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Nathan Bedford Forrest Dealing Slaves

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FORREST, Nathan Bedford (1821-1877 ) With little formal education, he became a wealthy livestock dealer, planter, and slave trader. When the Civil War commenced, he enlisted as a private, but by October 1861 he was a lieutenant colonel in command of his own troop of cavalry. He participated in many of the early battles including Shiloh, but soon began to operate on his own, using his cavalry as a "strike force." His motto was the phrase attributed to him: "Git there fustest with the mostest." Aggressive and daring; he stabbed a would-be assailant to death after taking a near-fatal gunshot wound; he struck hard and often at Union lines in Tennessee and Kentucky from 1862--64; troops under his command carried out an infamous massacre of black Union troops at Fort Pillow, Tenn. After the war, he had to rebuild his fortune through planting and railroading. He served as grand wizard of the newly organized Ku Klux Klan (1867--69) but resigned in protest of some of its tactics. Autograph Document Signed, "N.B. Forrest" 1p. quarto, Memphis, Tennessee, October 5, 1858, and reads "I have this day sold A.G. Ellis a girl named Lizzie & a boy named Henry aged 15 & 13 & valued at $1150 & 900$ respectively and to pay the same sum Ellis has left with me a negro man named Tom aged about 25 years & note for one thousand dollars drawn by Noah Dorman...and agrees to deliver another negro man Kersey in 10 or 15 days..." Several splits and one pressure sensative tape stain, else about VG.

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