Nathan Bedford Forrest, pen and ink
Monday, December 8th, 2008
Nathan Bedford Forrest is one of the most interesting and vexing characters to come out of the Civil War. He was a soldier of uncommon courage and undoubted genius, but his history of slave-trading before the war and association with the Ku Klux Klan after the war — as well as his presence at the Ft. Pillow massacre — does little to endear him to the modern age. Yet he has defenders, many of whom are adamant about his symbolizing the best of the Confederacy.
I drew this pen and ink to accompany a review of a book by Paul Ashdown and Ed Caudill titled The Myth of Nathan Bedford Forrest on The Writing Wright.
