Nathan Bedford Forrest Nathan Bedford Forrest was born on July 13,1821 to William & Marion Beck Forrest in Bedford County ,TN. He was a twin & had a fraternal twin named Fannie! In 1834 his family moved to Tippiah County,MS not far from the town of Salem. When Nathan was 16 his dad passed away making him the man of the family.When he was 19 the family contracted a fever . He recovered but in the process he lost 2 of his 6 brothers and 3 sisters including Fannie. In 1841 at the age of 21 Bedford joined a small company of volunteers to set out for Texas to aid in it's liberation. By the time the unit arrived ...the struggle was over.Nathan returned home to a lengthy illness. In 1845 he marries Mary Montgomery and 6 years later the family moves to Memphis where he serves briefly as an alderman. He resigns & then by 1859 he moves his family to Coahoma County where he becomes a cotton planter. In 1861 his crop values were worth $30,000 making him one of the wealthiest planters in his region!After the war he returned to Mississippi where he ran a large plantation in Coacoma County. His business partner a federal officer. He sells it eventually and returned to Memphis where circa 1868 he was sent as a delegate to the first presidential election. He eventually was instrumental in halting Reconstruction which he felt took the South out of his fellow countrymen's hands. In his final years he traveled to NY in an unsuccessful attempt to arrange financing for a railroad. It was such a lost cause that Nathan spent a great deal of his money defending himself from lawsuits arising from this failure. Concerned about wife Mary's health he leased President's Island (opposite Memphis) where he contributed the rest of his wealth to CSA Veteran Charities.Around 1876 he took ill. His health started declining .Then on October 29,1877 General Nathan Bedford Forrest died at the age of 56....
