Forrest’s own feats of horsemanship were legendary. At the Battle of Thompson’s Station, Forrest’s horse Roderick, which used to follow the general around like a hound, was struck three times. At last Forrest switched mounts, but hearing the roar of battle, Roderick charged back to rejoint he general, jumping three fences before a fourth wound final brought him down. When, near Rossville, Georgie, a minié ball severed an artery in his horse’s neck, Forrest plugged the hole with his index finger and continued galloping after the Federals. After his enemy had fled, he finally removed his finger, whereupon the horse collapsed and died. In an engagement at Pontotoc, Mississippi, two horses were killed under him, one by a spray of bullets that shattered the general’s saddle but left him miraculously unharmed. That same day another round wounded his third mount, King Phillip, who, with his ears back and his teeth bared, charged anything clad in blue.
Source:
Ward, Andrew. “Unequal Strife.” River Run Red: The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil War. Viking, 2005. 92. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Wyeth, With Sabre and Scalpel, pp. 15-16.
Further Reading:
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His leadership abilities were some of the best in the Confederate army outside of the ANV (Cleburne, A.S. Johnston, and Hardee would be on that list as well). So many men showed their best and worst attributes in that war and so many had their lives cut short. The amount of quality generals on both sides is something I don't think the US military may ever see again. WW2 probably comes the closest to that but I think the War Between the States (there was nothing civil about that war) has the edge.