Talk:Nathan Bedford Forrest

Statue removed

ON July 28, 2021 the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest was removed from the Tennessee State Capital Building. (story here: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/07/22/tennessees-nathan-bedford-forrest-bust-come-down-after-vote/8042280002/ As the page is protected, someone with access needs to update the page.

Fuchs quotation

'[S]atisfy the basest of conduct' is an odd phrase that Fuchs's editors should have amended ('conduct' should be 'motives'). What the sentence says is correct, but I wonder whether another quotation to the same effect should be substituted because of this lexical error.

Regards to all. Notreallydavid (talk) 01:46, 19 August 2017‎ (UTC)

duplicate Bibliography

The lengthy bibliography at the end of the article refers at the top to a separate bibliography page, but appears to just be a copy of that page. Perhaps we should just remove the bibliogaphy entries from the main article and let readers go to the other article if they want the list? Brianyoumans (talk) 02:20, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Ah, I see now - I briefly removed the bibliography section, but then realized the bibliography here is in face much more extensive than the one in the Bibliography article. Hmm. So, new idea - I will blank the bibliography article and then copy the entries from this article to the bibliography article and remove them here. I guess it is possible that there are a few entries in the bibliography article that are not duplicated here, but I'm not sure it is worth poring through the lists to find them. The list here is about twice as long, I would guess.Brianyoumans (talk) 14:35, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

From glancing at the list of what you just deleted on here and knowing what's on the bibliography page, I would argue that sourcing the Nathan Bedford Forrest article and making a list of key sources on the study/historiography of Nathan Bedford Forrest might be two distinct projects.

A fine-grained task might be checking to see which if any materials listed here as "sources" are not actually currently referenced in the article.

If they are specific to NBF, they can go on the bibliography page. If they are general to the antebellum, ACW, or Reconstruction eras, they could be deleted. jengod (talk) 16:25, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Sorry for creating a fuss. I have been informed that the footnotes are keyed to the bibliography, which I didn't actually know because I never mess with the shortened footnote stuff. What a great idea that produces a not very optimal result in this case, IMHO. As a result, it does sound like reducing the list down would involve painstaking work to verify which entries are used by footnotes and which aren't (if there are any). And then some subgroup of this should be on the separate Bibliography page... I guess I now see the logic of having the separate bibliography page, but it also seems to me that this is all a nightmare to maintain, since people adding references to new works on the main page aren't necessarily going to add them to the separate bibliography page, and vice versa. And it looks rather odd to have the "main" bibliography page contain a lot fewer entries than the article's bibliography. Well, I'll move on. Brianyoumans (talk) 16:54, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

@Brianyoumans As a result, it does sound like reducing the list down would involve painstaking work to verify which entries are used by footnotes and which aren't (if there are any) That's the work I was doing over the last few months. Every entry in the Bibliography section on the article has a corresponding footnote. I moved unused sources to "Further reading" or in some cases removed them altogether. I'm not sure why the standalone Bibliography of Nathan Bedford Forrest article exists and I've redirected to Nathan Bedford Forrest. I can understand why Bibliography of American Civil War military leaders exists as there's no direct, corresponding article, but that's not true in this case. Mackensen (talk) 18:43, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Ah, this is the problem of parachuting in. (I only came to this article because I had just written an article on suffragist Marie Moore Forrest.) It sounds like you have done a lot of hard work on the article. I think removing the separate bibliography article is the right decision. Brianyoumans (talk) 18:32, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Two dates in infobox

Sir, the infobox uses two DMY styles, one uses MDY and the other is DMY. This isn't an British made article, this is a American-made article. Why there is DMY?? ArtopiaBoy (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 13:28, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Per comment, switched burial dates to MDY. Thank you! jengod (talk) 14:41, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

1,000 killed in Louisiana

On a a quick search, I was not able to find a source that actually backed up this claim. I did find [this], which certainly talks about violent voter suppression in Louisiana and mentions a massacre of 200 blacks in St. Landry Parish. Perhaps we should alter this claim a little? Brianyoumans (talk) 22:36, 20 October 2026 (UTC)

We certainly can, with appropriate sourcing that mentions Forrest, or at least activities by the organization led by Forrest. I assume the existing references don't support? Acroterion (talk) 22:50, 20 October 2026 (UTC)

The New Georgia Encyclopedia doesn't mention Louisiana, and the HNOC reference doesn't mention the Klan directly, so I'd be happier if it was removed, and some of the informal ("a lot") language was cleaned up. I don't think the assertion is fabricated, but without a source, it shouldn't be there. Acroterion (talk) 22:56, 20 October 2026 (UTC)

@Jengod: may have some insight. Acroterion (talk) 22:59, 20 October 2026 (UTC)

My NBF-specific insight is nil. I offer only that we have First Klan and Freedmen massacres for anyone who wants to edit. Reconstruction is a boggy nightmare for me.

oh also If anyone cares his brother William H. Forrest was implicated in the killing of Freedmen's Bureau officer J. B. Blanding. Probably not the shooter but probably standing in the vicinity and maybe involved in witness killings after? Is mess. jengod (talk) 23:45, 20 October 2026 (UTC)

Oh and I don't have it in front of me but like the first thing he did after the war was shoot and kill a former slave of his named...George? In Coahoma or Sunflower County? For wife beating? Allegedly? Only seen in Newspapers.com but just if anyone wants to dig. jengod (talk) 23:47, 20 October 2026 (UTC)

OK, I took out the claim about killings in Louisiana again, it seems like there is agreement that what happened in 1868 in Louisiana was not directly related to Forrest or the Klan (although obviously the Knights of the White Camelia had very similar views to the Klan.) Brianyoumans (talk) 14:18, 21 October 2026 (UTC)