Yahoo: Proposed Mississippi license plate would honor Confederate general, early Klan leader

[LeesburgSkinFan]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110210/ap_on_re_us/us_confederate_license_plates

Good stuff! Let's celebrate a traitor to the US and a Klan leader in one fell swoop. Sure feel sorry for the industrial recruiter that has to sell businesses on the idea to locate or relocate their company to Mississippi when those folks see a founder of the KKK on the license plate....especially if they have a large number of minority executive/employees.

[G.A.C.O.L.B.]

Now when I was a baby, Mama named me after the great Civil War hero General Nathan Bedford Forrest. She said we was related to him in some way. What he did was he started up this club called the Ku Klux Klan. They'd all dress up in their robes and their bed sheets and act like a bunch of ghosts or spooks or something'. They'd even put bed sheets on their horses and ride around. And anyway, that's how I got my name, Forrest Gump. Mama said the Forrest part was to remind me that sometimes we all do things that, well, just don't make no sense.

[Madison Redskin]

So the guy betrays his country, captures a Union army fort, oversees the massacre of black Union soldiers who surrendered, becomes a KKK leader, and some Mississippians want to honor him. Well, I guess that's about right.

[Henry]

Well, he was a hell of a cavalry officer.

[Bang]

Some quotes from Civil war historian Shelby Foote on Nathan Bedford Forrest:

The Army of Central Kentucky had two cavalrymen who had already contributed exploits to its legend: Captain John Hunt Morgan of Kentucky and Lt Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest of Tennessee. Though the former had fought in the Mexican War as a youth and later commanded his hometown militia company, neither man had had a military education. The latter, in fact, a Memphis slave dealer and a Mississippi planter, had had little formal schooling of any kind.

In his first fight, northeast of Bowling Green, the 40-year-old Forrest improvised a double envelopment, combined it with a frontal assault - classic maneuvers which he could not identify by name and of which he had mostly likely never heard - and scattered the survivors of a larger enemy force

Nathan Bedford Forrest had 30 horses shot from under him during the course of the war. And he killed 31 men in hand-to-hand combat. And he said, "I was a horse ahead at the end."

~Bang

[SnyderShrugged]

Yeah, Forrest was well known for being the devil incarnate to many. probably not the best one to role model! There are a ton of Confederate Generals that could be honored in this way isnstead

---------- Post added February-11th-2011 at 02:08 PM ----------

So the guy betrays his country, captures a Union army fort, oversees the massacre of black Union soldiers who surrendered, becomes a KKK leader, and some Mississippians want to honor him. Well, I guess that's about right.

I dont think you can fault the guy simply because he was on the losing side. he didnt "betray" his country. Also cant really hold him doing his job in the military by capturing a fort as any wrongdoing.

The KKK and the Massacre are certainly things that could be held against him though.

[Henry]

Some quotes from Civil war historian Shelby Foote on Nathan Bedford Forrest:

I'm working my way through Shelby Foote's books right now. So far this is my favorite passage about Forrest, during the Battle of Shiloh:

“Charge!’ he shouted, and led his horsemen pounding down the slope. Most of the skirmishers had begun to run before he struck them, but those who stood were knocked sprawling by a blast from shotguns and revolvers. Beyond them, Federal cavalry had panicked, firing carbines wildly in the air. When they broke two, Forrest kept on after them, still brandishing his saber and crying, “Charge! Charge!” as he plowed into the solid ranks of the brigade drawn up beyond. The trouble was, he was charging himself; the other, seeing the steady brigade in front, had turned back and were already busy gathering up their 43 prisoners. Forrest was one gray uniform, high above a sea of blue. “Kill him! Kill the goddam rebel! Knock him off his horse!” It was no easy thing to do; the horse was kicking and plunging and Forest was hacking and slashing; but one of the soldiers did his best. Reaching far out, he shoved the muzzle into the colonel’s side and pulled the trigger. The force of the explosion lifted Forrest clear of the saddle, but he regained his seat and sawed the horse around. As he came out of the mass of dark blue and furious white faces, clearing a path with his saber, he reached down and grabbed one of the soldiers by the collar, swung him onto the crupper of the horse, and galloped back to safety, using the Federal as a shield against the bullets fired after him. Once he was out of range, he flung the hapless fellow off and rode on up to the ridge where his men were waiting in open-mouthed amazement.

