothing to be gained by having any more of them wounded or killed. They had surrendered to me, and it was up to me to look after them. And so I did."

"There were considerably over 100 prisoners now. It was a problem to get them back safely to our own lines. There were so many of them, there was danger of our own artillery mistaking us for a German counterattack and opening upon us. I sure was relieved when we ran into the relief squads that had been sent forward through the brush to help us."

"The major suggested we go down a gully, but I knew that was the wrong way. And I told him we were not going down any gully. We were going straight through the German front line trenches back to the American lines. It was their second line that I had captured. We sure did get a long way behind the German trenches! And so I marched them straight at that old German front line trench. And some more machine guns swung around and began to spit at us. I told the major to blow his whistle or I would take off his head and theirs too. So he blew his whistle and they all surrendered — all except one. I made the major order him to surrender twice. But he wouldn't. And I had to touch him off. I hated to do it. But I couldn't afford to take any chances and so I had to let him have it."

"So we had about 80 or 90 Germans there disarmed, and had another line of Germans to go through to get out. So I called for my men, and one of them answered from behind a big oak tree, and the others were on my right in the brush. So I said, "Let's get these Germans out of here." One of my men said, "it is impossible." So I said, "No; let's get them out.""

"I had killed over twenty before the German major said he would make them give up. I covered him with my automatic and told him if he didn't make them stop firing I would take off his head next. And he knew I meant it. He told me if I didn't kill him, and if I stopped shooting the others in the trench, he would make them surrender. He blew a little whistle and they came down and began to gather around and throw down their guns and belts. All but one of them came off the hill with their hands up, and just before that one got to me he threw a little hand grenade which burst in the air in front of me. I had to touch him off. The rest surrendered without any more trouble. There were nearly 100 of them."

"There were over thirty of them in continuous action, and all I could do was touch the Germans off just as fast as I could. I was sharpshooting. I don't think I missed a shot. It was no time to miss. In order to sight me or to swing their machine guns on me, the Germans had to show their heads above the trench, and every time I saw a head I just touched it off. All the time I kept yelling at them to come down. I didn't want to kill any more than I had to. But it was they or I. And I was giving them the best I had. Suddenly a German officer and five men jumped out of the trench and charged me with fixed bayonets. I changed to the old automatic and just touched them off too. I touched off the sixth man first, then the fifth, then the fourth, then the third and so on. I wanted them to keep coming. I didn't want the rear ones to see me touching off the front ones. I was afraid they would drop down and pump a volley into me. — and I got hold of the German major, and he told me if I wouldn't kill any more of them he would make them quit firing. So I told him all right, if he would do it now. So he blew a little whistle, and they quit shooting and come down and gave up."

"I don't know whether it was the German major, but one yelled something out in German that we couldn't understand. And then the machine guns on top swung around and opened fire on us. There were about thirty of them. They were commanding us from a hillside less than thirty yards away. They couldn't miss. And they didn't! They killed all of Savage's squad; they got all of mine but two; they wounded Cutting and killed two of his squad; and Early's squad was well back in the brush on the extreme right and not yet under the direct fire of the machine guns, and so they escaped. All except Early. He went down with three bullets in his body. That left me in command. I was right out there in the open. And those machine guns were spitting fire and cutting down the undergrowth all around me something awful. And the Germans were yelling orders. You never heard such a racket in all of your life. I didn't have time to dodge behind a tree or dive into the brush, I didn't even have time to kneel or lie down. I don't know what the other boys were doing. They claim They didn't fire a shot. They said afterwards they were on the right, guarding the prisoners. And the prisoners were lying down and the machine guns had to shoot over them to get me. As soon as the machine guns opened fire on me, I began to exchange shots with them."