Jesse A. Forrest
Jesse Anderson Forrest (April 9, 1834 – December 15, 1889) was an American slave trader, Confederate cavalry colonel, livery stable owner, and cotton plantation owner of Tennessee and Arkansas, United States.
Biography[edit]
Before the war, the Forrest brothers were engaged in the slave trade at Memphis and up and down the Mississippi River.[1][2] Jesse Forrest fought alongside his brother Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest in the American Civil War,[3] as well as under command of other Confederates such as Gideon J. Pillow.[4] He enlisted as a private in the Tennessee Mounted Rifles and was a lieutenant colonel by 1862.[5] News reports during and after the war describe him as a colonel; the Confederate Officers' Card Index lists his highest rank as lieutenant colonel.[6] He was listed as colonel commanding the 21st Tennessee Cavalry Regiment when he was injured in a fight near Decatur in 1864.[7] After the war he worked as an "extensive levee and railroad contractor, farmer, and dealer in livestock."[5] A father of six, in later life he owned three large plantations at Walnut Bend, Arkansas.[8] He died of "malarial hemaeturia" in Memphis, Tennessee in 1889.[9]
References[edit]
- ^ "Entry for J E Forrest and Sarah Forrest, 1860". United States Census, 1860 – via FamilySearch.
Occupation: Negro Trader
- ^ Huebner, Timothy S. (March 2023). "Taking Profits, Making Myths: The Slave Trading Career of Nathan Bedford Forrest". Civil War History. 69 (1): 42–75. doi:10.1353/cwh.2023.0009. ISSN 1533-6271. S2CID 256599213. Project MUSE 879775.
- ^ "Jesse Forrest". Memphis Avalanche. 1889-12-20. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
- ^ "Memphis". Memphis Bulletin. 1863-08-04. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
- ^ a b "Col. Jesse A. Forrest". The Intelligencer. 1889-12-26. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
- ^ "Entry for Jesse Anderson Forrest". United States Confederate Officers Card Index, 1861–1865 – via FamilySearch.
- ^ Confederate military history. Vol. 8. Atlanta, Ga.: Confederate Publishing Co. 1899. p. 244. Retrieved 2023-12-19 – via HathiTrust.
- ^ "Col. Jesse A. Forrest". Nashville Banner. 1889-12-17. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
- ^ "Entry for Jessie A Forrest, 15 Dec 1889". Tennessee, Shelby County, Memphis, Board of Health Death Records, 1848–1913 – via FamilySearch.