Beginning as a private, Forrest had reached most distinguished rank. Both friends and enemies awarded him a high place among the great commanders of the war, whether in infantry or cavalry. Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Nashville, Murfreesboro, his raid into West Tennessee, his capture of Streight, and conflicts at Brentwood, Harper’s Bridge, Chickamauga, his raid into middle Tennessee, West Point, Mississippi and the capture of Fort Pillow, had woven about him and his work a crown of romance and glory, and had justly, on his absolute merits, made him one of the most renowned leaders of the Confederacy.
His enemies feared and hated him as they did no other general of the South. War with Forrest was not only “hell,” but savagest hell. His idea of war was to fight and kill and destroy with fiercest energy. It has been said that he considered the raising of the black flag as the most economical and merciful way of ending the war. His methods were not calculated to impress his foes with admiration. The many reverses they had suffered at his hands, the wholesome fear of his presence, his desperate courage, boundless resources, rapidity of movement, rapidity of onslaught, recklessness in facing death, and insensibility to fatigue made failure practically unknown in his campaigns, and he became a terror to his foes and a tower of strength to his comrades.
There was no Federal commander that did not count Forrest as a power to be considered, or a potent factor against which it was wise to calculate. General Grant and other Federal commanders did not hesitate to declare that Forrest had the Federal forces in Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi hacked. They called him “scoundrel” and “devil,” and put a price on his head, but this did not drive fear out of their hearts, or prevent some degree of tremor when they knew of his presence in the places where they were going, or where they thought he might happen to come.
Prior to and shortly after the battle of Bryce’s Cross Roads, all the Federal generals were devising ways and means for the destruction of Forrest. On June 24th, 1864, General Sherman sent President Lincoln the following despatch:
“I have ordered General A. J. Smith and General Mower to pursue and kill Forrest, promising the latter, in case of success, my influence to promote him to Major General. He is one of the gamest men in our service. Should accident befall me, I ask you to favor him, if he succeeds in killing Forrest.” Signed, William T. Sherman, Major General.
This was the highest price put on any Confederate officer’s life during the war, and there is no other instance in American military history where one general found it necessary, in order to destroy an opposing major general, to offer a premium for his life and to openly declare that his death was the highest aim to be sought.
It will be observed that the offer was not for dispersing Forrest’s forces; it was not for his capture; but “to pursue and kill.” General Sherman did not want Forrest alive, else he would have framed his murderous suggestion in a different form. The idea of a possible surrender was ignored. Sherman seems to have proceeded upon the idea that dead men cease to fight or destroy communications. He told Mower to take no chances, but to “kill.” This is the only instance among the Confederate or Federal commanders where a superior incited a subordinate to murder. He said once before in speaking of Forrest, “That devil Forrest must be eliminated, if it costs ten thousand lives and breaks the treasury.” See despatch. Twice, in his telegram to President Lincoln, he lays stress upon the word “kill.” First he says, “if he pursues and kills I promised him a major generalship;” second, “if he succeeds in killing Forrest, and aught happens to me so that I cannot make good, I ask you to favor him and give him the promotion which is the price of Forrest’s death.”
How transcendent Forrest’s success must have been in his operations along the Federal lines to have produced this degree of fear in General Sherman’s mind! Sherman was a brave and skillful general, but he seemed to consider that General Forrest’s ability to injure the Federal armies was greater than that of any other living man, and with malignant hate, extreme fear, and almost barbarous cruelty, he offered a major generalship to an ambitious young brigadier general, if he would pursue and kill the Confederate leader. War amongst civilized nations is carried on against commands or organized bodies, not individuals. General Sherman reversed this well-recognized principle and declared war on an individual and offered a price for his destruction. He asserted that he had better sacrifice ten thousand of his countrymen and expend all its treasury contained than to let one man live to fight. The pressing exigencies invoked by Forrest’s campaigns silenced the traditions and usages of war, and made his destruction, in Sherman’s mind, justifiable by any means, foul or fair, and at any cost, however extravagant or hurtful, to rid his department of a brave and aggressive foe.
This proposition to reward General Mower was not to General Sherman’s credit. He declared “war was hell,” but at no period of the war’s history and by no other Federal general was the death of any one man made a patriotic duty, or recommended and encouraged in the service of the Federal army. The South never had any reason to love General Sherman. He and Sheridan never respected as did other Union generals the rights of non-combatants. His subsequent burning of Columbia created in Southern breasts the harshest memories, but the incitement to killing Forrest, as the surest means of promotion and success for his subordinate added much to the grounds of the South for the bitterest hate. With half a century to calm passion, to still prejudice and restore reason, it is difficult to realize what a frenzy of fear and hate Forrest had aroused in the hearts of his enemies.
After failures, not necessary to recount, one last effort was made to run Forrest down and to annihilate or cripple his command. Forrest had been transferred to the Mississippi and West Tennessee Department. It was known as Forrest’s Department. General C. C. Washburn, in command at Memphis, was ordered to send six thousand men in a final effort to rout General Forrest. Instead, he says he sent eight thousand, but he really sent ten thousand five hundred. Colonel George E. Waring, who commanded one of the Federal brigades, says, “We were a force of nine thousand infantry and artillery sent as a tub to the Forrest Whale.” Captain Tyler, who operated in Sturgis’ rear, captured the returns made out for the day. These showed ten thousand five hundred present for duty.