[The following takes place during the American Civil War.]
Union forces held a fort in Athens, Alabama, that defended the Central Alabama Railroad. The structure was “one of the best works of the kind I ever saw,” noted a federal inspector of such defenses. Forrest wanted it surrendered. “Knowing it would cost heavily to storm and capture the enemy’s works, and wishing to prevent the effusion of blood I knew would follow a successful assault, I determined to see if anything could be accomplished by negotiations,” Forrest later reported. “Accordingly, I sent Major Strange, of my staff, with a flag of truce, demanding the surrender of the fort and garrison.”
Union colonel Wallace Campbell, who had already been fed misleading information about the enemy’s strength by two Confederate prisoners, agreed to a personal interview with Forrest. “[I] immediately met General Forrest,” reported Campbell, “[who] told me he was determined to take the place; that his force was sufficiently large, and have it he would, and if he was compelled to storm the works it would result in the massacre of the entire garrison. He told me what his force was, and said myself and one officer could have the privilege of reviewing [it].”
Forrest gave Campbell a guided tour of his troops, the relatively small size of which was cleverly concealed. Dismounted cavalry were identified as infantry; horse-holders as cavalry. The same elements were then dispersed to other parts of the field to play different roles until, wrote on Confederate, “the whole place seemed to be swarming with enthusiastic troops and bristling with guns.” Campbell, convinced, as he later wrote, “that there were at least 10,000 men and nine pieces of artillery,” duly surrendered the fort.
The audacious trick only added to the luster of Forrest, respectfully known in the South as “the Wizard of the Saddle.” Of course in the North, the epithets were somewhat less laudatory. General William Tecumseh Sherman called him “the very devil,” but later acknowledged, “He had a genius which was to me incomprehensible.”
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