In 1857 Memphis got her first railroad—the Memphis & Charleston—connecting her with Charleston, South Carolina. About the time the road was completed there were severe financial panics which held the city back; also there was trouble, as in so many other river towns, with hordes of gamblers and desperadoes. Judge J. P. Young, in his "History of Memphis," tells of an interesting episode of those times. There were two professional gamblers, father and son, of the name of Able. The father shot a man in a saloon brawl, and soon after, the son committed a similar crime of violence. A great mob started to take the younger Able out of jail and lynch him, but one firm citizen, addressing them from the balcony of a hotel, persuaded them to desist. Next day, however, there was a mass meeting to discuss the case of Able. At this meeting the hotheads prevailed, and Able was taken from the jail by a mob of three thousand men. When the noose was around his neck, and he and his mother and sister were pleading that his life be spared, the same man who had previously prevented mob action, stepped boldly up, cut the rope from Abel's neck, and assisted him to fly, standing between him and the mob, fighting the mob off, and finally getting Able back into the jail. When the mob stormed the jail, furious at having been circumvented by a single man, the same powerful figure appeared at the jail door with a pistol, and, incredible though it seems, actually held the mob at bay until it finally dispersed. This man was Nathan Bedford Forrest, later the brilliant Confederate cavalry leader. Forrest and his wife are buried in Memphis, in a square called Forrest Park, under a fine equestrian monument, by C. H. Niehaus.
Before the war Forrest was a member of the slave-dealing firm of Forrest & Maples, of Memphis. Subjoined is a photographic reproduction of an advertisement of this firm, which appeared in the Memphis City Directory for 1855-6.
When the Civil War loomed close, sentiment in Memphis was divided, but at a call for troops for the Union, the State of Tennessee balked, and soon after it seceded from the Union and joined the Confederacy. Many people believed, at that time, that if the entire South united, the North would not dare fight. When the war came, however, Memphis knew where she stood; it is said that no city of the same size (22,600) furnished so many men to the Confederate armies. In 1862, when the Union forces got control of the river to the north and the south of the city, it became evident that Memphis was likely to be taken. A fleet of Union gunboats came down and defeated the Confederate fleet in the river before the city, while the populace lined the banks and looked on. The city, being without military protection, then surrendered, and was occupied by troops under Sherman. Nor, with the exception of one period of a few hours' duration, did it ever again come under Confederate control. That was when Forrest made his famous raid in 1864, an event which exhibited not only the dash and hardihood of that intrepid leader, but also his strategy and his sardonic humor.
General A. J. Smith, with 13,000 Union soldiers was marching on the great grain district of central Mississippi, and was forcing Forrest, who had but 3,500 men, to the southward. Unable to meet Smith's force on anything like equal terms, Forrest conceived the idea of making a "run around the end" and striking at Memphis, which was Smith's base. Taking 1,500 picked men and horses, he executed a flanking movement over night, and before Smith knew he was gone, came careering into Memphis at dawn at the head of 500 galloping, yelling men—many of them Memphis boys. There were some 7,000 Union troops in and about Memphis at this time, but they were surprised out of their slumbers, and made no effective resistance. The only part of Forrest's plan which miscarried was his scheme to capture three leading Union officers, who were then stationed in Memphis: Generals C. C. Washburn, S. A. Hurlbut and R. P. Buckland. General Hurlbut's escape occurred by reason of the fact that instead of having passed the night at the old Gayoso Hotel, where he made his headquarters, he happened to be visiting a brother officer, elsewhere. General Washburn was warned by a courier and made his escape in his nightclothes and bare feet from the residence he occupied as headquarters, running down alleys to the river, and thence along under the bluff to the Union fortifications. Forrest's men found the general's papers, uniform, hat, boots and sword in his bedroom, and also found there Mrs. Washburn. The only things they failed to find were the general's nightshirt and the general himself, who was inside it. General Buckland also avoided capture by the narrowest margin. The soldiers first went to the wrong house to look for him. That gave him time to escape.
It is recorded that, later in the day, under a flag of truce, Forrest sent General Washburn his sword and clothing with a humorous message, informing him, at the same time, that he had 600 Federal prisoners without shoes or clothing, and that he would like supplies for them. The supplies, we are told, were promptly forthcoming.
Forrest waited until he was sure that news of the raid had been telegraphed to General Smith in the field. Then he cut the wires. Smith immediately came back toward Memphis with his army, which was what Forrest desired him to do. The Confederates then retired from the immediate vicinity of the city.
Judge Young, in his history, reports that when General Hurlbut heard of the raid he exclaimed, "There it goes again! They superseded me with Washburn because I could not keep Forrest out of West Tennessee, and Washburn cannot keep him out of his own bedroom!"
After the War there was corruption and carpet-bag rule in Memphis, and Forrest was again to the fore, becoming "Grand Wizard" of the famous Ku Klux Klan, the mysterious secret organization designed to intimidate Scalawags, Carpet-baggers and negroes, whose arrogance had become intolerable. General George W. Gordon prepared the oath and ritual for the Klan, which was founded in the town of Pulaski, Giles County, Tennessee. General Forrest took the oath in 1866, in Room 10 of the old Maxwell House, at Nashville.