re: #82 SanFranciscoZionist

I don’t condemn everyone who fought for Confederacy. It was a different time. It was a complicated war.

That said, I don’t like the idea of a U.S. state issuing a license plate to honor a man, born a citizen of the United States, who took up arms against said United States and attempted to defeat her in war.

One can rationalize a lot about the Civil War and those who fought in it, one can recall that our Founding Fathers owned slaves, one can even point out that Forrest in later life distanced himself from the KKK (although I gather he did not openly denouce it, as he was probably not someone who denounces anything)

But two words stand out here:

Fort Pillow.

en.wikipedia.org

That says it all.

Forrest ordered the massacre of black POW’s in order to intimidate any other negroes from joining the Union Army.

As a result of which, the Union cancelled its prisoner exchange system and the southern camps like Andersonville began filling up to overcrowding.