The Duty of the Hour
The first thing I learned about Lieutenant-General Nathan Bedford Forrest was that he had twenty-nine horses shot out from under him in battle; in my fifth-grade social studies class, I remember thinking to myself that… »
Nathan Bedford Forrest: The Hero in Fiction
A review of None Shall Look Back (J.S. Sanders, 1992) by Caroline Gordon Thus far the War Between the States has failed to produce an epic like The Iliad, a narrative account of the four-year… »
A Confederate Dialogue
A review of The Lytle-Tate Letters: The Correspondence of Andrew Lytle and Allen Tate (University of Mississippi Press, 1987), Thomas Daniel Young and Elizabeth Sarcone, eds. Considering Allen Tate’s well-documented contrariness, the four-decade-long friendship of… »
A History Lesson for Ted Cruz
I am always annoyed when a conservative political leader attacks Southern heritage. I don’t know why because with the present-day crop of cowardly politicians, it is becoming routine, but I am. Unwittingly or not, these… »
Nathan Bedford Forrest and Southern Folkways
There are many examples of heroism that illustrate spiritedness in America’s history. Indeed, the American Revolution was won because of the indomitable spirit of the Patriots and a growing unwillingness of the British to put… »
A Rebel Born
Foreword for A Rebel Born: A Defense of Nathan Bedford Forrest, Confederate General, American Legend, by Lochlainn Seabrook, Sea Raven Press, 2010. There is a story that a year or two after the great American… »
Bust Hell Wide Open
A review of Bust Hell Wide Open: the Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest by Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., Regnery History, 2016. Writing a biography about Nathan Bedford Forrest – a man recognized by no less… »
Nathan Bedford Forrest
This essay was published as a new introduction for Lytle’s Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company and is published here in honor of Forrest’s birthday, July 13. This is a young man’s book. To have… »
Our Noble Banner
The Confederate battle flag is protean. It is a powerful symbol that has entered the world’s consciousness. “Protean,” going back to the classical Proteus, is defined as “readily taking on varied shapes, forms, or meanings.” … »
PBS’s “The Civil War”: The Mythmanagement of History
This piece was originally printed by Southern Partisan magazine in 1990. In the September issue of the American Historical Association’s newsletter, a rave review predicted that the PBS production “The Civil War” might become “the… »
