Nathan Bedford Forrest III: The Nut and the Tree 

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There’s a timeless axiom in medicine that drives a great deal of what I do professionally. You can certainly influence things like smoking, obesity, and a sedentary lifestyle. However, genetics will always play a significant role in determining how healthy you are. It seems much of a person’s longevity and general wellness is determined at the moment of conception. As a result, we should all choose our parents carefully…

We obviously don’t have as much input into that as we might hope. Some folks draw the short straw and are born into abject chaos. Others, like me, have awesome parents. Life’s not fair. Never has been, never will be.

While the genetic components of sundry disease states certainly shape such stuff as breast cancer and arteriosclerosis, there is a social legacy to be found in your parentage as well. Bad, crazy parents often breed bad, crazy kids. A parental legacy can be either an amazing blessing or a near-insurmountable burden.

The Forrest Legacy

A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, loving favor rather than silver and gold. Proverbs 22:1

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Nathan Bedford Forrest was one of the most audacious cavalry commanders of the American Civil War. His men referred to him as “Old Bed” or the “Wizard of the Saddle.” More on that later.

Forrest maintained a cotton plantation in the Mississippi Delta near where I grew up. Once while in grade school, we had a field trip out to the site. I recall seeing the old disused cistern where he drew his water.

Responsibility

Forrest employed his cavalry troopers as mobile mounted infantry. He also typically led with artillery in combat. In so doing, he revolutionized cavalry tactics, introducing just a bit of what would eventually become known as combined arms warfare. His degree of responsibility for the Fort Pillow Massacre that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of surrendered Union troops is still an issue of debate among historians.

If the story ended there, then that would be fine. Bad things happen in war, and atrocities have been part of institutionalized killing ever since men lived in caves. It should certainly never be condoned, but we shouldn’t be surprised by it, either. Fort Pillow became a rightful blight on Forrest’s legacy, but he was nonetheless still an undeniably gifted warrior. 

Forrest Is Committed

There were lots of Confederate generals who were superb soldiers. In the case of Forrest, however, his commitment to the Confederate cause ran a bit deeper than most. He was a true believer. In addition to operating a slave jail and working as an interstate slave trader before the war, Forrest also joined the Ku Klux Klan some two years after its inception. He was elected the organization’s first Grand Wizard. I couldn’t find any reliable references concerning whether or not that honorific had anything to do with his nom de guerre, “Wizard of the Saddle.”

Through 1868, Forrest led the KKK on a campaign of intimidation and violence aimed at disenfranchising newly-freed blacks. However, he left the group in 1869, purportedly disillusioned with the Klan’s dearth of martial discipline. Later in his life he actually made statements supporting both dignity for African-American freedmen and racial harmony. However, by then the damage was done. Nathan Bedford Forrest will be forever remembered as the first elected leader of the KKK. He died in 1877 at the age of 56.

Forrest had two recognized children, a boy and a girl. He also purportedly fathered a pair of kids with an enslaved woman named Catharine, but that has never been definitively established. Forrest’s grandson, Nathan Bedford Forrest II, went on to become the commander-in-chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. He also made time to serve as Grand Dragon of the KKK in Georgia as well as the organization’s national secretary. I neither know nor care what the difference is between a Grand Wizard and a Grand Dragon.

Nathan Bedford Forrest: Father

In April of 1905, Nathan Bedford Forrest II’s wife, Mattie Patterson, gave birth to a son. They duly named the boy Nathan Bedford Forrest III. This particular Forrest entered the US Military Academy at West Point, graduating in 1928.  He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the cavalry. That seems a reasonable career path given the young man’s storied and infamous parentage. He was, after all, the great-grandson of the original Nathan Bedford Forrest. Two years later, he married Frances Brassler. In 1929, Lieutenant Forrest transferred to the US Army Air Corps. 

Nathan Bedford Forrest III trained as an aviator and graduated from the Air Corps Tactical School in 1939. The Air Corps was subordinate to the US Army at the time and represented uncharted territory for those officers bold enough to devote themselves to it. However, with war clouds looming on the horizon, the military was a growth industry. 

