(Blogger Note: This review was published in the October, 2011 issue of LAMLight, the newsletter of the Lynchburg Academy of Medicine)
This is a fascinating
historical novel depicting the life of Nathan Bedford Forrest. As a Virginian all of my life, the American
Civil War has always been an interest. I
guess it can be forgiven if as a child growing up during the Civil War
Centennial I thought the majority of the war was fought in Virginia,
with the occasional foray into Maryland and Pennsylvania. Spending eighteen years in Richmond reinforced that notion. Driving past the statues of Stonewall
Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jeb Stuart every morning on Monument Avenue makes one think that all
of the major personalities fought or died in Virginia.
It has been almost astonishing to me to learn that the “War of Northern
Aggression” was fought fiercely all over the South and that there were major
players elsewhere that deserve historical mention alongside Lee, Stuart,
Longstreet and Jackson.
Madison Smartt Bell
is a native of Tennessee (I wonder if he
thinks the whole war was fought in his state?) and received his M.A. from Hollins College.
He now lives in Baltimore and teaches at Goucher College.
He is known for meticulously researched historical fiction and his
eighth novel, All Soul’s Rising, was a finalist for the National Book Award in
the 1990s.
Nathan Bedford Forrest
is an intriguing figure. He came from
modest means and made a fortune before the war with land investment and as a
slave trader. He enlisted in the
Confederate army as a private and rose to the rank of Lieutenant General by
war’s end. He had no military training but devised aggressive cavalry
techniques and maneuvers. He often
argued with his better trained superiors over tactics. The most famous disagreement was with General
John Bell Hood preceding the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, ground covered very
well in The Widow of the South by
Robert Hicks.
The author does an
outstanding job of capturing the contradictions in Forrest’s life. He shows him courting his high society wife
and treating her with great respect while abusing his female slaves. Forrest showed great admiration for many
blacks, including several as his closest advisers during the war and yet could
sell and beat these same fellow humans seemingly without remorse. He is alleged to have allowed a massacre of
black Union soldiers at the Battle of Fort Pillow rather than take them
prisoner, although this novel makes it seem as if the massacre was beyond
Forrest’s control.
The author uses a
second main character, a free black named Henri who encounters Forrest at the
beginning of the war, to tell much of the story. Henri is a Haitian who came to New Orleans with the
intention of igniting a slave revolt.
Henri serves Forrest as a scout and soldier until he is killed at the Battle
of Chickamauga. Through Henri’s eyes we
see Forrest go berserk in the heat of battle:
charging into enemy lines with a double edged sword in one hand and a
six shooter in the other. He often had
multiple horses (often as many as three or four) shot out from under him during
these reckless charges. We see Forrest
shot, stabbed, beaten and starved. In
one memorable scene, Forrest is confronted by another general who Forrest has
accused of cowardice. The second general
pulls a gun and shoots Forrest at point blank range. Henri sees Forrest fall, assumes he’s dead
and then watches in amazement as Forrest jumps up and runs after his would-be
assassin yelling “Nobody kills Nathan Forrest and deserves to live!”
The secondary
characters are important and abundant in this novel as well. Nathan’s wife Mary Ann is attracted to her
husband’s audacity and brashness but is equally embarrassed by his occupation
as a slave trader and by his not so subtle indiscretions with his slave
mistresses. Mary Ann’s mother lives with
the couple for some time and acts as an over-bearing and outspoken conscience. She repeatedly stirs up ill feelings within
the extended Forrest family. Forrest’s
many brothers play significant roles, both at home in Memphis and as battlefield advisors.
I have only two
criticisms of this book. The first
criticism is the chronology (or lack thereof) with which it is written. It’s like the author wrote the story in
proper sequence but then cut and pasted the individual chapters in a random
order. A chapter describing intense
fighting in Franklin, Tennessee is likely to be followed by a
chapter describing Forrest first meeting Mary Anne and her mother while
rescuing them from a wagon trapped in a creek bed. I tried to decipher the reason the author did
this, but I couldn’t figure it out. It
becomes very confusing when the battle sequences are presented out of date
order. The second criticism is that the
author does not include or even mention Forrest’s post-war life. The fact that he survived is
unbelievable. How Forrest rallied
against carpetbaggers became the first
Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan would certainly (in my opinion) have added a
lot to this character’s life story. But,
this is not a biography and the author had to stop somewhere, so maybe this
isn’t a valid criticism.
Devil’s Dream is a
superbly written historical novel with a fascinating and enigmatic main
character. History and Civil War buffs
should really enjoy this book.
