Yankee historians delight in calling Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest "the Butcher of Fort Pillow;" claiming that he instigated a "racist massacre" of surrendering black Union troops during the battle at Henning; Tennessee; on April 12; 1864. But is this true? Of course not. It is merely the North's fabricated version; one based not on reality; but on opinion; nescience; emotion; sciolism; presentism; spite; and an anti-South bias that is still very much alive to this day. For those who are interested in the truth about the conflict; award-winning historian and Forrest scholar Colonel Lochlainn Seabrook has written Nathan Bedford Forrest and the Battle of Fort Pillow: Yankee Myth; Confederate Fact. This brief but comprehensive investigation blows the lid off what pro-North writers like to refer to as a "controversy;" but which was in fact nothing more than an ordinary fight in which an overwhelming force (2;500 racially integrated Confederates) assaulted an indefensible fort filled with belligerent drunken soldiers (600 racially segregated Yankees) who refused to surrender in the face of impossible odds. Excerpted from Colonel Seabrook's popular title A Rebel Born: A Defense of Nathan Bedford Forrest; the book contains dozens of pages of new material; along with rare photos and illustrations; maps; details concerning the origins of the battle and the charges against Forrest; official reports; and important eyewitness accounts by those at the scene. Also included: an index; bibliography; and reference notes. This book; which helps restore Forrest's reputation after being unfairly tarnished by 150 years of slander; falsehoods; and anti-South propaganda; is a must-read for all those who are in search of the truth about Nathan Bedford Forrest and the Battle of Fort Pillow. For the traditional South this work represents the final word on the matter. Civil War scholar Lochlainn Seabrook; a descendant of the families of Alexander H. Stephens and John S. Mosby; is the most prolific and popular pro-South writer in the world today. Known as the "new Shelby Foote;" he is a recipient of the prestigious Jefferson Davis Historical Gold Medal and the author of over 50 books that have introduced hundreds of thousands to the truth about the War for Southern Independence. A seventh-generation Kentuckian of Appalachian heritage and the sixth great-grandson of the Earl of Oxford; Colonel Seabrook has a forty-year background in American and Southern history; and is the author of the international blockbuster; Everything You Were Taught About the Civil War is Wrong; Ask a Southerner! Seabrook's other titles include: Confederate Flag Facts: What Every American Should Know About Dixie's Southern Cross; Everything You Were Taught About American Slavery is Wrong; Ask a Southerner!; The Great Yankee Coverup: What the North Doesn't Want You to Know About Lincoln's War; Women in Gray: A Tribute to the Ladies Who Supported the Southern Confederacy; Give This Book to a Yankee: A Southern Guide to the Civil War for Northerners; Confederacy 101: Amazing Facts You Never Knew About America's Oldest Political Tradition; Slavery 101: Amazing Facts You Never Knew About America's 'Peculiar Institution'; Forrest! 99 Reasons to Love Nathan Bedford Forrest; Honest Jeff and Dishonest Abe: A Southern Children's Guide to the Civil War; The Unquotable Abraham Lincoln: The President's Quote They Don't Want You to Know!; The Quotable Stonewall Jackson; The Alexander H. Stephens Reader; The Constitution of the Confederate States of America Explained; and The Old Rebel: Robert E. Lee As He Was Seen By His Contemporaries.
#901241 in Books Sarabande Books 2006-11-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x .80 x 6.00l; 1.09 #File Name: 193251144X260 pages
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Secrets in FamiliesBy msfitzExcellent and intriguing memoir written as a series of lyric essays. Her juxtapositions of certain quotes with the essays is uncanny. It is readable and easy to read but also very thought provoking. Anyone interested in searching for their parents' pasts should read this book.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Experimental structure and good research made this book a page turnerBy Christine ScharfExperimental structure and good research made this book a page turner! Tall's journey to unravel the family mysteries is also the journey to the center of her soul. Brilliant.4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Of value as writing; poetry; a story of genealogical research; a legacy and memorialBy Lost JohnDeborah Tall; a poet; teacher; editor and gifted writer of 'creative non-fiction'; died; aged 55; in October 2006. She was a third generation American Jew; whose father's parents (and some other relations) were fortunate to escape Ukraine with their lives in the period of lethal pogroms during the Civil War that followed the 1917 Russian Revolution. The family name; contracted to Tall on arrival in the United States; was Talesnick.Born in New York City in 1921; her father was orphaned at the age of 13. For reasons perhaps connected with their disapproval of his mother; his remaining relatives did not take him in. Homeless and penniless; he was made a ward of the city. He was clever; recovered from the initial set-back at school; was successful in his career and; working on Cold War radar surveillance; extended to the limit his predisposition to confide nothing to anyone. Despite years of probing; when he died; aged 68; Deborah knew little of her family's origin and background; or whether she had any close relatives still alive in America or Ukraine. But she had gleaned just enough information to follow the leads she had and discover much that her father must have known but kept entirely to himself; some things that perhaps even he did not know; and a couple of things about which he had apparently lied.In Queens; NYC; she discovers a burial ground filled with former residents of the small town in Ukraine from which her grandfather and his brother migrated; and that there are more than a few Talesnicks buried there. She discovers some still-living relations; and is delighted by their warm response to her. She learns that her father's Down's Syndrome younger brother; believed long dead; lived until 1990 in an institution that would have been easily accessible to herself and her family had they but known. And she ultimately visits Ukraine to meet a surviving relative there; to see the town from which they all came; to view the remaining houses in what had been the Jewish quarter; and to see the derelict cemetery in which generations of the town's Jews were buried; including 486 in a single mass grave on 13th September 1941.On first opening the book; I was surprised to find that it consists entirely of short pieces that mostly extend over no more than two pages and treat with a single subject. Each piece is headed with a title such as Anatomy of Genealogy and many pages carry no more than 100 words; some just a single sentence. That the author is a poet shines through virtually every one of those short pieces; and some are entirely valid as free-form poems. I particularly like Anatomy of Silence; found on page 25:-'Silence rises around our house like a wall studded with broken glass.'Invisible radio waves patrol for intrusions.'My father has expanded the perimeter of his wariness to encompass us......'The same title heads page 53:-'Over the years; silence accumulated in my father's body like a toxin.....'If ever his pain seeped out unawares; it was invisibly absorbed by our spotless beige carpets and walls;'the unblemished; regulated skin of our life;'dutifully maintained by my mother.'Sadly; Deborah Tall did not spend enough time in Ukraine to really get a feel for the place; or live long enough to do so through repeat visits. She visited Babi Yar on the 55th anniversary of the slaughter there of Kiev's Jews; and writes interestingly of that experience; but she misreports both the number of Jews killed and the total number of bodies buried in the ravine by war's end. She asserts that Jewish forced labor was used to disinter and burn bodies at Babi Yar as the Germans retreated from Soviet territory in 1943. The deed was done; yes; but I never before saw or heard any suggestion that Jews were involved. By that time; virtually all of central Ukraine's Jews who had not managed to flee east ahead of the Nazi invasion were long dead. Also; in the earlier stages of the book Deborah Tall irritates by repeatedly referring to 'Russia' when clearly she means Ukraine.But all those matters are peripheral. The book has value as writing; as poetry; as the story of the author's genealogical research; as a legacy to her daughters and wider family; and as a memorial to herself. Recommended.
