The Hero of the Murfreesboro' dash.
The public will be glad to learn something of
Gen. Bedford Forrest, the man who captured
Murfreesboro' and two regiments of Yankee troops with a small force.
The
Atlanta Confederacy says:
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General Forrest is about 45 years old, is six feet two inches in altitude, weighs 175 pounds, has no surplus high, is erect, well-proportioned, and moves with great ease.
But few men are his equal in mus power.
He has a dark complexion, black hair, and thin black beard.
He has a full and expansive forehead, black, piercing eyes, deep set, heavy black eyebrows, and a stern but not unpleasant face.
Firmness and courage are stamped in every lineament of his features, which are greatly set off by the most perfect and beautiful set of teeth we ever saw. He is a native of
Tennessee.
His father was a Kentuckian, and the son of an emigrant from
Holland, who accompanied Dan'l
Boone to the wilderness of
Kentucky in ancient days.--
Bedford was brought up on a farm, and is familiar with the use of the axe, the knife, and the rifle.
He first commenced horse trading on a small scale.--Then he got hold of a fast
quarter nag, and in one year made $4,000 out of a trip through
Mississippi and
Louisiana.
Stopping at
Hernando, Miss., at the summer races, he won a good pile of currency, and finally, at the close of the week, took a deed to the landlord's premises, and opened up a hotel in
Hernando, in
North Mississippi.
Here he ‘"kept a hotel"’ and dealt in horses for several years.
In the meantime he married a beautiful and accomplished lady, by whom he has an only son — a sprightly lad of 15 years.
When
Memphis began to look up, owing to her railroad and river facilities, and the prospect of it rapidly becoming a great city,
Col. Forrest sold out, moved to
Memphis, where in a few years, by his energy, probity, and fine judgment, he amassed a large fortune.
He has frequently been
Alderman of the city.
He always took an active and decided part upon every public measure, and generally carried his point in everything calculated to enhance the interest of the city.
He ably advocated every public improvement, and soon stood at the head of the able financial business men of that fast and flourishing city.
Three years ago he purchased a large body of bottom lands in
Bolivar county, Mississippi.
He selected, from time to time, one hundred of the likeliest negroes that came into the
Memphis market--fifty of each sex — and stocked his plantation.
It is said to be the best selected and likeliest lot of negroes ever seen on one plantation.
He had retired from trade, and was spending his time mostly on his plantation when the war broke out. After
Tennessee seceded, and the blockade was established, he went in person to
Cincinnati and
St. Louis, and bought horses, arms and accoutrements for a cavalry regiment, which he had raised, and brought them all through safely to
Memphis, since which time he has been engaged in a number of brilliant skirmishes and fights.
He was at
Fort Donelson, is one of the men who refused to be surrendered, and is
the man who cut his way through the enemy's lines with his command, sustaining but little loss.
At
Shiloh he was in the thickest of the fight, rendering the most important services, where he received a severe wound.
But, thank Heaven, he is again himself and in his stirrups.
His late dashing exploits about
Chattanooga, and especially his brilliant achievement at
Murfreesboro, and the capture of
Lebanon, are fresh in the minds of all our readers.
Gen. Forrest is not an educated man, but he reads men correctly at a glance.
He seems to know everything about him by in tion. We have spent months with him, and partaken of his elegant hospitalities, and unhesitatingly pronounce him the most gifted man by nature we ever met with.
He has that conversational powers, agreeable manners, and wins the confidence and respect of everybody around him. One more sign of a kind heart is, the ladies and little children take to him wherever he goes.
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