Nathan Bedford Forrest is best known for his role as a Confederate officer in the American War for Southern Independence. While most Forrest biographies discuss his military career in great detail, what they do not provide is the General's own perspective of the conflict. In his one-of-a-kind book, Give 'Em Hell Boys! (named after one of his most famous war cries), Forrest scholar, Forrest relation, and award-winning author Lochlainn Seabrook handily remedies this situation.
Neatly divided into five sections for each year of Lincoln's War, as the subtitle indicates, the book encompasses all of the General's military correspondence, from 1861 to 1865. In the 300 fascinating footnoted entries included, we find Forrest's reports, dispatches, orders, returns, letters, notes, communiques, and telegrams, as he himself wrote or dictated them, usually from the battlefield. His missives were sent out to a wide assortment of Civil War figures, from the president of the Confederacy (Jefferson Davis) and fellow Confederate officers to various Union authorities, most of the communications with the latter which ended with unsurprising results: immediate surrender of the enemy!
Through Forrest's own words we are able to track not only the progress of the War, but his rise from private to lieutenant general (one rank shy of full general) - the only man on either side to achieve such a feat. Included along with a bibliography and an index are such extras as a historical time line of the highlights of Forrest's life, a list of all his engagements, and a section on his recognition by the Confederate Congress.
Like Col. Seabrook's other eleven works on Forrest, Give 'Em Hell Boys! will help destroy the many anti-South myths surrounding this extraordinary soldier, who many have justly called the "God of War," giving him back his rightful place as a lauded American patriot and Southern icon. Learn about both Forrest the man and Forrest the Rebel officer from the great Confederate chieftain himself, in this captivating read that is already becoming a standard in Civil War literature. Available in paperback and hardcover.
Neo-Victorian historian Lochlainn Seabrook, whose literary works range from astronomy to zoology, is one of the most prolific and popular writers in the world today. A descendant of the families of Alexander H. Stephens, John S. Mosby, Edmund W. Rucker, and William Giles Harding, he is known by literary critics as the "new Shelby Foote" and the "