User:North Shoreman/Sandbox5

Early Life
This [] long quote was added in the last couple days. This seems to give undue weight to a description of a frontier cabin. Virtually any published biography from Daniel Boone to the present contains such descriptions of where the subject is born -- rarely are they given such detailed attention in wikipedia biographies. For example, in Early life and career of Abraham Lincoln, an icon of modern American humble births, there is no mention at all. The article can do nicely w/o this description. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 20:32, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Cavalry command
The section contains the sentence, "By early summer, Forrest commanded a new brigade of "green" cavalry regiments." A seven line quote from the OR, generally considered a primary source, adds nothing other than some color to the narrative. Virtually any article on Civil War leaders or battle can be punched up with such additions althogh it is rarely done. The article can do nicely w/o this description. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 20:39, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Fort Pillow
This section contains eight block quotes encompassing ten paragraphs. This massacre is well documented in Civil War history and wikipedia has a separate article on it which should contain most of the details.

Using the material already in the section, it is probably preferable to reduce the section to something like this:

On April 12, 1864, General Forrest led his forces in the attack and capture of Fort Pillow in Henning, Tennessee, on the Mississippi River. A controversy arose May 3, 1864 about whether Forrest conducted or condoned a massacre of the negro soldiers, white Tennessee Unionists, and Confederate deserters who had surrendered there. Only 90 out of approximately 262 U.S. Colored Troops survived the battle; casualties were also high among white defenders of the fort, with 205 out of about 500 surviving.

There are conflicting reports about what occurred at Fort Pillow. Forrest's Confederate forces were accused of subjecting captured soldiers to brutality, continuing to shoot after the Union soldiers had surrendered. Confederates, in turn, alleged that the Union men had continued fighting and did not surrender.

President Abraham Lincoln asked his cabinet for opinions as to how the Union should respond to the massacre.[46] Major General Sherman, Commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi, which included Tennessee, headed an investigation into the massacre and the extent of Forrest's culpability for it. There was also a congressional inquiry. After evaluating this information, President Abraham Lincoln asked his cabinet for opinions as to how the Union should respond to the massacre.

Historians have differed in their interpretations of the events at Fort Pillow. Richard Fuchs, author of An Unerring Fire, concluded:

The affair at Fort Pillow was simply an orgy of death, a mass lynching to satisfy the basest of conduct – intentional murder – for the vilest of reasons – racism and personal enmity.[51]

Andrew Ward downplays the controversy:

Whether the massacre was premeditated or spontaneous does not address the more fundamental question of whether a massacre took place... it certainly did, in every dictionary sense of the word.[52]

John Cimprich states:

The new paradigm in social attitudes and the fuller use of available evidence has favored a massacre interpretation... Debate over the memory of this incident formed a part of sectional and racial conflicts for many years after the war, but the reinterpretation of the event during the last thirty years offers some hope that society can move beyond past intolerance.[53]

The site is now a Tennessee State Historic Park. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 20:56, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Forrest's farewell address to his troops
Nice speech -- I'm sure many (most) commanders gave such speeches to their troops as the war ended. The section contains 33 lines of quotes from the speech and nothing else. According to biographer Jack Hurst, NBF didn't even write it -- his aid Charles Anderson did. I'm not sure why this huge quote is necessary. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 21:09, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Military doctrines
Two short blocked quotes from historian Bruce Catton. The material itself can probably be reduced to a few sentences. The opening sentence to the section is attributed to the Civil War encyclopedia article edited by Heidler and Heidler. In the article titled "Forest's Raids", the gist of this section is made with two sentences. I think it would make more sense to create our own section higher up in the article as an intro to the "Cavalry command" section. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 21:23, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Speech to black Southerners
This has been discussed above, but I'll start over here. The main feature of the section is a verbatim recital of a four paragraph speech taking up 38 lines in thearticle. The section starts with:

On July 5, 1875, Forrest demonstrated that his personal sentiments on the issue of race now differed from those of the Klan, when he was invited to give a speech before the Independent Order of Pole-Bearers Association, a post-war organization of black Southerners advocating to improve the economic condition of blacks and to gain equal rights for all citizens.

We can't say in wikipedia's voice that his "personal sentiments" had changed. It is not for us to interpret primary sources. Nowhere in the speech does he mention the KKK. Of course, NBF could have said in the speech that his sentiments had changed (even apologize), but he didn't do that. In fact, what he says is that "for the past twelve years" (a time period beginning in the middle of the Civil War) he has been"misunderstood by your race". During the time when he was fighting to keep them in slavery and later rode with the KKK to intimidate them that what he "always felt" was that he is "your friend, for my interests are your interests, and your interests are my interests." He calls himself "more slandered and maligned than any man in the nation."

In short, NBF doesn't say that he's changed -- instead he's saying that the blacks need to change their opinion about him. Of course, that's just my interpretation of a primary source -- it doesn't belong in the article anymore than the existing language.

Jack Hurst spends a few pages in his biography describing NBF's political development in this time period. It also puts it in the context of the end of Reconstruction and the restoration of white supremacy through the resurgence of the Democratic Party. However, NBF, due to his health and financial situation was never a major player such as, for example, Wade Hampton.

The entire speech should be deleted. Indeed, the entire section should be eliminated unless someone can come up with a reliable secondary source that explains the significance of the speech. If the section is replaced, it should rely on secondary sources such as Hurst that explain NBF's political and racial development during this period. He does have some nice things to say about NBF's evolution that would please some of his faithful.

The last paragraph of the section lists attacks made on NBF. What the section lacks is a reliable secondary source describing the historical significance of these attacks. It could certainly be included in any rewrite such as I describe above. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 00:54, 27 February 2018 (UTC)