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July 13, birthday of Nathan Bedford Forrest
Nathan Bedford Forrest, perhaps the greatest cavalry commander of the War of Northern Aggression, was born
in Chapel Hill Tennessee on July 13 1821. Forrest was born into poverty & after the death of his blacksmith
father, he became the head of his family at the young age of sixteen.
Through hard work & determination he was able to provide for his widowed mother & younger siblings while
working the small family farm. He later became a very successful businessman & plantation owner & saw to the education
of his siblings.
At the outbreak of the war, Forrest volunteered as a private of a cavalry company. After seeing how poorly equipped
the army company was, he offered to finance the regiment out of his own pocket.
His loyalty & devotion to the cause earned him the rank of colonel and his own regimental command. His
many accomplishments during the war are too numerous to list here as many books have been written on the subject.
Nathan Bedford Forrest died on October 29 1877 in Memphis Tennessee. He is buried in Forrest Park, Memphis Tennessee.
June 30, 1861
Admiral Raphael Semmes slipped his small, side-paddled, steam warship, the C.S.S. Sumter past the union fleet
blockading the mouth of the Mississippi River at New Orleans to begin his career as the Confederacy's foremost naval commander.
As Captain of the C.S.S. Sumter, and later as captain of the South's most feared commerce raider, the C.S.S.
Alabama, Admiral Semmes is credited with sinking eight-seven enemy ships, including one warship, the U.S.S. Hatteras.
In the annals of naval warfare, this amazing records stands unbroken to this day.
June 3rd, birthday of Jefferson Davis.
Jefferson Finis Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America, was born in Kentucky
June 3 1808.
Jefferson Davis graduated from West Point in June 1828. He served as an officer in the U.S. military seeing combat
service in the Mexican American War.
He later served as Senator from Mississippi, and Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce.
Davis took the oath of office of President of the Confederate States of America in February 1862.
He was a firm believer in God, States Rights & the Constitution of The United States.
He died December 6th 1889.
February 22nd. - Confederate Independence day
It was on this day in 1862 that Jefferson Davis, after spending the morning on his knee's praying, took the oath
of office as the first president of the Confederate States of America.
The day was cold and rainy in Richmond, and to shield President Davis from the weather, an awning had been
set up beside the equestrian statue of George Washington in Capitol Square, the location chosen for the ceremony. This is
the same statue of George Washington that adornes the center disk of the Great Seal of the Confederacy.
As President Davis was taking the oath of office, Mrs. Davis had a vision of him being consumed on a funeral
pyre. This may have been an understandable vision for a woman whose husband was becoming the chief executive of an agrarian
nation that, at the time of its creation, had no army, no navy, no government, no monetary system and little manufacturing
capability. A nation that had been at war with a powerful industrial nation bent on its destruction since shortly after its
creation.
The Confederate States of America was to exist for almost thirty-eight more months, and officially ceased to
exist with the capture of President and Mrs. Davis by the 4th Michigan Cavalry regiment of the United States Army on 10 May
1865 at Irwinsville Georgia.
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