Echoes of Reconstruction: Nathan Forrest and His Shrouded Statue
Emerging Civil War is pleased to welcome back Patrick Young, author of The Reconstruction Era blog
This illustration, “Forrest Again in White Shroud,” was published in the newspaper Memphis Press-Scimitar on April 30, 1905. The illustration appeared just a month before the unveiling of the “new” Nathan Bedford Forrest statue in Memphis. As with most monuments, it was put up before the ceremony where it was unveiled and covered with a protective cloth to keep the public from seeing it before it was unveiled. The newspaper showed the veiled statue described as “Forrest Again in White Shroud.” The title used the word “Again” to signify that in the past Forrest had covered himself in a “White Shroud” when he helped lead the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1860s.I don’t know if Forrest ever wore a white sheet.
The Ku Klux Klan had its origins in Tennessee in 1866. Forrest did not start the Klan, but shortly thereafter he became involved in its activities, and he was elevated to the post of Grand Wizard, according to its members. While there were numerous accounts of his leadership of the group, its secret nature makes his exact dates of membership unclear. While Forrest reportedly occupied the highest office in the Ku Klux Klan, many local and state branches carried out their own terrorist activities without looking to Forrest for prior consent. However, by the early 20th century, a quarter-century after the KKK had ceased its activities, many people in the South identified Forrest as the originator and leader of the KKK. For instance, this speech by the head of the Sons of Confederate Veterans at a 1909 United Confederate Veterans convention heralded Forrest for his work with the Klan. The convention was held in Memphis four years after the statue was erected.
While the Forrest statue is under a nondescript cloth, the cartoonist saw this as a way to honor the Confederate general by reminding readers that the white cloth was supposedly the uniform of the night riders of the KKK.
Behind the statue you can see a phantasmagoric company of KKK night riders following their leader. Look at the face of the horse in the lead, and you can see these ghosts are charging an enemy.
In the article that accompanied the illustration, the author wrote that Forrest was a “leader whose iron hand held the reins of safety over the South when Northern dominion apotheosized the negro and set misrule and devastation to humiliate a proud race.”
As the spokesman for the Sons of Confederate Veterans Thomas H. Sisson said at the 1909 United Confederate Veterans Convention in Memphis:
Great and trying times always produce great leaders, and one was at hand—Nathan Bedford Forrest. His plan, the only course left open. The organization of a secret government. A terrible government; a government that would govern in spite of black majorities and Federal bayonets. This secret government was organized in every community in the South, and this government is known in history as the Klu Klux Clan [sic]… Here in all ages to come the Southern romancer and poet can find the inspiration for fiction and song. No nobler or grander spirits ever assembled on this earth than gathered in these clans. No human hearts were ever moved with nobler impulses or higher aims and purposes…Order was restored, property safe; because the negro feared the Klu Klux Clan more than he feared the devil. Even the Federal bayonets could not give him confidence in the black government which had been established for him, and the negro voluntarily surrendered to the Klu Klux Clan, and the very moment he did, the “Invisible Army” vanished in a night. Its purpose had been fulfilled. Bedford Forrest should always be held in reverence by every son and daughter of the South as long as memory holds dear the noble deeds and service of men for the good of others on this earth. What mind is base enough to think of what might have happened but for Bedford Forrest and his “Invisible” but victorious army.
The statue was taken down in 2019.
Source:
Carney, Court. Reckoning with the Devil: Nathan Bedford Forrest in Myth and Memory (p. 113). LSU Press (2024).
Note I found out about this cartoon while reading Carney’s new book on the memory of Forrest.
Interesting post, Pat. There is so much mythology and disinformation on Forrest, so it will be interesting to note how Carney handles the topic.
We should have a page called ‘Statue Watch.’ After all, what will come down next? When they began toppling Confederate statues, Al Sharpton announced, “This is just the beginning – we’re going after the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial next.” During the St. George Floyd riots of 2020, they went after Lincoln, Grant, Roosevelt and Jackson – and that’s Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Teddy Roosevelt and Andrew Jackson, not Larry, Moe, Curly and Joe. And these were the same people who were pulling down Confederate statues…so I suspect they were making clear their ultimate intentions.
By these standards, there are a few Obama statues out there – I expect someone to pull them down before long. They want the Lee, Jackson and Davis Monument at Stone Mountain destroyed – but the same folks want Mount Rushmore destroyed as well. Hmm. Two slave-owners, two Republicans. I understand…
In my hometown, right in the center of the little village, we have a gorgeous memorial area with a giant statue to the soldiers, sailors and airman who gave their lives in World War I, and monuments to those who died in the Civil War, World War II, Korea and Vietnam. During the St. George Floyd riots we were tipped off that they were on their way upstate to wreck it. When they arrived, they found 72 men with M-1 rifles and carbines, Springfield 03-A3s, deer rifles and shotguns ringing the memorials. They left. But what is going to stop them in the future?
I prefer to remember Nathan Bedford Forrest in his heroics at the Battle of Fallen Timbers than his sordid post-war actions.