Forrest gained rank quickly. In 1942, as a rated B17 pilot, Forrest was promoted to brigadier general. As chief of staff of the Second Air Force, he got his combat time flying with the Eighth Air Force as an observer on heavy bombers over occupied Europe.

The Mission

On 13 June 1943, BG Forrest was leading a strategic bombing mission against the German submarine yards at Kiel in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein aboard a B17 Flying Fortress. Amidst murderously heavy flak, Forrest’s Fort was badly hit and caught fire. Several parachutes were seen to depart from the stricken plane, but only a single crewmember survived. This man reported that BG Forrest took the controls of the big plane and ordered the crew to bail out. The B17 subsequently exploded.

Other aircrews in the formation later voiced hope that Forrest might have survived the crash. The respected general was initially reported as missing in action. However, some six weeks later, Forrest’s body washed up at a seaplane base on the nearby island of Rügen. He was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for sacrificing himself for both his mission and his crew.

Strategic Bombing and the B17 Flying Fortress

It took the accumulated effort of most of the planet to crush the despotic aspirations of Adolf Hitler, Tojo, and the Axis. Out of a total American population of 132 million people in 1940, some 16 million donned the uniform and went to war. Of those, 400,000 died. That’s one-in-forty. Another 671,248 were wounded. This means that, if an American went off to fight during WW2, there was a one-in-fifteen chance he would not come back whole. And that doesn’t take into account the inevitable emotional and social wounds that don’t much show. 

Like all military service both then and now, certain jobs were riskier than others. While serving as a combat Marine in the South Pacific was certainly both dangerous and horrible, it was actually the aircrews who suffered the highest casualty rates. During the course of WW2, an astounding 46% of British bomber crews were outright killed. A further 14% were wounded or made prisoner. BG Forrest knew the odds were against him when he strapped into that Flying Fortress back in 1943.

Strategy

Strategic bombing eviscerated Nazi Germany. Of all of our many-splendored martial pursuits, the thousand-plane raids conducted with near-endless streams of massive four-engine bombers were arguably the most critical. By depriving the Nazis of the means to wage war—tanks, guns, submarines, ball bearings, fuel, etc.—the German military machine was forced to its knees. However, there was another aspect of the strategic bombing campaign that has not been so well advertised. We sent hundreds and then thousands of heavy bombers bristling with weapons deep into enemy territory because we desperately needed to kill German fighter pilots.

It takes a lot of effort and resources to create an effective combat pilot. It took me a couple of years before I could even flirt with being decent at it myself. Once all involved had signed on for total war, the Germans lacked the time and space to produce seasoned fighter jocks in significant numbers. Tucked away as we were behind those two magnificent oceans, the US churned out combat pilots like there was no tomorrow. However, for the Germans it was more of a come-as-you-are affair. Each time those big bomber boxes got beat up over Germany, they shot down a few irreplaceable fighter pilots. Eventually, the German homeland was rendered essentially defenseless. 

Interesting Results

The G-model B17 sported a max takeoff weight of 65,000 pounds and carried a bomb load of up to 17,600 pounds. It cruised at 158 knots (182 mph) and had a service ceiling of 35,600 feet. The Fort also sported a dozen M2 Browning .50-caliber machineguns in nine different gun positions. One Luftwaffe fighter pilot likened attacking American bomber formations to copulating with a porcupine. By war’s end, the Luftwaffe fighter corps was gutted, and Germany’s industrial spaces had been transformed into a charred moonscape.

Ruminations On Nathan Beford Forrest III

Nathan Bedford Forrest III was 38 years old when he died in 1943. Two years after the war, his body was repatriated to the US for burial at Arlington National Cemetery at his widow’s request. He is in Section 11 in that hallowed place today.

READ MORE: The M388 Muzzleloading Micro-Nuke: Serious Man-Portable Firepower

Nathan III and his wife Frances never had a chance to have kids. The last known male heir of the infamous Confederate general and leader of the KKK, Nathan Bedford Forrest, perished in the skies over Germany in the middle of the Second World War. The great-grandson of one of the Civil War’s most controversial but effective cavalry generals, Nathan Bedford Forrest III was himself a great American hero.

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