Nathan Bedford Forrest biography

Profile

Born July 13, 1821 in Tennessee, Nathan Bedford Forrest was a self-taught man who made his fortune as a cotton planter in Mississippi. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he raised a calvary and fought with distinction at Shiloh. As a major general, he massacred 300 black men, women and children at Ft. Pillow in 1864. After the war, he became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.