[Madison Redskin]

I dont think you can fault the guy simply because he was on the losing side. he didnt "betray" his country. Also cant really hold him doing his job in the military by capturing a fort as any wrongdoing.

I respectfully disagree. If you support an insurrection against our government (which was essentially based on the government's meddling in the slave trade), lead a group of armed rebels, and kill U.S. troops, you are a traitor in my book.

[SnyderShrugged]

I respectfully disagree. If you support an insurrection against our government (which was essentially based on the government's meddling in the slave trade), lead a group of armed rebels, and kill U.S. troops, you are a traitor in my book.

I understand and also respect your view. but....

It wasnt an insurrection, it was a secession as agreed to in their voluntary entry into the union. Big difference.

[Bang]

I'm working my way through Shelby Foote's books right now. So far this is my favorite passage about Forrest, during the Battle of Shiloh:

Wow.

"Working through" is a good way to put it.

It's been a long time since I dove in there. Those volumes should be required reading for American history students.

~Bang

[Predicto]

This is utterly indefensible.

However, I must say that I'm looking forward to reading people's stalward efforts at defending it.

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

Only in Virg...I mean Mississippi.

[GhostofSparta]

Once more, Arkansas and Alabama are sighing to themselves "Thank God for Mississippi."

[twa]

This is utterly indefensible.

However, I must say that I'm looking forward to reading people's stalward efforts at defending it.

Hoping to pick up tips at defending the SF Board of Supervisors?

[SnyderShrugged]

This is utterly indefensible.

However, I must say that I'm looking forward to reading people's stalward efforts at defending it.

Is there anyone defending it here?

[thebluefood]

Is there anyone defending it here?

I think he's preparing for the folks who are going to.

And in response to this: well, can anyone here say they're surprised?

Sometimes you wonder if we should've let some states go during the war. Mississippi seems like one of those states.

[Predicto]

Hoping to pick up tips at defending the SF Board of Supervisors?

I never take on impossible tasks.

---------- Post added February-11th-2011 at 03:14 PM ----------

Is there anyone defending it here?

Not yet, and frankly, I'm disappointed. Like I said, I was looking forward to reading them.

[SnyderShrugged]

I think he's preparing for the folks who are going to.

And in response to this: well, can anyone here say they're surprised?

Sometimes you wonder if we should've let some states go during the war. Mississippi seems like one of those states.

I'd be surprised if any one did defend it here. Anyone who knows the personal (not military) history of Nathan Bedford Forrest knows that he wasnt the most racially sensitive guy. (my way of saying race hater)

[MrSilverMaC]

Once more, Arkansas and Alabama are sighing to themselves "Thank God for Mississippi."

Unfortunately, so are some of us here in AZ.

[Prosperity]

shouldn't there be a law against using state funds to honor terrorists

[SnyderShrugged]

shouldn't there be a law against using state funds to honor terrorists

I know you arent claiming that every single Confederate soldier that fought in the war for their own independence was a "terrorist". You are way too smart for that.

[Predicto]

I know you arent claiming that every single Confederate soldier that fought in the war for their own independence was a "terrorist". You are way too smart for that.

If you know he isn't doing that, then why are you suggesting it?

[Henry]

I know you arent claiming that every single Confederate soldier that fought in the war for their own independence was a "terrorist". You are way too smart for that.

I don't think he is.

But Forrest and Morgan did a lot of, shall we say ... 'disrupting' in their theatre, which certainly looked a lot like what we consider terrorism today.

[SnyderShrugged]

If you know he isn't doing that, then why are you suggesting it?

because I'm trying to figure out what qualifies him as a "terrorist" yet not all others who fought on the same side.

---------- Post added February-11th-2011 at 04:42 PM ----------

I don't think he is.

But Forrest and Morgan did a lot of, shall we say ... 'disrupting' in their theatre, which certainly looked a lot like what we consider terrorism today.

So did many of the Colonists during the American revolution

[twa]

shouldn't there be a law against using state funds to honor terrorists

I don't know ....Do they honor Sherman up there?:evilg: