Nathan Bedford Forrest: In Search of the Enigma Book

Shelby Foote called Forrest one of the most authentic geniuses produced by the American Civil War, and Ulysses S. Grant said that Forrest was the only Confederate cavalry leader he feared. Sherman wanted him killed even if doing so broke the broke the Federal treasury and cost ten thousand lives.

Arguably the best cavalry leader of the Civil War and undoubtedly one of the greatest in the history of mounted warfare, Nathan Bedford Forrest has been acclaimed and vilified, revered and hated, and still he is a man whose life defies categorization.

This book is much more than an account of Forrest's war exploits. Here, historians Eddy W. Davison and Daniel Foxx depict Forrest as a man as complex, brilliant, revolutionary, and tragic as the times in which he lived. In addition to revealing details about his childhood, marriage, and life as a businessman and civic leader, this comprehensive biography explains in depth the alleged massacre at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, and the reasons for Forrest's leadership in the Ku Klux Klan.

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Eddy W. Davison teaches criminal justice at the International Institute of the Americas in Phoenix, Arizona. He is also an adjunct professor of history at Ottawa University and a member of the board of directors of the Scottsdale Civil War Roundtable, and he frequently writes and presents seminars on Civil War topics.

Daniel Foxx is professor of history emeritus at Ottawa University in Phoenix and has held past history teaching appointments at East Carolina University and Glendale Community College. He is the author of I Only Laugh When It Hurts. Raised in South Carolina, he and his wife now live in Arizona with their four sons and their families nearby.