Saturday, December 7, 2013

Give 'Em Hell Boys! The Complete Military Correspondence of Nathan Bedford Forrest


By Lochlainn Seabrook


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!", 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 his Yankee enemies, most of the communications with the latter which ended with unsurprising results: immediate surrender! 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 of Forrest's engagements, and a section on his recognition by the Confederate Congress. Like the author's other works on Forrest, "Give 'Em Hell Boys!" (named after one of his most famous war cries) will help destroy the many anti-South myths surrounding the General, giving him back his rightful place as a lauded American icon. Learn about both Forrest the man and the Rebel officer from the great Confederate chieftain himself, in this captivating read that is sure to become a standard in Civil War literature. Lochlainn Seabrook, winner of the prestigious Jefferson Davis Historical Gold Medal, is the sixth great-grandson of the Earl of Oxford and the author of over thirty popular adult and children's books. A seventh-generation Kentuckian of Appalachian heritage-who is known as the "American Robert Graves" after his celebrated English cousin-Seabrook is a Southern historian and poet with a thirty-year background in the American Civil War, Confederate studies and biography, anthropology, thealogy (female-based religion), etymology, the paranormal, genealogy, and comparative religion and mythology. He lives with his wife and family in historic Middle Tennessee, the heart of Forrest country. This is his fourth book on General Forrest, and his thirteenth on the War for Southern Independence. Seabrook's other titles include: "A Rebel Born: A Defense of Nathan Bedford Forrest"; "The Quotable Nathan Bedford Forrest"; "Nathan Bedford Forrest: Southern Hero, American Patriot"; "Everything You Were Taught About the Civil War is Wrong, Ask a Southerner!"; "Honest Jeff and Dishonest Abe: A Southern Children's Guide to the Civil War"; "Lincolnology: The Real Abraham Lincoln Revealed in His Own Words"; "The Quotable Robert E. Lee"; "The Old Rebel: Robert E. Lee As He Was Seen By His Contemporaries"; "Abraham Lincoln: The Southern View"; "The McGavocks of Carnton Plantation: A Southern History"; "The Unquotable Abraham Lincoln: The President's Quotes They Don't Want You to Know!";"The Quotable Jefferson Davis"; "Encyclopedia of the Battle of Franklin"; "Carnton Plantation            Ghost Stories: True Tales of the Unexplained From Tennessee's Most Haunted Civil War House!"; and "The Caudills: An Etymological, Ethnological, and Genealogical Study."